“As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out, and I don’t quote Newt Gingrich that often, we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking a patient’s health records.”
As recently as April, I blogged about how to treat your competition (They said we were average but they were just being mean); however, when I heard President Obama’s speech the other day, I thought it worth repeating:
You gain credibility when you treat your competition fairly
Salespeople can learn a lot about competition from the most recent presidential election. President Obama (and his team) did a masterful job of managing his competition both in the primaries and general election. His strategy of defusing the competition by acknowledging their strengths won him the Presidency while simultaneously broadening unity. As President he has continued this successful approach by including adversaries in his administration (Hillary), speaking to the opposition on their “turf” (Cairo speech), and focusing on the common ground between enemies (Notre Dame Commencement).
While my goals are not as lofty as Barack Obama’s (after all my focus is recruitment process outsourcing not world peace), I definitely like to win my unfair share of opportunities. And respectfully acknowledging your competition’s strength and knowledge needs to be part of this winning strategy.
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