You are on a cold call and the prospect says...

"We are using a competitor."

What do you do next?

Last week I saw a post that said you should say...

"That's fine perhaps we can show you what we do and you can use it as a comparison."

It is honestly terrible advice.

The Comparison Trap

Why is this advice so bad?

1. You haven't tried to understand the situation.
Your prospect wants to be understood not convinced. This is basic human psychology. If you pitch immediately you signal that you do not care about their current setup.

2. You haven't tried to qualify the meeting.
Show up and hope is not a strategy. Just because they agreed to a comparison does not mean they have a problem.

3. The meetings probably won't show up.
They have given you no reason to be there. Why would they attend a meeting to solve a problem they haven't admitted to having? This leads to the ghosting we discuss in The Warm Call Delusion.

4. You are turning yourself into a free consultant.
Your job is to sell not consult for free. If you give away your expertise without a commitment you devalue your service.

Earn the Right to Pitch

Handling the above statement like that is just a waste of everyone's time.

Instead look to understand and see if there is a gap.

In our SDR Sales Training, we teach a simple pivot.

"Ok understood. Do you mind if I ask two questions to see if I can help?"

"What is one thing you really like about working with them?"

This disarms them. It shows you are not there to bash the competition.

"And if there is one thing you could be doing better what does that look like?"

This opens the door.

Qualify the Pain

Once you have the answers to those questions you the salesperson can then decide if it is worth taking further.

If they say "nothing everything is perfect" you disqualify them and move on. You save yourself the time of a pointless demo.

If they give you a pain point you explore it.

This approach stops you from begging for attention. As we warned in Stop Begging for Meetings, begging kills deals.

Start earning it.

Ask the hard questions. Find the real gap.

And stop doing free comparisons.

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