📘 Where Value Lives Companion Resources
Reading progress: Chapter 16 of 25
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Next: Chapter 17 → Creating Value Propositions That Matter
Welcome to the companion page for Chapter 16 of Where Value Lives.
This chapter explores what competition really means in Strategic Account Management.
We often think of competition as something that happens between suppliers. One company competes with another. One proposal competes with another. One price competes with another. One account team competes with another account team, usually while pretending not to look too worried.
That is true, but it is not the whole truth.
In strategic accounts, competition happens inside the customer’s mind.
The customer is comparing options, risks, promises, relationships, past experiences, internal politics, supplier credibility, ease of implementation, price, confidence and consequences.
Your competitor is not only the other supplier.
Your competitor may be the customer’s fear of change.
It may be internal inertia.
It may be a cheaper but weaker option that feels safer.
It may be the memory of a previous supplier who overpromised and left everyone clearing up the mess.
It may even be doing nothing.
And doing nothing is a surprisingly strong competitor, because it rarely asks for budget approval.
This chapter is about understanding how customers compare value, and how Strategic Account Managers can earn a stronger position in the customer’s mind.
On this page, you’ll find resources to help you think more clearly about how competition is experienced by the customer.
Use this page to think about:
The aim is not simply to beat competitors.
The aim is to understand the comparison taking place inside the customer’s world and shape your value so that it is easier to recognise, believe and defend.
In the Chapter 16 summary video, Fred explains why Strategic Account Managers must understand the customer’s mental comparison set.
The video explores why customers rarely compare suppliers in the neat, rational way suppliers imagine.
They may compare us against competitors, but also against internal delivery, previous experience, budget constraints, alternative priorities, political risk, existing habits or the option of delaying the decision altogether.
That means the question is not only:
“Who are we competing against?”
The better question is:
“What is the customer comparing us with in their mind?”
That distinction matters.
Because if we misunderstand the comparison, we may defend the wrong value.
The Chapter 16 Companion Toolkit is designed to help you understand and improve your competitive position inside the customer’s mind.
Suggested tools and exercises for this chapter include:
The purpose of the toolkit is to move from supplier-centred competitor analysis to customer-centred competitive understanding.
Because we do not win the comparison we imagine.
We win or lose the comparison the customer is actually making.
Competition is usually described from the supplier’s point of view.
We talk about competitor A, competitor B, competitor C. We compare features, prices, service levels, market share, capabilities and relationships. We create competitor battle cards, which is a wonderfully dramatic phrase for a document that usually lives quietly in a shared folder and is slightly out of date.
All of that can be useful.
But it is not enough.
Because the real competitive battle is not taking place in our competitor analysis document.
It is taking place inside the customer’s mind.
The customer is asking a series of questions, some explicit and some unspoken.
Do I believe this supplier?
Do I trust them more than the alternative?
Is the extra value worth the extra cost?
Will this decision make my life easier or harder?
Can I defend this internally?
What happens if it goes wrong?
Is this worth changing for?
That last question is especially important.
Suppliers often assume they are competing against another supplier. Sometimes they are. But very often, they are competing against the customer’s current way of doing things.
The current way may be inefficient, irritating and full of hidden cost. It may be held together with spreadsheets, goodwill and one heroic person called Denise who knows where everything is. But it is familiar.
Familiarity has value.
Not always good value, but psychological value.
To beat the current state, we have to create enough recognised value to overcome the customer’s reluctance to change. That means we must understand not just the benefits of our proposal, but the customer’s perceived cost of movement.
Change consumes attention. Change creates risk. Change requires explanation. Change can disturb internal politics. Change gives people the opportunity to say, “I told you this would happen,” which is a phrase many organisations seem to keep in reserve for emergencies.
So if our value proposition does not reduce the perceived risk of change, the customer may stay where they are.
Not because our offer is weak.
Because the comparison is not strong enough in their mind.
Differentiation works the same way.
Suppliers often say, “We are different because…”
That is a start.
But the customer may not recognise the difference, care about the difference, trust the difference or be willing to pay for the difference.
Differentiation only creates advantage when it matters to the customer.
Otherwise, it is just supplier enthusiasm wearing a brighter tie.
Strategic Account Management therefore requires a different kind of competitive thinking.
We need to understand the customer’s comparison set. What alternatives are they considering? What are they afraid of? What would make them feel safe? What evidence do they need? Who has to defend the decision? What would make staying still feel more expensive than changing? What would make our value feel not only attractive, but necessary?
The best Strategic Account Managers do not simply attack competitors.
They clarify value.
They reduce perceived risk.
They help the customer compare properly.
They make the cost of doing nothing visible.
They translate differentiation into customer consequence.
And they earn a position in the customer’s mind that is not easily replaced by a cheaper quote, a louder claim or a more colourful brochure.
We do not compete only against other suppliers. We compete against whatever the customer believes is safer, easier or more valuable.
Choose one opportunity or account where you believe you are competing strongly.
Now test that belief from the customer’s side.
Ask:
Then complete this sentence:
In the customer’s mind, we are really competing against…
Make the answer honest.
It may be a named competitor.
But it may also be:
Once you understand the real comparison, you can improve the real argument.
This chapter comes from years of seeing suppliers misunderstand the competition.
They prepared against the obvious competitor but lost to inertia.
They defended their price but failed to reduce perceived risk.
They explained their features but failed to show why the customer should change.
They believed they were differentiated but never checked whether the customer cared.
They assumed the customer was comparing solutions, when the customer was really comparing consequences.
The thinking in this chapter connects to several important areas:
Useful themes to explore further include:
The central lesson is this:
The competitor that matters most is the one occupying space in the customer’s mind.
Thank you for reading Chapter 16 of Where Value Lives.
This chapter matters because it changes how we think about competition.
Competitors matter, of course. We should understand them. We should know how they position themselves, where they are strong, where they are weak and why customers may choose them.
But Strategic Account Management requires more than competitor awareness.
It requires customer comparison awareness.
We need to understand how the customer is judging the decision, what they fear, what they trust, what they believe, what they can defend and what they see as the safest route forward.
When we understand that, we stop competing only in the market.
We start competing where value is actually recognised.
Inside the customer’s mind.
If you would like access to the wider Where Value Lives resource library, including practical tools, worksheets, prompts, updates and future companion material, you can join the reader community here.
You do not need to sign up again on every chapter page.
Once you are part of the community, you will be able to access the growing collection of book resources as they are released.
The aim is to help you turn the ideas in the book into practical action across your real accounts, real customers and real commercial relationships.
Because the real competition is not always across the table.
Sometimes it is already inside the customer’s head.
If you would like access to the wider Where Value Lives resource library, including practical tools, worksheets, prompts, updates and future companion material, you can join the reader community below.