The New Power Base Selling: Master The Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition

Competitive Intelligence Gathering

Your competitive intel gathering begins with the horizontal axis of the Holden Four Stage Model. It is important to answer the four questions outlined in Figure 12.1 for each competitor your customer is evaluating.

Figure 12.1: Competitive Intel

The intel that you gather in this exercise will help you build a Compete Strategy by first:

• Knowing what solution your competition is proposing.
• Knowing how that solution’s value is positioned on the Sales Value Chain.
• Knowing whether the competition has gotten to the Situational Fox ahead of you—and, if not, the individuals with whom they are aligned in terms of the Power Base.
• Discovering what class of strategy the competitor is most likely implementing. This is where your intel gathering looks back into history. Most suppliers who experience success will repeat the sales strategy that helped them gain that success, so keep track of what your major competitors have done before.

You will notice that you transition from the tangible to the intangible as you move from left to right in Figure 12.1. This movement suggests that most sellers are more comfortable focusing on product and services than on sales strategy. To help you gather critical competitive intel, particularly as you move to the right and into the intangibles, Figure 12.2 identifies what information is essential, along with where you can ...