Are you familiar with Consumer Reports?
At one time Consumer Reports was the be-all and end-all of product reviews.
Now we have sites like Amazon, Wire Cutter, and Authority Adviser to review products and companies.
But what if the “Consumer Reports” mindset could work for you to gain a competitive advantage?
Consumer Reports selects 3-5 similar products by different manufacturers.
Think refrigerators by Samsung, LG, GE, Whirlpool, and the likes.
Consumer Reports then identifies each refrigerator feature and scores each one from ‘poor’ to ‘over the top excellent’ on each manufacturer.
You look down the columns and see who has the most check marks in the excellent column and voila… your decision is made!
Of course, people want to buy the product with the most ‘good’ checkmarks.
So when your reps come to you and say things like:
- “If I could offer a discount, I could sell more.”
- “I lost that deal. They are going with someone else.”
- “The competitors are doing things we aren’t.”
You know you need to change your team’s mindset. Because they’ve fallen into a limited belief of your products and services, and by gosh – it’s showing in their presentations whether they want to admit that or not!
Here’s a quick 30 minute or less Consumer Reports Like Competitive Advantage exercise for your next sales meeting:
Sales Training Skill Booster Exercise – The Competitive Advantage
- Draw a chart with five columns across.
- In the firm column place your company name and ask reps to list all of your features (going down the column).
- In the next four columns, place the names of your competitors.
- Next, take each feature listed (under your company) and ask reps to select a check-mark, minus-mark, check-plus or ‘x’ mark in each competitor’s columns.
- Now you have a visual of each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses as well as features you both may have, but the competitors aren’t even talking about.
- Discuss who has the competitive advantage and… where and how to add those talking points to your next sales conversation.
Imagine how much easier it becomes to build your value wedge, value proposition, craft better discovery questions, and responses to barriers that may be keeping your prospect from buying.
Also, keep this in mind… you really don’t have any competition if you become the strategic business partner today’s buyers prefer to buy from.
You want your competition worried about you, not the other way around.
Want more great skill booster exercise like this one to get your reps up-leveling their sales conversations to drive more sales, improve close ratios, and meet sales targets consistently? Click here for done-for-you resources and bring the big bonus checks you deserve.
