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Vera

Talk about the competition without sounding threatened.

Displacement, incumbents, and the trap of trashing a rival.

They mention a competitor and your tone changes.

What Vera actually is

A phone call with someone who is not there. You say the thing out loud, they answer the way a real person would, and you get to do it again — as many times as it takes, with nobody listening.

1She calls youA real phone call, about ten seconds after you tap. Lock screen, headphones, car — wherever you take calls.
2She plays the other personNot a coach reading tips. Competitor Objections, with someone on the other end who answers back.
3She pushes when you are vagueFollow-up questions, interruptions when you ramble, and a straight read at the end on what landed.
Start Practising

15 minutes free · no card needed

Start Practising

15 minutes free · no card needed

“What if I am bad at it?”Everyone is, on the first one. That is the entire reason it happens here and not there.
“What if I do not know what to say?”She asks first and follows up on whatever you answer. You never start from a blank page.
“What if it is awkward?”It is, for about twenty seconds. Then it is a conversation, and nobody heard the twenty seconds.

Not practising doesn’t save you anything.

The ticket, the evening, the weeks of applying — all of it is spent before anyone says a word. The practice is the only cheap part, and the only part that changes how the rest goes.

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What they'll actually say

A prospect who pushes back, then follows up on however you handle it.

  1. We are already using your biggest competitor and it is fine.
  2. How are you different from them, specifically?
  3. They told us you cannot do X. Is that true?
  4. We looked at you last year and went with someone else.
  5. Why should we switch when nothing is broken?
More about this one

How you talk about a competitor tells a prospect more about you than about them. Trashing a rival reads as insecurity, and going quiet reads as agreement. Meanwhile the hardest version — the incumbent nobody is unhappy with — needs a different conversation entirely, because there is no problem to solve and the real competitor is inertia. All three are predictable and worth rehearsing separately.

Why this one is hard

Tone shiftDefensiveness is audible immediately and is the thing prospects remember.
The happy incumbentNo pain means no deal, so the conversation has to find a gap rather than argue against a rival.
Feature comparisonComparing feature lists is a debate you cannot win and did not need to have.
Knowing the rivalVagueness about a competitor everyone knows makes you look uninformed.

What Vera listens for

Gracious framingAcknowledging a competitor honestly is more persuasive than dismissing them.
Finding the gapWith a happy incumbent, the whole job is finding what they have stopped noticing.
Honesty about gapsConceding a real limitation buys credibility for everything else you say.

Related practice

Objection HandlingThe eight objections you get constantly, rehearsed until they stop landing.Price ObjectionsHold your price, or find out whether price is the real issue.Discovery CallsQuestions that open a prospect up, and the discipline not to fill silence.For Account ExecutivesDiscovery, demos, negotiation, and the deal that just went quiet.

Common questions

Should I ever criticise a competitor?

Rarely directly. Naming a genuine tradeoff is different from disparaging, and prospects hear the difference clearly.

What if they are actually better at something?

Say so. Reps who concede one point are believed on the rest, and the ones who concede nothing are believed on nothing.

How do I displace a happy incumbent?

Usually by finding what they have accepted as normal that does not have to be. That is discovery, not argument.

Who this matters most for

For Account Executives

Rehearse it once before it counts

Your first 15 minutes are free. No card required.

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