First and most importantly, learn everything you can about your main competitor’s product. Primarily because the more you know about their product, the better you can compete. Second, when a prospect makes some outlandish claim about No. 1, you can graciously help them with the correct information.
Now, make a list of the features of the competitive product and compare your product to theirs, feature by feature. List them all since knowing even the smallest detail about the competition can help you close a sale.
Next, decide and write down what the benefit is of each of these features from a user’s point of view. Include in your list both your benefits and theirs. Remember that a benefit is what each feature means to the user. Not what is important to you, but to the person using the product.
Often at the end of this exercise, you will discover that feature-for-feature, your product is equal to or even better than numero uno. Perhaps they are number one because they have three times as many jobbers on the road than your brand or they just do more advertising.
Since you are now an expert on both your product and theirs, you can put together a superior presentation and close more sales.
As a side note: If the product manager for the number one product is really doing their job, they have priced their product at about 10 percent above the market average. This can help you if you use this fact correctly in your presentation.
