It's one thing to get the order, the account or the deal but it's totally another thing to beat the competition for the business.  But seller beware.  If your idea of beating the competition is producing a lower price, the only one getting beat is you.  A lower price might very well get you the business, but it's not a strategy for making money or keeping the business.  As soon as a competitor beats your price, you'll have lost the business as quickly as you won it.  So how do you beat the competition without lowering your price?  I'll give you ten Baseline Selling ways here:

1) Differentiate thyself - From the prospect's point of view, how are you truly different ?

2) Sell value - how will your solution solve their problem more effectively, for a lower overall cost over the long-term?

3) Ask better questions - questions that cause your prospect to learn something, questions they don't know the answers to, questions that move the conversation to a new place.

4) Ask more questions - keep asking and resist the temptation to present after just a few questions.

5) Punch holes in their plan - if they tell you what they want to buy and you start showing your solutions, you have commoditized yourself.  Ask why they want to do that, suggest possible problems, suggest alternate approaches and you have differentiated yourself.

6) Build a better relationship - people buy from people they like and respect.

7) Care more about their success than getting the business - show a sincere interest in what they do and why it's important.

 

8) You're the expert, not the salesperson - refer to last week's Baseline Selling Tip for positioning on this.
 
9) Find the problem they will spend money to solve - not A problem, but THE problem.  Keep asking yourself, is this truly a compelling reason for them to buy?

10) Use "Once and For All" - "are you willing to spend a little more money with me to solve this problem once and for all?"