Dislodging Incumbent Suppliers- Lee Hackett

A necessary evil in many business sectors and one that even the most experienced sales person can shy away from: incumbent suppliers. In my opinion it is one of the reasons I went into business – winning new business – but then I do love a challenge.

Having spent over 14 years in the construction products industry where dislodging incumbent suppliers is the lifeblood of the business, I have developed a number of strategies and tactics that have proved to be very successful. But before I share some of these with you, there can be no getting away from the fact that this is a challenging strategy to employ but it is often the only way to increase market share. And it is my view that if a potential customer has a history of repeated spend on a particular product or service, then that’s the type of business I want.
Let’s get to it, in brief here are my top three tactics for effectively dislodging an incumbent supplier:

1. Research: a common sense place to start, but one that needs to be given the necessary time and attention. Research the incumbent, the potential customer, the market place and don’t forget key competitors, as they will probably be competing for the business too.

2. Price to win: again common sense I hear you cry, but lowering the margin on the first few sales allows you a way in to an opening dialogue with the customer.

3. Create a challenge: my personal favourite, ask the potential client to challenge you. Don’t ask the client to give you the easy sales, tell them that whenever they are in a tight spot to give you a call. It could be that you can help them with tight deadlines or sourcing a specialist product – whatever, just make sure they know you are the person to go to.

If this post has proved useful to you, then you could be interested in receiving a copy of the whitepaper I recently commissioned titled: “Strategies For Dislodging An Incumbent Supplier” that gives much more depth of discussion to the topic. Simply send an email to info@leadcreators.co.uk and we will send you a personal copy.

It would be interesting to hear of any other tactics that sales teams employ successfully, so please leave your comments or questions below. Alternatively tweet me @leehackett1.