Sales Snack of the Week: Highlight the Weakness in Your Competitor’s Strength

Jack McKissen

Director of Marketing @ Switchpoint - LinkedIn Top Voice

June 27, 2023

Sales Snack of the Week: Highlight the Weakness in Your Competitor’s Strength

In a recent LinkedIn post, CEO of pclub.io Chris Orlob argues that one of the best strategies sellers can use to beat the competition and land a deal is to identify the weakness in their competitor’s strength.

Here’s what Orlob has to say.

Tip #1: It’s not about identifying your competitor's weakness. It’s about finding the inherent weakness in the strength.

Turning a competitor’s weaknesses into a liability isn’t really a winning strategy. There is a good chance your competitor is well aware of their own weaknesses and has already woven those liabilities into their pitch.

Instead, Orlob advises sellers to find the weakness within their strength. Specifically, Orlob shares a recent real-life example where his company pclub.io won a deal against another business that had a formidable research department headed by behavioral economists.

The secret?

He focused on how the competitor’s strong academic credentials didn’t offset a relative lack of know-how when it came to the nuts and bolts of actual selling.

He writes:

“They're incredibly good at research and theory behind human decision-making and what that looks like in sales. In other words, they're very good at the 'what' behind great sales execution…”

I continued:

“What we've found is most reps lack the 'how': Specific actions they can immediately use on sales calls. Diagrams, theories, and charts are great. But the customers we help succeed are those in more need of tactics, techniques, and actionable skills they can start using right away."

Tip #2: Don’t sacrifice your credibility.

Sellers risk a loss of credibility when they disparage their competition without acknowledging their competitor’s strengths. Orlob notes this in his post, saying that he respects the other company and recognizes how good the competition’s research function really is.

It’s just that his customer didn’t need theory. They needed to know the “How” of sales, rather than the “What.”

Acknowledging what your competitor is good at helps give you the credibility you need to talk about what you are good at – without it coming off like just another hollow sales pitch.

Tip #3: Walk the walk.

You’ve talked the talk. You’ve told your prospect why they should look past your competitor’s strengths and see why you’re the solution they need.

Now it’s time to back it up.

Follow up your pitch by sharing real-world examples of you delivering exactly what your customer needs. In Orlob’s case, that meant showing how his company’s ability to teach the “How” of selling changed the game for other customers.

Saying your competitor can’t do the job is the type of shallow selling that rarely closes deals.

Instead, educate your prospect on why your competitor’s strengths mask hidden weaknesses that will prevent your prospect from achieving the results they’re looking for.

Chris writes:

The way to beat your competitors is not to exploit their weakness. They can easily refute that.

It's to exploit the weakness within their strength. Those are different things.

One is easily refuted. The other is sales judo.

Examples of what this looks like.

Want to see Orlob’s theory in action? Here are a couple of examples:

A buyer walks into a car dealership. She’s narrowed her choices down to two trucks. She’ll use the truck as her daily driver, but she also plans on using it to take on camping trips outside of the city. Truck A has a much larger towing capacity than Truck B. The dealer selling Truck B acknowledges that Truck A is a great truck and could haul a trailer easily – but notes that Truck A’s heightened towing capacity comes at the cost of worse gas mileage.

The salesman didn’t trash the competition. He just pointed out the weaknesses within his competitor’s strength.

A startup is in the market for PR services. Firm A has offices all across the world and much greater resources on hand. Firm B is smaller and acknowledges that the size and resources of Firm A are something they can’t offer – but their seller also notes that the size and scope of Firm A mean the startup is less likely to get personalized service and their business is likely to matter less to Firm A.

Of course, the truck buyer in the first example may not be concerned with gas mileage and want more towing capacity. The startup may value a PR firm with a bigger footprint, even if it potentially comes at the cost of personalized service.

The trick to making this all work?

Research and discovery.

Knowing what your buyer is in the market for means you aren’t just exploiting the competition’s soft spots. It means that you know what your buyer considers a strength – and what they consider a weakness.

And that’s what really closes the deal.

Summary and Takeaways

Identifying your competitor’s weaknesses won’t really help you close a deal. Chances are your competition is well aware of their own weaknesses and has addressed them in their pitch.

Instead, show your prospect how the weakness lying within your opponent’s strength will fail to deliver the results they’re looking for – and, correspondingly, how your own strengths are what the prospect actually needs.

Remember: