Never Bad Mouth Your Competitors

There is nothing more annoying than when you find out your competitors have been bad mouthing you to customers. But what makes it worse is when the company dishing out the abuse is getting what they are saying wrong!

One of our reps went to see a customer yesterday and found that one of our competitors indulged on a hugely mis-informed rant about us. Some of the things that were said included allegations we had just recently been taken over, and due to that that was the reason we were more expensive than them (when really the other company seemed to be desperatley undercutting to try and win the order), we were apparently in financial difficulties also. Oh and we also had a 'rubbish' product.

Tactics like this smack of two things. One, that the other company is desperate. If they have to rely on bad mouthing their competitors rather than selling on their own merits then there is something very wrong. The second is hipocracy. Time and time again our competitors make a point of not practicing these sorts of tactics.

Companies need to be very careful, there comes a point where this sort of thing stops becoming a selling tactic and starts becoming more personal. But for now I just put all this down to desperation and inability to sell their own product properly.