The more information you have about each prospect, the better you will meet their needs, and possibly uncover more opportunities for your sale. A good salesperson understands that each client’s needs are different. Taking the time to understand their unique pain points will allow you to market your product better. Take a step back, look at the problems they have, and then go through the attributes of your solution and try to match them up these pain points. If you focus on remedying the prospect’s problems instead of trying to sell them on something they might not care about, they will be much more likely to take a vested interest in your product.

Don’t just use a general sales pitch. Customize your conversation/pitch for each prospect in order to engage and interest them in what you are selling. If you have taken the time before the call to figure out how your product fits their problems, this should be easy. Show your prospect that your product or solution is the best one to meet their needs instead of telling them how great it is.

While this requires a little extra effort for each call, it will pay off in the form of many more closed deals. Prepare for each call, understand your prospect and their needs, and devise a plan of attack in the form of an outline that fits certain aspects of your product to their needs.

More than likely, the sales rep of your competitor demonstrated greater value of his/her product than you did; they differentiated themselves from the rest of the pack, grabbing the attention of the prospect. Sales differentiation is key to success in sales and it all starts with how you position yourself from the rest of the pack.

 While it’s important to make sure prospects know and understand the value of the product or service you are selling, differentiating yourself starts with how you sell yourself as a sales person. You need to show greater personal value as a salesperson as well as the superior value of your product to win over your prospects. To do this, you must have greater subject matter expertise, better creativity in devising solutions, and superior personal skills so that you present yourself and your product in the best light possible.

 A prospective customer is not going to buy if they don’t trust the sales person, especially if they don’t nail the first few calls. You have to differentiate yourself right away or the prospect may lose interest. Read up on the prospects business and take the time to understand their need. Develop a plan of attack for how your solution will fill that need before you pick up the phone. Understand how your product differs from the competition beyond the simple differences that your prospect probably already knows.  

 Being well prepared before the initial outreach can really differentiate a “regular sales person” from “THE go-to sales person”. For more information, see Anthony Iannarino’s blog post: Differentiate: The Ability to Stand Out In a Crowd

 The other major problem that Hopkins sights is that sales reps tend to be too aggressive in tougher times: “They go into sales situations with dollar signs in their eyes. They know that their company and their family needs them to make a sale and so they come across with too much intensity” says Hopkins. Instead of worrying about each sale to the point of making this mistake, realize that the economy will bounce back at some point and use a more normal sales approach.

 Hopkins believes that 2010 -2011 will be a great year for sales, so now is the time to get your ‘ducks in a row.’ The past few years have been challenging, but when the economy turns the corner it might be worth revisiting lost opportunities from the past few years. As the economy changes, so do people’s needs, and you might find these individuals to be more receptive the second time around.

• The incumbent: Who is the incumbent?  If this is a new product or service for the prospect, which of your competitors has a prior relationship with them?
• The mindshare leader: Is there a vendor that has a strong brand in the marketplace and is usually included in the vendor mix (e.g. Salesforce.com for hosted CRMs)?  Do they show up often enough that you should assume that they are included in the mix?
• The “quadrant” leaders: If your prospect is using the language and posing the key questions of the technology market research firms (e.g. Gartner), who are the top vendors according to these firms?
• Desired Value Proposition: What are the dimensions they are emphasizing (e.g. Price, Total Cost of Ownership, Support, Quality, Up-Time, Leading Edge Features) and which firms position to those dimensions?
• The RFI / RFP / RFQ: Unless your firm was directly involved in shaping the RFP, you should look closely at the questions.  Are they asking for services or features that are provided by your key competitors?  What terminology are they employing?  Do they use any trademarked or company specific terminology?  Also, if there is a pushback process for clarifying the RFP, the questions are generally published to all participants with the answers.  While the source of each question is generally non-attributed, you can often determine your competitors by the positioning of the questions.  If the sales rep cannot discern at least one competitor from the RFP and pushback processes, they should forward the RFP and pushback Q&A to a Competitive Intelligence manager for interpretation.  Much can be discerned from the shadows cast by the RFP process.
• Public Data: Governments publish the request for bids and contract award histories.  This can be used to identify incumbents or competitors that have a strong relationship with the RFP publishing agency.  For example, the US FedBizOps database will provide award histories and has a taxonomy for product / service types.  FedBizOpps covers bid opportunities beginning at $25,000.  You can find this data through subscription news services, company research services, government RFP services, or via the FedBizOpps website.  The feds have even gone so far as to make the FedBizOpps database available via FTP as a daily XML file!
• Questions asked during demos: Are they regurgitating the positioning points made by your competitors?  Hopefully, your company provides training on traps (to lay for your competitors) and landmines (set by your competitors and how to diffuse them).  If not, you should integrate these topics into your standard training along with the appropriate tools.  With this knowledge, sales reps can discern likely competitors, avoid their landmines, and lay traps for them.
• Decision makers: Are you interfacing with only one or two members of the review team?  If so, firms will often assign different individuals to manage each vendor.  If you can get some one-on-one time with the other individuals on the decision committee, they may let slip (either directly or via terminology) some of the other vendors’ names.