How do you pitch against competitors?

We've talked about so many different things when it comes to marketing and how you do it, when to know to implement it, how much budget you should think about, like gauging all those kind of things. But really the question I had for us today that I wanted to dialog a little bit about is the idea of selling against your competition in your town.

You're maybe you're not the number one, but you're, you've got a better service or a better price or some some little thing that makes you stand out from a competitor in town. And you don't want to just go straight out bashing the competitor or should you or what should you be thinking about in terms of how to approach selling against the competition?

Well, there's a lot in that because it's a philosophical question from a marketing standpoint, should you ever acknowledge the competition? So you look at like a super brand like Apple. We use them as an example. When when have you ever heard them? Except for maybe the first launch of the iPhone, they compete with themselves. So when they say it's a billion kajillion times faster than last year do, yeah, it's the previous.

So they never are they selling against anybody or they ever directly mentioning the competition in a small business. Yes. Like what should the thought be? Because you're not that big top tier. There's nobody else to really compare you to. Again, the question is, do you? And I would say yes, and you have to do it tastefully. Go back and watch our episode on branding and starting out how you differentiate yourself in the marketplace.

There are a lot of what I would call commodity or similar products or services based businesses out there, right? They all really do the same services. Okay. The difference is the experience you have either there the physical build out of the stores or the process in which you engage with that brand to get the service done. But do you call out another brand as to, you know, so-and-so won't run out to your vehicle?

Well, we will. The question is, is is are you right about what you want to point out? Ooh, okay. Because this is this you have to get real honest with right off the bat. Are you better than that competitor in any particular area. First vet that are you sure before that you make that come out very well believe that because I've met a lot of business owners that believe they do something better and then when we push them or we dig a little deeper, they don't.

But too, there's your opportunity to start to think about what kind of message could you develop from that? So only from the list of true differences. Yes, there's like 100% guarantee these these are either done better or not done at all. And the other places that only list is the one that you're able to pull from. Here's a great example.

Okay. I'm into off roading stuff, camp, camping gear, awnings. So there's a ton of different brands for this and they range from entry point your budget friendly to high end you know used on expeditions and you know God name where the location is. But not only is there a difference in materials or quality of the build, but there's also a difference in waterproofing levels.

MM So the great piece of content it was is that it had just rained and someone was putting their awning away and they were putting away a budget friendly awning. Okay, the waterproofing is not as great, so moisture sticks within the canvas and when you're rolling it up, he was rolling it up and water was literally pooling down his arms from just wringing out the canvas.

Most people won't ever encounter that. But yeah, that piece of creative put just enough doubt in the minds of the entry level, budget friendly buyer that they're now saying, Hmm, maybe I should buy once, cry once. Yeah. And purchase the upper brand because I don't want to be that guy. So that's a great way to go directly at the competition.

Yep. They basically built in the mind of their audience. If you buy this budget friendly version of our product, this is going to be you businesses out there to say, okay, here's a little quick exercise. So for your product. Exactly. The the awning, I could ask you. Well, how easy is your product to install? What's the expected lifespan of the product?

How quickly can I tear it down? I could easily get down some list of asking questions. And those are some things that you could ask yourself as a business owner. Examine your product and think through all of those different types of variables as to how does your product work, how does it function? And then compare that to you can still understand from enough data to collect to say, my product is easier or better or what are cost effective.

There are so many different facets of ways that you can do this quick little exercise to just ask yourself like that list seems easy to explore for me because I'm into it all the time. But for a business owner that might not think through that, I want you to really think through that exercise of asking yourself the questions about your product, digging deeper than obviously your your surface level.

Yeah, situation point value for listening to our podcast. Hopefully that's your tangible take away from today. You know, you need to make sure that there's some value there for you. So one, do you feel like in calling them out, you might steal some of their audience away and they might become your buyers now? Yeah. Or two. Have you noticed in your sales that they're either plateauing or dropping because of new competition or someone has a new product or someone's updated their marketing?

And I think the last point is just how you do it tastefully. It just doesn't look good on you as a brand if you trash someone. So really humor is how the Awning Company is the medium that they use to tell that story of differentiation. So find a tasteful way to do it so that you look like you are edgy, creating an audience rather than tearing down another business.

Your mentality is helping the customer identify and find the best product and or service for them. It's not necessary. Don't have to call them out. Yeah. Just go watch any old like Advil versus Tylenol ads or McDonald's versus Burger King leading competitors, Pepsi versus Coke. They they've done so much great, extraordinary things where sometimes they just tip the hat, like Halloween, like the playful.

It's cute, but only do it if you really are you really, truly believe that there is something to gain from doing it. Don't just do it because you don't have other ideas.