Mailbag: How to Badmouth Your Competitor

John writes:

I am a landscape designer/landscape contractor. I just took a call from a client about a drafting a landscape design. They said they had also contacted one of my competitors and I really wanted to say, “Oh, they’re great at mowing lawns. However, they aren’t very strong in landscape design and construction.”

I don’t like to badmouth the competition so I kept my opinion to myself. I think the right answer is that by working with me they will see why I am the better choice and who to choose will be a no brainer. How would you have responded? You’re welcome to use this query as fodder for your blog.

It’s easy to answer a question like this by telling you not to badmouth your competitors, to remain professional, and to play your own game. But that’s not the right answer. The truth in that answer is it is wrong to badmouth your competitors by singling them out by name. It’s petty. It destroys trust. It doesn’t differentiate.

There are three ways to badmouth your competitors and still remain professional, and the key here is differentiation. If you can differentiate effectively, you don’t need to single your competitor out by name.

The first way to badmouth your competitor is to pick apart their business model. If they are the low price leader, you differentiate with a better product or a better overall solution. You can’t say, “They’re not really very good.” But you might be able to say something like, “They’re really very good at what they do. In fact, they’re the low price leader in this space. We cost a bit more because our focus is on design and construction. But we believe that we also provide a very different experience, a much greater value for your investment, and a much better result. Can I share of the ways we help our clients get the landscape design of their dreams and see if we might be a better fit for what it sounds like you need?”

The second way is to badmouth the entire industry. This is an especially good method to differentiate because you don’t have to single out your competitor at all. You might be able to say something along the lines of, “Most of the industry is made up of lawn service companies that dabble in landscape design and construction. We think that’s a mistake. Landscape design and construction is a different business. It takes a greater level of expertise. It also requires a different team with a very different level of experience.”

The final way to badmouth your competitors does come with some risk. You can badmouth your competitor’s business practices. But you can only do so if what you are saying is true. And you can’t accuse them of breaking any laws. I wrote a post about some time ago. One of my client’s competitors have revenue-sharing arrangements with their vendors, but they refuse to disclose the amount of revenue. These competitors price low, but they make their money on the revenue-sharing arrangement. This is the kind of business practice that you can badmouth (there’s no transparency).