Mastering the World of Selling: The Ultimate Training Resource from the Biggest Names in Sales

Chapter 32. Engaging and Defeating Competition: Competitive Strategy and Political Alignment in World-Class Selling

Holden International

As a leading sales consulting firm, we are often posed the question, "How do you define World-Class Selling?" Many define it as helping your customer be successful. We agree: Delivering customer business value is fundamental to World-Class Selling. Others define World-Class Selling as "achieving your quota and driving profitability for your organization." This is also true. World-Class Selling is about both delivering customer business value and achieving revenue and profit growth for your sales organization.

If, on one hand, all you do is please your customer, you could end up providing "special pricing" that makes your customer happy and your shareholders furious. But on the other hand, if all you do is focus on achieving your quota, you could end up making your sales manager happy and your customer furious.

There has been much written about how best to deliver customer business value. What has not been studied as much is how to do so in a way that positions you to win the business against competition and grow the profits of your sales organization, which is a key part of World-Class Selling.

Methods such as Formulating Competitive Strategy and Executing Political Alignment are the keys to winning business. It begins with a competitive mind-set. Selling is a process of competing for business, and to be ready to sell, you must be ready to compete. ...