Deals are more competitive than ever, and when every vendor is good enough, execution becomes your differentiator. A better run sales process can beat a better product any day of the week.

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Meredith Chandler, Head of Sales at Aligned, walks through four questions to start asking much earlier in every deal. The first one sounds obvious, but it's the one she sees reps avoid the most: who else are you evaluating?

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The problem isn't that sellers don't know competition exists. Asking directly seems more like an interrogation, so the buyer says no just to move on. Meredith reframes each question so the buyer answers honestly, then covers what to do with the answer. Why are they evaluating those other tools to begin with? Where do you actually rank, and what is that competitor doing better right now?

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The final question is the one that changes the deal: how will you ultimately decide? That answer turns your buyer into your coach on how to navigate the deal across the finish line. It also becomes the mutual in your mutual action plan.

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📌 What We Cover

  • Why you should always assume you're in a competitive deal, and why hot leads don't protect you when every vendor is good enough
  • The assumptive phrasing that normalizes competitors: most buyers I talk to looking at a tool like this are also evaluating one or two others, so who else is on your list?
  • What "there's nobody else" usually means, which is that they're comparing you to the status quo or they haven't done the work yet
  • The two moves most sellers make at that point, and why taking it at face value leaves valuable information on the table
  • Why "why them?" matters more than knowing which tools are on the list: a former company, a colleague's recommendation, a CEO nudge, shared investors
  • How to find out where you actually rank without asking point blank, by asking where the perceived gaps are
  • Why the competitor strength a buyer names is the real objection that needs to be overcome
  • How "how will you ultimately decide?" surfaces what to prioritize: team feedback, user feedback, price, terms, rollout and implementation


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🔗 Resources Mentioned

  • Aligned, the AI deal workspace for large multi-stakeholder deals. Build your first room for free.
  • Mutual action plans, plus the follow-up video with a step-by-step guide to building one
  • A future episode on selling against the status quo


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