This is the fourth of several installments of a new book, called ProSelling: A
Professional Approach to Selling in Agriculture and Other Industries. Proselling
builds on a book called AgriSelling written by David Downey, Michael Jackson
and Marilyn Holschuh. AgriSelling, premiered in this magazine many years
ago and we are excited to present its sequel here now: The following text is an
excerpt.
How Do You Stack Up?
When a customer considers a new supplier or product, he evaluates each
option against a "mental list" of the tangible and intangible benefits
needed. Some of the tangible benefits may be quite specific, such as the
product kills lambs quarter weeds or protects against intestinal parasites.
Intangible benefits are often much less specific, such as the company is
easy to work with or the salesperson is responsive when I have a question.
One way to evaluate how you "stack up" against the competition is to
consider the following:

Talk to your top customers and to people you'd like to
have as customers about their needs for products and
services (tangible benefits).

Ask them how important some of the "intangible"
benefits are to them.

Ask them who their "best" supplier is - in any branch of
the industry.

Ask them who their "worst" supplier is.
When you have talked to a number of customers (10-20), you are ready to
proceed. Do you have to compare your company to every possible
competitor on every attribute? No - your customers don't do that. They
focus on their own needs and values, in the order of their importance to
them and then, mentally at least, they develop a "short list" or
consideration set of suppliers or companies that could potentially meet
their needs.
Which competitors make it onto the "short list" for your target segment? If
you know what these customers value, it will help you focus more easily.
For example, if you are selling steel to a manufacturer, access to rail may
be an important factor. If you are selling feed micro ingredients, the
location of your rail access may not be important to customers at all.
Construct Your Competitive Scorecard

List as many value factors in the left-hand column as
you believe are important to your customers.

Weight each factor 1-5, depending on how much it
impacts purchase decisions for your target customers.

Put the names of up to 3 competitors across the top in
the first three columns.

Put your company's name in the last column.

Give your competitors and yourself a score from (-5) to
(+5) on each factor.
 A score of (+5) means the company is performing as
well as the most demanding customer could wish.
 A score of (-5) means the company is performing so
poorly it could lose business on this factor alone.

Multiply scores x weight to get an impact rating.

Add impact ratings to determine the strongest
competitor.

Product
performance
Competitive
product quality
Improves output
quantity
Improves output
quality
Easy to do
business with
Quality of
expertise from
salesperson
Saves time or
hassle
Complaint
resolution
TOTAL SCORES
Impact
Your
Score
Impact
Competitor
Score
Impact
Impact
Competitor
Score
Value Factor
Competitor
Score
Weight
Look at ratings to see where your opportunities and
threats are.
Competitive Scorecard