Bad Mouthing Your Competitor | Donald C. Kelly - 2017

How do you handle competitor questions without sounding defensive, desperate, or unprofessional? In this solo episode, Donald C. Kelly shares three practical strategies for talking about competitors with confidence and credibility. Instead of attacking another company, he explains how to use customer stories, thoughtful questions, and your prospect's own insights to position your solution as the better fit. If you're in a competitive sales environment, this episode will help you navigate competitor conversations in a way that builds trust and moves deals forward. Episode Breakdown with Timestamps: Why You Should Prepare for Competitor Conversations (00:00:31 – 00:01:30) Donald explains that prospects are often evaluating multiple vendors at the same time. Rather than being surprised by competitor questions, sales professionals should prepare their messaging ahead of time and understand where their solution stands out. He emphasizes that preparation gives sellers confidence when those conversations arise. Lead With Your Strengths Instead of Attacking Competitors (00:01:31 – 00:02:30) Donald shares his first strategy for handling competitor discussions. Instead of naming competitors or criticizing them directly, he recommends emphasizing the areas where your solution performs best while subtly addressing gaps that prospects may experience elsewhere. The goal is to keep the conversation focused on solving the customer's problem rather than attacking another company. Let Customer Stories Do the Talking (00:02:31 – 00:07:30) Donald introduces his favorite approach: using customer success stories to explain why buyers switched from a competitor. Drawing from his experience competing against Laserfiche in the document management industry, he demonstrates how to acknowledge what a competitor does well before explaining why customers ultimately chose a different solution. He explains that customer experiences carry far more credibility than sales claims because they come from real users rather than the salesperson. Use Reviews and Testimonials as Third-Party Validation (00:06:01 – 00:07:30) Donald encourages sales professionals to study customer reviews on platforms like G2 and Google Reviews. Instead of making negative claims yourself, use publicly available feedback to understand common concerns and position your solution accordingly. This approach allows prospects to hear criticism from existing users instead of from you. Let Prospects Voice Their Own Doubts (00:07:31 – 00:10:30) The third strategy is to ask thoughtful questions. Donald recommends asking prospects what concerns they have about other vendors instead of volunteering criticism yourself. Once they share their doubts, you can validate those concerns and explain how your solution addresses the issues they're most concerned about. This creates a more natural and trustworthy sales conversation. Three Strategies to Handle Competitor Questions with Confidence (00:10:31 – 00:11:39) Donald wraps up the episode by summarizing his three-step framework: Build your sales conversation around your strengths. Use customer stories to explain why buyers switched from competitors. Let prospects express their own concerns before responding with customer proof and relevant examples. Themes Discussed How to discuss competitors professionallyPositioning your solution without badmouthing othersUsing customer stories to build credibilityLeveraging online reviews in sales conversationsAsking better questions during competitive dealsBuilding trust through evidence instead of opinion Key Quote from the Episode "How you can talk about your competitor without badmouthing them is to have your customer do so."— Donald C. Kelly Resources Mentioned G2 ReviewsGoogle Reviews Follow Donald on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldckelly Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey http://thesalesevangelist.com/survey. https://tsesales.typeform.com/to/lc5yAa8P We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sales-evangelist/id788738885, Google Podcast https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3RoZXNhbGVzZXZhbmdlbGlzdC5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5kaXI3Pj2AhVKcjABHW5PDVwQ9sEGegQIARAC, Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-sales-evangelist-sales-trainingspeakingbusiness-marketingdonald, or Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/1NjzsFjQwVrgboUfDvbzd5?si=LdQOJDc1T-WBPMxr1h3RsA. Audio provided by Free SFX, https://freesfx.co.uk/ Soundstripe https://soundstripe.com/, and Bensound http://www.bensound.com/.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you in part by the following TSC sponsors.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  You don't become the world's most valuable women's sports franchise by accident. Angel City Football Club did it with a little help from HubSpot. When they started, data was housed across multiple systems. HubSpot unified their website, email, and fan experience in one platform. This allowed their small team of three to build an entire website in just three days. Three days! The results: nearly 350 new signups a week and 300% database growth in just two years. Visit hubspot.com to hear how HubSpot can help your team grow better.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  LinkedIn Sales Navigator is just plain awesome. Think about everything you need help with in sales. Finding the right buyers, prioritizing the right accounts, reaching out with the right message at the right time. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is built to help. With AI-powered recommendations and real-time account insight, it helps you spend less time searching and more time selling with focus and confidence, all powered by LinkedIn's network of over 1.2 billion professionals. It is the most dynamic buyer network. Accelerate your sales with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try it free for 60 days at LinkedIn.com/sell. Terms apply.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you in part by Blue Mango Studios. Imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source, not only attracting your ideal customer, but entertaining them and getting qualified leads. To find out more, go to bluemangostudios.com.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  How do you talk about a competitor without sounding like you're badmouthing them? Well, today I'm going to give you a strategy that I utilize that helps me out every single time. Check it out.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of the Sales Evangelist Podcast. I'm your host, Donald C. Kelly, the Sales Evangelist, and I'm so excited for another great episode. I'm so excited to be here with you today. On this episode, I'm going to tackle a question that came up. How do you talk about a competitor without sounding like you're badmouthing them? Well, I want to give you my insight and some things that's worked for me. If this is your first time listening to our podcast, please subscribe and I'll be sure to notify you every time we drop a new piece of content, especially topics like this that's going to be quick, punchy, and relevant that you can apply right now. So here's the thing that I would tell you. Your prospects usually might be looking at multiple competitors at the same time. If you know that, it's in your best interest to prepare accordingly. So let me give you an example.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Prospect will be, say they're looking at me and competitor A, I'm competitor B, and they're looking at competitor C as well. Well, I found out this information through my champion or through some kind of internal source that let me know they're looking at A and C as well. What I can do in my presentations or in my conversations that I'm having with that prospect, I can identify weaknesses from those competitors and be sure to emphasize our strength in that. So if I'm going to give a demonstration, I'm going to push on the thing that I know the prospect is facing the biggest challenge with and how we can solve that. And I'll point out some of the weaknesses that may be able to, that others might have. I won't say anything about them, their name, but I say most of our competitors don't have blank because of, that can help you to solve XYZ problem. And that way I am building my presentation around them.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  But specifically for prospect, if I'm talking to the prospect now, this is scenario two, and a prospect, I need to at least explain, I know they're looking at A and I know they're looking at C, and they're really invested. How can I say this without making them sound like I'm a desperate seller? Or I'm just trying to badmouth them? The easiest way is I use my customers to tell them. Now, more than likely, you have a customer that were with competitors A or competitor C at one point. So the easiest way that I found to be able to do that is just simply say, you know, one of the reasons why customers, and so this goes back to Laserfish. Again, I've talked about these people for so much now on my, on the podcast. Laserfish was a competitor when I was selling

