The Hidden Competition You May Be Overlooking

A client had a solution that generated great interest among department heads, who would be the primary decision-makers, and their teams the primary users of the solution. Department heads and users recognized that the solution was better than what they had in place and were willing to invest in it. However, the solution would not fit within existing departmental budgets, requiring the department head to ask for additional funding from senior management. This is when the buying journey often hits a roadblock. Prospects would come back and say that while they would like to buy the solution, they were unable to secure the additional funding required, and the conversation would end in a non-sale.  The prospect didn’t buy a competitor’s solution; they stayed with the status quo.

One factor behind this cycle was the client’s underestimation of the breadth of its competition.

Competition Isn’t Just Other Vendors

B2B product marketers recognize that customers buy solutions that address the jobs they need done – not the solutions themselves. Savvy marketers think in terms of their direct competitors and their indirect ones—other ways that customers can accomplish the job-to-be done. The most savvy recognize that their solution is also in competition for attention and dollars with other departmental or organizational priorities.

At the Departmental Level

Within any department —whether HR, finance, or manufacturing operations —there are many demands on resources. This can include staff, other solutions and service providers, and shared services. Departments will have jobs-to-be-done that are unrelated to the ones your solution addresses, each with its own set of challenges and pain points.

The priorities that receive their dollars and attention will include those established by the department, as well as those imposed upon them from higher levels within the organization. When evaluating their existing systems and processes, department heads tend to think in terms of whether the solution meets all their needs, is good enough, or falls short.

When allocating their limited budgets, decision makers are most likely to invest in new solutions that sit at the intersection of their priorities and challenges. Your solution may be better than what they have in place, but it may not have enough priority or pain associated with the job to warrant attention.

At the Organizational Level

Departmental desires and perceptions may not always align with the overall organization’s goals. It is not unusual for a department head to recognize the potential of new solutions, but to encounter roadblocks when attempting to implement them. While it is not usually discussed in this way, at an organizational level, departments are in competition with each other for budget and other resources. In the same way a department assesses its operations, senior management at the organizational level also sets its priorities.

Senior management will be most interested in the departments and processes that most align with their objectives—and—this may not be the function that you serve. When that is the case, your champion faces an uphill battle to gain buy-in and secure an increased budget. As a result, your solution gets left out of the conversation.

The implied weakness in this situation is the success of your internal champion. Are they willing to fight for budget? Do they know how to best position the reasons why an investment in your solution is worth it? Are they trying to sell senior management on the tactical benefits to the department, while other department heads connect their requests to overall strategic priorities?

A Smarter Way to Sell Up the Chain

In the early to mid-2000s, there was an overly simplistic push to sell up the chain. Regardless of the product category, the goal was to convince the CEO of the importance and value of your product or solution. This approach had limited success and has fallen out of favor. However, there was a kernel of value in the idea.

Here is a more nuanced and practical version of selling up the chain. Your primary value proposition will always center on how you address your customer’s job-to-be-done.  That is essential to attract attention and will be the primary driver of the buy decision. However, once you are in the buying process, can you identify ways to connect your solution to the department’s biggest challenges and priorities?  Can you equip your internal champion with the information to make the case that your solution connects to senior management’s priorities?

What to Ask to Understand Broader Buyer Priorities

Identifying the larger challenges your customers face requires product marketers to expand their questions beyond a typical conversation. Most market research, whether conducted by product marketers or third-party research firms, has a narrow focus. It is about product features. Or pricing. Or TAM.  Therefore, while there may be a few warm-up questions that ask, “What keeps you up at night?” the conversation quickly—and often rightly—narrows to product-specific topics.

To understand where your solution fits relative to other solutions and priorities, you need to keep the conversation at a higher level and explore areas such as:

• What are the department’s overall priorities?
• What are the barriers to accomplishing these objectives?
• How well do the department’s priorities align with organizational priorities?
• What is the department measured on?
• What are the solutions and ideas most likely to get funded within their department and across the organization?
• What do they see as the connection between your solution and their departmental and organizational priorities?
• How would they sell your solution to budget holders? What would they emphasize?

The results of this type of exploration require more interpretation by the research and connecting of the dots. You need to determine the degree to which decision makers think of you in terms of accomplishing those objectives. You need to evaluate if your internal champion is focusing on the benefits of your solution that will garner the most attention.

Once you understand the priorities you are competing with, you can include them in your messaging and sales materials as supporting points. It will also help you empower your buyers to be more effective when selling your solution internally.

Isurus helps B2B clients use primary market research to gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ challenges and priorities. If you’re interested in learning how we can assist, please visit our contact page.