Competition

Competition is wider than the vendor whose logo sits next to yours on the shortlist. It is any person, project or option competing for the same money, the same people and the same slot on the Economic Buyer’s agenda. The other vendor, yes. Also the internal team who want to build it themselves. The other initiative that needs the same budget this year. And the biggest competitor of all, which beats every seller more often than any rival does: the status quo. Doing nothing is free, familiar and carries no risk of a career-ending mistake. That is a hard opponent.

The question this letter answers: what else could they do with this money, and why would they do it?

The mistake is losing to a competitor you never named. Sellers fill the Competition field with “none” or with the one rival they heard mentioned on the first call. Meanwhile the CFO has a list of eleven things she could fund and your project is number seven. You were never competing with the vendor. You were competing with a warehouse refit.

How I use it. I ask the Champion a direct question: if we did not exist, what would you do? The answer tells me who I am really up against. Then I find out which competitor helped write the Decision Criteria, because somebody usually did. And I work out where each option is stronger than us, honestly, in writing. If the honest answer is that the internal build is good enough and the Economic Buyer trusts the team doing it, the deal is a qualify-out, and I would rather know that in week two than in week twenty.