• 4:18Speaker 00

  software in a document management space. They did a very tremendously amazingly good job getting to the clerks. They just found a way. They went to all the clerk convention conferences and they were present when it comes to being in front of the clerks. Now with that being said, because of that, they knew the clerk offices inside and out. So when a customer would ask me about the competitor and specifically I knew they were going after using that particular competitor or liking that competitor, what I would do is I would talk about the good things that they do. Now even a broken clock is right two times a day, right? So the piece that they did well, I would say, and most of our prospect were with city county governments and K12. They did have the clerk office department, but they also had

• 5:01Speaker 00

  finance. They had HR, they had IT, they had water, they had sewage. If it's the school, they had accounting, they had the HR, they had tech, they had so many other departments and obviously the student services. So it wasn't quite apples to apples when Laserfish who were really, really good at competing with the clerks when they stepped up to the plate with us against anyone else. So knowing what our client problem was, was something with an HR issue or student services. I would say, you know, one of the things that Laserfish does really well is the fact that they understand the clerk's offices. The inside and out is a competitor to us in the clerk's office. I'm going to give them the roses. Like they do a fantastic job when it comes to clerk.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Mistakes That Made Me, hosted by Iman Ismail, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Mistakes That Made Me is the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistakes. So you know what not to do on your road to success. Join Iman Ismail as she chats with some of the smartest minds in business about how to push through failure and accept it as an important and necessary part of building a business. Because it turns out your biggest business mistakes often lead to your biggest lessons and then Your biggest blessings. One of the latest episodes that just totally resonated was ignoring my cash flow almost cost me my business. And many of us can relate to that.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  If you run a business, sometimes you kind of not focus on the most important thing. The guest was Sandra Booker. Ismaan has amazing insights and amazing guests, and I highly recommend you check out the podcast. Listen to mistakes that made me wherever you get your podcasts.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  However, many of our clients, and I would use however, but in a situation like that. However, the reason why many of our clients who were with Laserfish came with us was because of that. They were looking for a solution, not just for the clerks. Like in your case, they were looking for something for the finance, for the HR, for student services, for IT. And the setup that they have for the clerk's office just wasn't customizable enough. Didn't necessarily tie to the other departments. So though they have a great job with the clerks, they're just not a whole solution for the organization. Based on what you're looking at, are you looking at something just for the clerk? Or are you trying to solve the whole organization challenge with your finance? And asking that question at the end, get them to validate and say, yeah, you're right.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  But either way, now it paints the picture in their mind, the branding that Laserfish is for this. Now Laserfish might try to get out of that later on, but if we could tell the clients to go to their website, look at their testimonials, and you'll see that 90% of the stuff is around the clerks, the scenarios that they run. So that made us, it helped me to be able to stand out. So I didn't say they did anything bad. I just said the reason why, and it's important you preface it that way. The reason why our customers who partnered with them before chose to come to us was because of blank. And you give the reasons why your customers said that. Now you may say, I don't have any customers that left from them. Well, go to the reviews, like just, it's very easy at that point.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Go to G2 or go to Google reviews or go to any of the review platform and use that as intel to be able to tell, tell them more details. So you might say something to the nature of, one of the reasons many customers decide not to partner with them is because of blank. You could emphasize what that issue may be. Well, it's not as strong in other departments. It is not effective with the use case in in schools. It doesn't have the proper storage capabilities to be able to help the IT department. Whatever those reviews are given, but again, it's not you saying it. It's what people are saying outside about it, what their previous customers are saying it. And that carries so much weight, like somebody to leave a company

