Your competitor isn’t always beating you because they have a better product. Often, they have a better sales offering.
Sometimes they respond faster. Explain better. Follow up consistently. Make buying easier. Remove friction. Keep their promises. Or they simply do all four—or a combination of some of these.
Sales is rarely just about what you sell .
You’re too close to your product
If you are a salesperson or business owner, you can become emotionally tethered to your product as the sole reason for failure or success—and understandably so.
You are too close to it.
You have interacted with it, worked around it, improved it, complained about it, defended it, marketed it and probably spent countless hours thinking about it. After a while, the product starts to feel like a panacea.
Yet, it’s not—no product is.
So, at the first sign of ‘failure’, particularly repeated lost sales, your intimacy with the product can work against you. You start seeing the seams instead of the fabric. You notice everything that is wrong with it while somehow discovering that everything you dislike about your product is mysteriously absent from your competitor’s.
Read: Product knowledge alone is not enough to clinch you that sale
Zoom Out
Zoom out.
Look around—not just at—your product versus the competition.
If you are concerned about repeated lost sales, don’t immediately conclude that your product is inferior, your price is too high, or your competitor has somehow discovered the secret formula.
Interrogate the entire sales offering.
Because there is a difference between having a good product and making a good offer.
Your product may not be the problem-your sales offering is
Your award-winning Instagram shop selling beauty-care products may not have a product problem.
The ‘problem’ is that your competitor with supposedly less superior products sells more because he tracks and updates the customer on deliveries every step of the way until the customer confirms receipt.
But he doesn’t stop there-he calls after a week with, “How are you finding the cream?”
His customers love him for this and reward him with repeat sales and referrals—not necessarily because his cream is better, but because his offering is better.
He does all this. You don’t.
Your product is not the salesperson-you are
Like the first-class honours student who expects the certificate to work for him, you expect your stellar shop to work for you. Your problem may simply be that you are asking the product to do a salesperson’s job.
So, after dispatching the cream on Super Metro you stop there. Or, you don’t do this. Caught up with the superiority of your product, you’ve set up your systems, triggered by the MPESA payment, to send this text message: “please arrange collection from (collection point).”
Read: Use PowerPoint as a visual aid, and not to kill your presentation
But what if convenience is your advantage?
Now, I understand the convenience that an automated process presents, and I know that automation can itself be a sales-winning formula.
So, no, I’m not proposing you blindly abandon what you are doing and imitate the competition. No. In fact, if your customers love the simplicity and speed, keep it.
What I am saying is, before you assume the competition is winning because of a better product, investigate before you conclude.
The sales experience—your sales offering—simultaneously shapes the purchase experience and therefore how the customer perceives your product.
Read: Why customer convenience in sales always beats product availability
Sales offering is your product plus…
This is why a competitor with an objectively weaker product can sometimes outsell you.
He may be selling the product plus convenience (like the butcher who chops up and labels the meat for you). Or the product plus reassurance (say, a frictionless return policy or a warranty). Or the product plus speed (as automation affords).
It could also be the product plus education (click on this YouTube video instead of reading the manual, or, “Cabbage usiweke nje itaharibika; kama umekata weka kwa fridge). Or the product plus excellent after-sales service-like the example earlier shared. Or the product plus a lower-risk way to try it—such as not charging for the initial intake session, provided there is a good chemistry fit between the coach and client.
That combination is the sales offering.
Is their sales offering better?
So, when you repeatedly lose sales, instead of asking, “Is their product better?” perhaps the more productive question is: “Is their offering better?”
Confusing a great product with a great offering could be costing you sales. Look beyond the product. Examine the entire customer experience.
What does your competitor do before, during and after the sale that you don’t?
Perhaps they aren’t selling something better.
They’re simply selling better.
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