Not everyone can explode onto the scene with a completely unique, never-before-heard-of product type. If you’re like the rest of us, you’re trying to shout above the noise in a saturated market full of competitors. Everyone’s pretty elbow-to-elbow with their competitors, with a few differences that might not be obvious to potential customers. Your prospects […]
Not everyone can explode onto the scene with a completely unique, never-before-heard-of product type. If you’re like the rest of us, you’re trying to shout above the noise in a saturated market full of competitors. Everyone’s pretty elbow-to-elbow with their competitors, with a few differences that might not be obvious to potential customers.
Your prospects have a lot of options, so how can you get them to choose you? We know you’re special, but sometimes it’s hard to get prospects to see that.
Competitive deals are tough
Chances are, you already know how hard it is to close a deal when you’re fighting against what feels like a million competitors. From finding a way to stand out to struggling to explain to customers why your differences make you the better choice, there’s no shortage of challenges.
And it just keeps getting tougher. According to recent research by Klue, 91% of salespeople say their deals have become even more competitive this year. And those competitive losses take up a lot of reps’ time – they account for up to 24% of the time spent on deals (second only to closed/won deals). Not to mention, losing to a competitor rather than a poor fit or “status quo” is a big hit to morale: 64% of Klue’s respondents named losses to competitors as having the most negative impact.
The standard advice about standing out from competitors
You’ll see a lot of the same kind of advice online about how to find success in a highly competitive space. And to be clear, we’re not knocking that advice. It’s all really solid and something you need to follow to carve a space for yourself among a whole sea of competitors.
It’s stuff like:
- Know your competition inside and out.
- Figure out your unique selling proposition.
- Niche down.
- Build up your brand.
- Make it easy to prove value.
That’s all valuable, but it involves your whole GTM team and could involve whole initiatives about how to revamp your product, branding, and messaging. That’s a big undertaking, and well worth it. And if you want to learn more about positioning, there’s tons of experts like April Dunford whose work you can deep dive into.
But this blog post is about what you as a seller can do now to get those new leads and sell better against your competitors.
The importance of being first
Everything we just talked about is really great for your messaging, positioning, and strategies. It’s all key to making your mark in a saturated situation.
But there’s one thing that advice all overlooks, and that’s the importance of being the first on the scene. Yeah, it’s kinda sucky since it has nothing to do with your product or branding or anything else you put all that effort into. For a full half of your deals, it’s really just about timing. Up to 50% of deals go to the company that gets in touch with the prospect first.
Well, “just get there first” is some tough advice to follow. Other than being super on top of inbound leads, how could you possibly be sure that you’re the first in line? You’d need to be a mind reader, someone who knows which potential prospects need your solution when they’ve barely become aware of it themselves. But that’s pretty much impossible, right?
…right?
The secret sauce: intent data
We can’t offer ESP as a solution (yet), but there are still some ways you can predict when a customer is going to need a solution just like yours. Enter: intent data.
Here’s how it works.
A B2B buyer spends a lot of time poking around online before they even think about reaching out to any particular vendor. Out of all the activities involved in making a purchase, B2B buyers spend the most time doing their own online research. So the key to getting in touch with them before your competition does is to get some insights on who’s currently in that research stage.
Intent data (like the kind we offer through our partnership with Bombora) gathers all those little breadcrumbs a company leaves on the internet when they’re researching something, taking into account activities that show a high intent to purchase, like searches and web page visits. A high intent score means they’re really ramping up that interest.
So how do you do this with Lusha?
The million-dollar question: how do you use this intent data? Thankfully, it’s easy. Pick a topic (or five) that’s relevant to what you offer. Lusha will show you companies that have a high intent score for that particular topic.
Couple that with your ideal customer profile (ICP), and you’ll be able to narrow it down to a list of good-fit prospects who are starting to show a lot of interest in a solution like yours. Then you can get the contact information for a few key decision-makers, reach out, and start providing them value right away.
Maybe they saw you in their online search, maybe they didn’t. Either way, you know you’re relevant to them. And you get that direct contact that’s oh-so-important to making a good first impression before your competition can get a word in edgewise.
Get in there and sell your heart out.
Of course, getting there first is only half the battle. You still have to employ some good selling techniques to seal the deal when your prospects are almost definitely evaluating multiple vendors. Even if you beat your competition to make first contact, the odds are good that you might end up in a competitive bake-off.
If you end up head-to-head with a competitor in a bid for the prospects’ commitment, here’s what you do.
- Offer meaningful value. That means don’t just sell your features. Understand where the customer is at – their pain points, challenges, and goals. It’s not about what all you do. It’s what you can specifically do for them.
- Be specific. Your customers are looking for tangible examples of how people with problems like theirs benefited from their solution, so have specific details on hand.
- Speak the customers’ language. It’s not about just knowing your competitive advantage compared to their other vendors. You need to communicate that advantage in a way the customer understands clearly: ROI, efficiency, and how their goals are served.
We know that won’t be an issue for you –selling is what you’re good at, after all. So once you get in there, go do what you do best with the extra boost of confidence knowing you’ve got impeccable timing.
Key Takeaways
- Being the first to contact a prospect goes a long way in giving you an edge over the competition.
- Intent data helps you determine which prospect companies are actively searching for a solution like yours before they even reach out, giving you an opportunity to get there first.
- Once you’ve connected with your prospect, prepare for the potential of a competitive bake-off and offer value specific to the customers’ goals and challenges.
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