• 9:01Speaker 00

  and to be able to go and share testimonials on the reason why they left or give reasons why they left, that carries way more weight than you saying, well, they're not great. Their software is just a silo to one department. That doesn't quite work, but given them the competitors, given that your customer said this makes a big difference. I found that to be effective time and time again, every time I've talked about a competitor. Now, the third thing that I'll tell you when it comes, so the first thing I told you about one, when you find out what those weaknesses of what the competitors are, you can create your next conversation or your next meetings around your strength and emphasize the weaknesses of the others without saying it. You can just say most of the competitors out in the space, don't do blank. Or if you're looking at some of the other competitors, they may do great at this, but they can't do blank. Be sure to ask them about that.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  And if you know what they're gonna, you know, the answer they're gonna get, then you can confidently say that at that point.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  Think about all the things you wish you had help with in sales. Finding the right buyers, knowing which account to prioritize, reaching out with the right message at the right time. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is built to help with exactly that. It uses AI-powered recommendation to surface leads and accounts that match your goals. So you spend less time searching and more time selling. You get real-time account insights that help you grow your pipeline, personalize outreach, and stay informed about buyer activities. It can't replace the work of selling, but it gives you the data and visibility to sell with more focus and confidence. That's what we need. All of this is powered by LinkedIn's network of over 1.2 billion professionals.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  The most dynamic buyer network working just for you. Accelerate your sales with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator now with a free 60-day trial at LinkedIn.com/sell. That's LinkedIn.com/sell. Terms and conditions apply.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Since 2013, we launched this podcast. The goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and I feel that we've successfully done so. As a natural byproduct, listeners like you would reach out and ask, could I coach them? Could I train their team? Could I come and speak in an S K O? Could I consult for them? And that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day. So in 2019, one of our clients saw what we did and asked, could we do that for them? We experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency. Now we create podcasts for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing. I would love to show you and your team how we can create podcasts for you and use it as an entertaining source, but also educational and a lead generation.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  If you're interested, go to bluemangostudios.com. Again, bluemangostudios.com and our team can show you exactly what we did. It's amazing.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Now, the third thing that will tell you how you can talk about your competitor without bad mouthing them is to have the prospect they're working with do so. So I would turn it around on them. Well, you sounds like you've done some research already. What are some of the doubts that you have about, say, prospect C? They might say, well, you know, I've heard about this and about heard about this. What else have you heard? I've also heard this and also heard that. And they say, well, I don't know anything else beyond that. Well, you can say all of those, then you can validate it. Yes, I've heard those same things as well, but here's why I feel that, here's why I feel that you would find our solution most effective because of you're looking to solve blank point pain, correct? You're looking to solve this issue, correct? Looking to solve that issue, correct? When you look at them apples to apples, we by far are the best in the market.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  And I don't want you to take my word for it. Here are some of our customers have said who'd recently partnered with us in particular to those issues. And I would point out some of the things our customers saying, but I would let the prospect bad mouth those competitors, the prospect, that competitor A and competitor C. Listen, you can try many different things, but I find those things help tremendously. So one, the easiest one is to build your conversation around what you know, some of those weaknesses of the, your competitors are in your presentation or. Your meetings, number two is my favorite is being able to talk about why your customers, your current customers left those vendors and help point out some of those weaknesses. And then number three, I would let the prospect I'm working with talk about some of the doubts that they have about those other solutions and validate that for them.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  And then to certify it, so to speak, with some of my customer testimonial. I would love to hear from what you are coming across. How are you handling that? That's my answer to that question that came up. Hope it was helpful for that caller, for that seller out there hustling. But I would love to hear your points. If you want to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn, Donald C. Kelly. Again, Donald C. Kelly. As always, I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. I want you to raise your level of thinking. But most importantly, I want you to go out and do big things. See you on the next one.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  The Sales Evangelist Podcast is created by the Sales Evangelist Sales Training Organization. It is produced by TSC Studios. Our podcast production manager is Nancy Paul. Our audio engineer is Jershon Obayal. Our video engineer is Dusan Kunado. Guest management is done by Jill Vito and Kristy Virtus. Our content writer is Carlisa Galberith. Our graphic designer is Yurvish Savalia. And I'm your host and executive producer, Donald C. Kelly.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Sales Podcast Network.