Iannarino - Eat their lunch: winning customers away from your competition

The Only Sales Guide Youll Ever Need

The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the Ten Commitments That Drive Sales

I grew up in an insanely competitive industry. The service I sold was highly profitable, but it wasnt sexy. It was perceived and treated as a commodity by most buyers. And since virtually all of those buyers were already using the service sold, the only way to win was by taking those accounts from entrenched, incumbent vendors who were intent on holding onto their lucrative business.

You guys are all the same was the regular refrain from buyers who perceived no difference between the various vendors in my niche. Most preferred to avoid meeting altogether and brushed off appointment requests with Just give me your best price; if youre in the ballpark, well talk.

The race to the bottom on a pure price play in this hypercompetitive environment was short, fast, and usually ended abruptlyincumbents did not lose accounts on price.

To call it a grind is an understatement. Every opportunity was a chess match. Outhustle was the name of the game. There was no easy button. Each deal had to be EARNED. In this grueling, cutthroat, winner-takes-all world, salespeople who found it difficult to differentiate beyond price burned out quickly.

It was inside this crucible that I learned how to master the board and eat their lunch. If you could flip the commodity script on its ear. If you could deftly expose competitor weaknesses. If you could connect emotionally with buyers and influence their behaviors. If you were adept at displacing competitors. You could make a ton of money.

I loved this world and thrived in it. Displacing fat and happy and often lazy competitors who were taking advantage of my prospects was a game I lived for. Shifting a perceived commodity to a differentiated value-added service was like creating fine art.

What made me successful, along with many other professionals who work in similar competitive situations, was not manipulation, tricks, or technology. It wasnt an overwhelming competitive advantage. It certainly wasnt marketing, branding, or advertising.

Instead, it was making the process of buying personal. It was professionalism, integrity, and an intense focus on human relationships. When I mastered human-influence frameworks, deal strategy, and my own emotions, I rose above the pack. When I became a problem solver who focused on delivering measurable business outcomes, I won the dayagain and again and again.

In this masterpiece book, for the first time, Anthony Iannarino teaches you the art and science of competitive displacement. He shows you step by step how the very best salespeople in the world obliterate their fiercest competitors. Youll learn winning strategies and frameworks that will instantly allow you to differentiate yourself in the crowded global marketplace.

Anthony and I are like brothers from another mother. Hes one of my very best friends. We talk about sales and selling constantly. Obsessively. Sometimes several times in a day. At times we debate, argue, and disagree on an approach or an idea, but we are both driven in our collective mission to advance sales as a profession.

We are also in violent agreement that the sales profession has gotten soft and that salespeople have lost their competitiveness. Far too many salespeople want the deal handed to them on a silver platter. As Anthony says, we have moved from a generation of rainmakers to a new era of rain barrels who stare at the sky hoping that something might fall in.

Ive got news for you, hope is not a strategy, and its time for an awakening from this sad malaise that has descended on the sales profession. It begins with this book.

Why should you pay attention to Anthony? He has lived in and continues to live in the trenches just like you. He grinds it out with his own sales teamskipping meals and doing deals. Like so many great sales professionals who do hand-to-hand combat and consistently come out winners, hes clear, to the point, and filters out all of the fluffy BS so that you can get to the truth.

In Eat Their Lunch, Anthony holds nothing back. You are going to get the unadulterated truth about why you are failing and not reaching your income goals. It will become crystal-clear why your competitors always seem to be getting the best of you.

With the turn of each page, though, youll gain more confidence in competitive situations. Youll employ new strategies that give you a decisive edge. Youll learn how to interact with buyers who think you are a commodity and will flip the script. When you put Anthonys techniques to work in your sales day, you will win big, your prospects will win big, and you will eat your competitors lunch.