You may know your customer's recent purchasing situation very well, and then you make a purchasing plan that is very suitable for this big customer. However, when you are fully prepared to negotiate with big customers, you didn't expect to kill Cheng halfway, rob your business and end in failure. I believe many salespeople have encountered this kind of thing. It turned out that hope turned into disappointment. The reason is that you don't know your competitors, and you only consider customers and not competitors.
Therefore, we need to understand that in this highly competitive market, we sell not only ourselves, but also our own products and your competitors. Of course, some salespeople may focus on understanding their opponents and ignore their own customers, which will also lead to final failure. This is a misunderstanding that many salesmen often have when facing big customers.
Knowing the purchasing situation of major customers will help us to formulate corresponding marketing strategies, such as customers planning to purchase 5 tons of goods, what role these 5 tons of goods will play for us, and whether we can supply these goods. Some customers may have entered the final negotiation stage with our competitors, and then we learned about this project. At this time, we have what kind of strategy to adopt and how to succeed. Knowing this information is very positive for us to formulate marketing strategies.
Dell is a world-renowned computer company, the number one computer system company in the world, and the leading provider of computer products and services. Most of their products are sold in the form of enterprise procurement, and they have rich experience in the understanding and sales methods of big customers.
In the sales department of Dell Computer, we often see some very beautiful tables in a conspicuous position in the office. These desks are not for employees, but for placing competitors' products, such as Lenovo, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sony and other computers. Every employee can turn on these computers, but not to finish their work on them, but to let the sales staff know how these competitors do it. Of course, every computer has a detailed introduction, such as: the model and characteristics of the product will correspond to our product model and characteristics, what advantages the product has, and what advantages our product has.
So, what is the purpose of doing this? The manager of Dell Computer Sales Department said in an interview with the media: "The main purpose of doing this is to let the sales staff know the characteristics and advantages of their own products, and at the same time understand the characteristics and advantages of their competitors' products in general, so as to guide customers' needs in a targeted manner. "
In the interview, Dell's sales manager has stated the real reason for this, that is, to let the sales staff know about competitors' products and effectively deal with competitors' shortcomings with their own strengths when facing customers. IBM once had such a content in the training of new employees, that is, to learn from competitors and understand their own strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their competitiveness with competitors.
Of course, this is only one aspect of selling with big customers. In addition to understanding competitors' products, we also need to know how users use their products. If the main customers we want to sell are using their products, of course we'd better learn from them directly. If the main customers we want to sell have never used their products, but are interested in buying their products, we need to know from the market. In this way, when we talk about each other's products, we can highlight the advantages of our products in a targeted manner, but we need to remember that we can't deliberately slander each other's products, which will leave a bad impression on each other.
Customer satisfaction brought by competitors' products affects whether customers will give up or buy another product. Only when the customer is not satisfied with other products or services will he choose our products. Therefore, in the process of selling products, don't rush for success and let customers choose our products directly. This will not only have a good effect, but may lead to misunderstanding of our behavior.
If you and your competitors are competing for a big customer, then you must know each other's name, sales method and characteristics. This is another "pet" in the above-mentioned "Know yourself and know yourself." Understand each other's sales methods, their characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, etc., so that even if your opponent visits customers first, you can compare and adopt your own products according to your opponent's characteristics when you visit customers.
Another important point is the relationship between the other sales representative and the customer. If the opponent and customer are classmates, close friends, fellow villagers, etc. We must adopt certain intervention skills. We all know the truth that "rich water does not flow outside the field" If your products are almost equal to each other's products and have no advantage, then there is no doubt that customers will choose each other's products. Therefore, after meeting such competitors, you should have an overwhelming advantage over each other in terms of product quality, service and price. Because the decision-making chain of big customers is generally long, you can succeed even if the other party has such a relationship.
After we have a comprehensive understanding of our competitors, we will also know the purchasing situation of major customers, so that we can truly "know ourselves and know ourselves".
With this "know yourself", "winning every battle" will become more possible. Understanding the customer's purchasing situation mainly includes: purchasing budget, purchasing progress, what problems can be solved in this purchase, etc. This information is the main information for us to understand the customer's situation. With this information, we can formulate a perfect marketing strategy.
In addition to the above information, we also need to know the customer's business situation, the basic situation of the customer's industry, the specific situation of the customer's use department, and the various forms of communication of the customer. With this information, we can purposefully show the side suitable for customers and give customers the expected value when recommending products according to their situation.
We made a detailed analysis of our competitors' information. It should be noted that when recommending your own products, don't slander each other's products and salesmen, and compete fairly.