Ryan Dohrn answers Tyrell from Orlando, who's selling a product he thinks is inferior to competitors. Dohrn says project confidence, find your differentiators, and focus on a few things you can actually win on: faster delivery, better service, or yourself as the salesman.
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions sent in to Uncle Ryan here, ryan@ryandohrn.com. Keep those questions coming, love to answer your questions. Next question comes from Tyrell in Orlando. Unfortunately, Ryan, I am selling a product that just is flat out inferior. Our competitor just stomps us into the ground. I really don't know what to do. Any advice is appreciated. All right, Tyrell, first, if you walk— if you feel like your product's inferior, you might know it, but if you feel like it is, guess what? You're going to give that vibe off. Never forget, not everyone's going to know that your product's inferior. You might know it is, statistically it might be, but you're going to give off the vibe of inferiority and you're going to walk in making excuses before you even sometimes even need to give those excuses. Now, Tyrell, the reason I know this is because back in the day, and it wasn't that long ago, but back in the day I sold an inferior media product. It was like the third in the market, and I could have walked in and been like, hey, you know, I know that we're third in the market, but we're also cheaper. And you know, you can't do that. You have to walk in believing and feeling that you have a really great product. Now sure, perhaps it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of your nearest competitor, but it doesn't necessarily mean That it's inferior, because guess what? Even though it might not have the bells and whistles that somebody might need, desire, or want, that product doesn't have you. You could be the differentiating factor. Let me state it more strongly. You should be the differentiating factor. Here's the other thing though. Focus. There's gotta be something that you do better. It's a better color. It's a better font. It's a better time. There's gotta be something. Sit and figure it out. There's gotta be something that you can hang your hat on. Hang your hat on something you can find. There's gotta be something. Hang your hat on you. Maybe you are the differentiating factor. And then get with your boss, get with your team. There's gotta be other things that you can offer that'll just give you just a little more spice to add to that recipe to make your presentation really great. The other thing is, a lot of times when I've been selling against superior products, those salespeople aren't that great. Because they rest on their laurels. They're kind of like, hey, we got the best product in town, the rest of y'all be darned, you know. So I can go in being a better salesperson. A lot of times my skill in selling, the questions that I ask, the personal passion that I have, the charisma that I carry, a lot of times that can be the differentiating factor. Think about it, Tyrell, you're sitting with a group of people. They just got pitched maybe a superior product by a jerk. They just got picked— pitched a superior product by somebody that was arrogant or somebody that wasn't paying attention to their needs. There have been times where I have chosen a lower quality product or a different product just simply based on how I felt about the company, how I felt about the salesperson. Now, maybe you can beat them on deliverability. So if you can't beat them on product offerings, Maybe you can beat them on deliverability, time to production, time to life. I mean, there's something out there. Just look for 3 things that you can hang your hat on, and one of those 3 things is you, Tyrell. You need to walk in, walk in believing that you've got the best product out there. Friends, never forget, if this job was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. It's special people like us that are changing the world in sales. This is a career, friends, that'll feed your family for a lifetime. Keep those questions coming to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Love to come to your office and train your sales team and those types of things. Really appreciate all of you checking out the podcast and everything else, the videos, you name it, and we'll see you next week. Take care, friends.
