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Dear Green Guys and Green Girls,

You know what grinds my gears? Vendors who refuse to call out other vendors. No, i’m not talking about vendor bashing, that’s never OK, i’m talking about Vendors who don’t bother to specifically acknowledge their competition by name.

Sure you’ll say “some software” or “some hardware” or “other products” but you’re not telling us who/what/where/when those products are. This is annoying, counterproductive, and grinds my gears more than a 16 year old learning to drive.

Now this isn’t everyone, and it’s isn’t all the time, but it happens more often than I’d like.

I’m going to put this disclaimer up, i’m in no way pointing that a single vendor or GG is doing this, however I will say this falls in line with the “don’t post copy” issue. This is not intended to be an attack on a single GG or vendor, but clearly I need to use examples, otherwise i’m a hypocrite.

Most recently I saw this post .

While I could argue that this is copy disguised as a discussion, I assume Max is above that, and I also assume that Veeam is above “Quantity over quality” posting. However, when you specifically state you won’t name vendors it leads me to believe that you don’t actually care about discussion as much as you care about getting your name out there.

As I mentioned in that thread:

"I personally prefer my vendors to be knowledgeable about not only their product, but about the market as a whole and what makes them stand out. I also like them to be able to professionally point out that in certain aspects their product are superior or inferior to another vendor/product.

No offense, but when I see a vendor not willing to point this out I see a vendor who lacks confidence in their product, and that’s almost as bad has having a bad product."

And I mean it, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be posting this.

So what do I expect from a vendor regarding this? I expect a vendor to be able to name their competition, by name, and tell me why that solution or company isn’t “worthy of being in my server rack”. That doesn’t mean that you should bash, and if you do bash i’m going to lose all of my respect for you. As long as you’re basing your opinions in fact then it shouldn’t matter that you’re naming a competitor, nobody is going to specifically choose an inferior product when the facts support your assumption that you are the better product.

I’d assume that many of this “comes from above”, when you’re dealing with most products you want to ignore the competition as an option whenever possible to keep sales up. Should you make an assumption that something is “better” when it’s really a matter of preference you might drive sales away (e.g. Coke isn’t going to say “Less Sugar than Pepsi” because those that want more sugar in their cola will defect to Pepsi). But by not naming names you’re encouraging me to do some research.

Let’s assume I LOVE sugar, I hear “Less Sugar than Pepsi” and I want Pepsi. If I hear “Less Sugar than other Colas” i’m going to research my options to determine my optimal choice. I might find that both Pepsi and RC have the same sugar content, putting Coke at an even lower position than before.

This goes for IT products. If you tell me that you have Feature A, and others still don’t use Feature A optimally then I’m going to look into your competition to see who that is. But if you say “competitors X, Y, and Z” don’t then i’m only going to look into those competitors.

As I mentioned above, your ability to name the competition shows you have confidence, you don’t need to hide anything. It also helps me relate to you better, you’re now speaking like I’d expect a peer to speak, rather than a sales dork.

And that is what it really boils down to: relating to your audience. If you speak like I speak then i’m going to be more receptive.

Make what you will of all this, maybe you’d love to do that but your boss won’t let you, maybe you’re afraid to name competition, maybe you don’t care about relating to your audience, maybe you already do this.

I will say that I don’t entertain weak vendors, if you aren’t 100% committed to your product then I’m not interested, and failing to point out your strengths and weaknesses specifically means you’re not committed.

Thanks for reading,

Paragraph

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Fully agree. We as a Backup & Recovery provider talk about our competitors, not in a bad way, and ask potential business customers to do their research in the market. We are confident we offer the best all round solution at a good price. Those who don’t are maybe afraid that if they go and talk to a competitor they might not come back! Loving the Family Guy theme, that is what made me ready this article… Cheers

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Interesting, and good read, I agree with most of it. The only thing I could suggest is, maybe a safe driving / drivers-ed course for the 16 year old. It lowers their insurance and will save you some stress.

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Sales isn’t meant to educate. It’s meant to route you.

But I totally agree. That’s why I hate 90% of sales pitches. It’s almost always a slanted view of the reality of the industry, so as far as I’m concerned they can all bug off until I decide I’m ready to educate myself on the given subject, and then don’t call me, I’ll call you.

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Paragraph - Thanks for this insight into what you like and dislike about vendors mentioning their competitors in the community. It’s feedback like this that makes Spiceworks invaluable.

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I’m glad i’m not the only one who feels this way.

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Education Education Education… This why I signed up to SpiceWorks to educate, not to sell. Those who are educated about products and services will then be able to make the right decision for their requirements, not to be told what is right.

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Hey Paragraph, I’ll take a stab at an answer and I certainly understand your concerns. I’m currently in marketing but used to be an IT admin/server guy in my previous life. So understand your need for that detailed information and more information on the products in your consideration set. Not only positive information for the vendor’s offering but also the competition to make your decision-making simpler.

And from the marketing/sales sense, it would make things easier if there were very clearly defined leaders and losers (or non-leaders). So first I’ll say there’s not always a distinct and consistent way to present why one offering is better than the other. It can be very subjective from customer to customer, challenge 1 which you mention above.

