When you sell head-to-head against another organization you, can assume that they are going to try to exploit those issues where they perceive you are at a disadvantage. For example, if you are a premier price/premier quality company, then your competitor will be talking about how much less expensive their product/service is than yours is. If you are a smaller company, they will bring up their market strength and try to instill doubt about a small company’s ability to deliver.  They won’t, of course, talk about your better quality, delivery, service, etc.; that is your job. In addition to promoting your value, you have the opportunity to create doubt in the mind of the customer with some strategically placed statements or questions. Here are some examples from both sides of the equation:

Do you really want to trust your business to the cheapest priced vendor?

Vs.

Just because someone charges more for a product, doesn’t mean that it’s a better product.

As you know in any business, to get the bid lower, you have to cut corners somewhere.

Vs.

Some other vendors have large organizations to support and you end up paying for it in the price of their product.

Our product is made in North America, and while that costs a little more, we have much better control of the quality.

Vs.

You operate in a global economy and so do we. We are able to keep prices down by manufacturing products throughout the world.

We are leaders in our field and so we develop cutting edge, highest quality product.

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We focus on delivering time-tested usable products with good value. Do you really want to be a vendor’s “lab rat”?

It is not a good sales tactic to bash our competition, but through the use of strategically placed questions and comments, we can create doubt in the client’s mind about the competition’s claims.

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