“Reach out to some of your competitors this week, network with them on LinkedIn, have a virtual cup of coffee, and get to know them a little better. It might just benefit you both.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 1217
How about you? Do you reach out to your competitors?
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SalesCoin.co/cuddle
Jack Wilson on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. It’s Friday, so here’s your weekly dose of Jack Wilson and I don’t think I’ve offered any $SALES coins all week, so stay tuned at the end of a double dose. Here’s Jack:
Jack Wilson: What’s going on Daily Sales Tips Community. It’s Jack Wilson back with another tip. This week I want to advocate for camaraderie amongst your competition. I had a mentor in college when I was in business school who used to say the phrase “Sit down and eat or we’ll both starve.” Now, what I think he meant by that is if we didn’t all agree to come together and sit down at the table where all the food was and neither of us would get to eat, and by default, we’d both starve. Well, that goes to say that there’s enough food at the table for everyone and the same applies to the world of sales. Even with your direct competitors.
For example, part of what I sell in the enablement space is sales readiness or learning management. Well, so does my good friend Alex Smith over at Docebo, another member of the Sales Success Community. Now, Alex and I recently found ourselves coming head to head with one particular prospect. So instead of stealing our reserves and fighting against one another instead, what we did is we got on a call. We collaborated, we share information that we knew about the client to make each other more informed and educated. And then we are outwardly transparent about the areas where we felt we had an advantage and what we were going to do to pursue the deal. We made a gentleman’s agreement that made the best LMS win and we pursued the opportunity best we could on both sides.
Now, instead of just competing on single opportunities, there’s plenty of other reps that sell what you sell outside of your territory, not into the same book of clients. Why don’t you work with your competitors so that you can learn from one another. The wins they’ve had with other big logos that you don’t need to compete for, our wins that you can learn from. And the same applies for you. Maybe there’s someone you even took from them as a client and you can share some of those pieces of feedback or even an opportunity that you want over them. And you can help them become better. Because at the end of the day, we’re not all going to be working in the same roles for the rest of our lives. That’s just not something that happens anymore, especially not in the world of sales. So by helping each other, it’s another great slogan. A rising tide lifts all ships. So reach out to some of your competitors this week, network with them on LinkedIn, have a virtual cup of coffee, and get to know them a little better. It might just benefit you both.
Scott Ingram: For a nice big batch of sales coins, click over to SalesCoin.co/cuddle, and as always we’ll have that link, this transcript, and some ways you can connect with Jack at DailySales.Tips/1217. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come right back for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!