Challenge 2 is disseminating that information through your product marketing team to sales and then possibly to your partner channel. You have to create assets, copy, etc to present that information in a cohesive fashion to a team of people that may have lots of products they are selling. Sales rep maybe has multiple product lines across multiple vendors. So bashing a competitor may cause conflict in your sales-partner channel. And understand it also may take weeks or months to create that asset and get it distributed.

So the final Challenge, 3 is the pace at which technology moves and we all understand that first-hand. Say there’s a product gap/weakness and we start the process of creating assets and a story that profiles that information. Two or three months later we get that information out to our sales/channel/partner team. Competitor has rectified that flaw/weakness with firmware, software update, you name it. Now our sales and channel team has incorrect information and looks pretty silly (and inept) in front of customer. Now we have to pull back and retract that info through same channel.

There are reasons why marketing can be a bit vague and less specific than you like and it all has to do with the length of the marketing/sales channel and moving a lot of people in the same direction with a story. And it has to do with the breadth of what we cover and needing to be as efficient as possible. But yes, we understand your concerns, just wish we had better answers. It can be a challenge marketing and effectively telling just your own story, never mind everyone else’s. In a perfect world, yes we’d do that.

Ron

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Yeah, scripted sales people would have a hard time comparing to other vendors - I totally agree. It’s always great talking to the ones that actually understand their sector of the industry.

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Paragraph,

That was very succinctly stated and very well explained. I also agree. Vendors who make broad, sweeping statements without naming why ‘X, Y and Z don’t have this while we do but X and Z are able to do this and that makes them different from us’ is very important. I don’t want to get the runaround. I want to know what I should look for and what I shouldn’t. I want to be encouraged to research without having to look at every different possible vendor on the market. Don’t flood me with useless whitepapers and meaningless generalities. If you can do something well, explain why you are superior to your competitors in a professional manner. No bashing or saying ‘well, they suck because…’.

Just as a completely hypothetical example…

Unitrends is able to backup server types X, Y and Z while Veeam and BackupExec can’t. However, for those who are looking for a strictly software based solution, Veeam and BackupExec might be your option.

–

Now compare that to…

Veeam is better than many other competitors because we can backup any type of machine that has ever existed. We feel that our product is better because comparative products on the market are unable to do this.

–

The first statement is to the point and tells me what I should and shouldn’t look for.

Just a disclaimer, I just made up random stuff to make a point.

Anyways, the second make broad statements without giving me any real facts to compare with. While those might not be perfect examples, I agree with Paragraph. Tell me why you should get my $$ versus another product in a firm but professional manner. That is how you do it.

Thanks,

A.J.

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Paragraph, thank you for taking your time to start this thread and for your involvement. We definitely appreciate your feedback.

I absolutely agree with your write up. As for my part on Spiceworks, I am trying to be honest and informative. I strive to be a contributing member of the community by participating in conversations and sharing my knowledge/experience as well as learn from all of you. Hope your reminder will be helpful to every vendor on Spiceworks.

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My take on naming competitors is to not do it in a public forum. In a private conversation sure, but representing a vendor I don’t take the broad approach. Quite frankly, I don’t need to.

The original poster of this thread or anyone for that matter may not know it, but the competitive pressure in today’s world is real. In fact, it’s a big deal. Backup software is pretty competitive, but at least it’s not storage. The competitive pressure is on, and its constant. In fact, that’s one of the things that drives innovation - and then we all benefit.

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I’m going to have to disagree, the fact that it’s competitive makes me more interested in how you understand how you stack up against the competition. More importantly the “real” competition.

Even in highly competitive markets you have the big industry leaders and the little guys. By skirting around answering “who” you’re talking about I’ll have to determine that myself, and It’s never going to be favorable to you.

I’m not saying “tell me who your competitor is”, I’m saying “If you’re going to reference the competition, don’t be vague”.

You don’t need to tell me anything about the competition to make me confident in you, but if you attempt to you need to be specific.

It all boils down to the fact that what I do, and what all of us do, is a science, not an art. We work in facts only. If you’re going to make a claim, back it up and show your work.

That means that if you compare yourself to the competition you need to tell me who exactly you’re comparing against and what metric.

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Paragraph, A.J. Stringham, et al,

Thank you all for the feedback! Very interesting. I’ll definitely keep it in mind. I think GGs are sometimes concerned of where the line is between mentioning and bashing a competitor. It seems a little open to interpretation, especially if you’re the competitor or a SpiceHead advocate of the competitor being mentioned. My guess is most vendors lean toward not mentioning competitors, primarily out of professional courtesy or corporate culture.

A.J. Stringham, your example really helped clarify it for me.

Thanks again!

Toni

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I can completely understand that, but as long as your observations are truthful then you shouldn’t worry about anyone assuming you’re bashing the competition, and should you be on the receiving end, as long as it’s truthful it’s not an argument

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That’s true. It’s like parents tell kids all the time, “If you can’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it at all.”

Here’s a Dilbert on marketing comparisons:

Dilbert_Marketing.jpg

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Valuable dialog. I am just getting active on here and I am with a manufacturer Axis Communications (see I am trainable…)

While I don’t suffer from any lack of opinion regarding my competition, I do agree with the private versus public forum when it comes to let’s say apples to apples type of communiques. I do, however, really enjoy fact based real life experience sharing with or without competitive references…

  • Vince @ Axis
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