Winning business in competitive markets!
By Jim Connolly
If you sell your services or products in a competitive industry, you will find the following extremely useful. It is taken from an open question, which I answered in my newsletter.
“I am Sales Manager for a recruitment company. I’m finding it a little ‘challenging’ right now to gain enough new clients, with prospective clients extremely fee-conscious. Any tips Jim?”
Rob S – Santa Monica, USA.
Answer
The recruitment profession is one I know very well. The classic problem you encounter in recruitment sales (and any other highly competitive market) is what I call FUSION. Let me explain.
Where do most recruitment companies/agencies advertise? In the same places as their competitors. What kind of message do they use to market their services? The same kind of messages used by their competitors. Where do they tend to network? The same places as their competitors. So what happens? The recruitment companies/agencies in any one area literally cancel one another out!
By doing the same things to attract the same business from the same organizations, competing providers just FUSE into one, difficult to distinguish group!
The prospective client is then left with price or fee as the only clear way to differentiate one provider from another!! The same is often true in accountancy, banking, law, financial services, internet services, and many, many others.
The solution
This fusion will really hurt your business – unless you stop competing for business and start being CREATIVE instead. When you compete with other providers, you will always be limited to just a portion of the same 'pie' that they are competing for. If you have lots of competitors, your portion of that pie or market may be far smaller than you would like and price or fee will always be an issue. However, when you create rather than compete, the pie is all yours and you will never have to compete or worry about selling based on price again.
Between January 2005 and July 2005 I helped an accountancy firm in The North of England win over 70 new clients, with an estimated value of over £750,000 (well over $1,000,000 US) - whilst lowering their sales and marketing spend by 50%! How - by targeting new business based on a creative approach and not competing with every other accountancy firm in their area!
I have no competitors in my field; because I have so many unique differences that I am seen in the marketplace as, well, unique. Guess who always come along to my seminars? Yep, you’ve guessed it, Personal and Professional Development Trainers or Authors. I welcome them – more than this, I actually market to them and help them win business! I have over 200 valued subscribers to this newsletter from within the Training Profession.
I suggest Rob that you start creating and stop competing.
To your success,
Jim Connolly
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