# Competitors that bad mouth you



## gastek (Mar 29, 2011)

So how do you folks deal with your competitors that say bad things about you to potential customers? 

I recently ran into this when I was talking to a potential customer and he asked me my opinion of them and I told him that I refuse to bad mouth my competitors and left it at that. So I didn't really say anything about them but my comment does imply I do not think highly of them. 

The funny thing is this competitor is the one that caused the customers issue of which I pointed out and he acknowledged.


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## mstrat (Jul 10, 2013)

Let them...bad mouthing gets nobody anywhere. Think of someone who trash talked their competitor to you at some point, did that really make your decision? Think of the political trash talk on every commercial, you talk trash about your opponent and I'm less likely to regard you as an honorable candidate. I speak fairly highly of competitors here to other people, truth is there are other guys here that deserve it, some that don't too, but they really aren't competitors if they're complete hacks


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## mikeswoods (Oct 11, 2008)

I never ran into that----I am to old to care ,anyway----notoriety is next to fame ,after all!

When ever I have heard a supplier bad rapping his competition,I become curious and just might check out their rival.--Sour grapes---


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## tedanderson (May 19, 2010)

Buyers are liars and the hearsay isn't always true. 

It's very rare that a potential customer says that they heard something negative about me but whenever that happens, I keep in mind that that they still called me for an estimate regardless of the negative comments.


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## slowsol (Aug 27, 2005)

I think it makes you look better to say something complimentary.

Whenever someone asks about one of our competitors, I always say, "obviously I've never worked with them, but they've been doing this a long time also."

And as mentioned above only competitors. Dirtballs and those I consider lesser companies, I just say ,"I don't know much about them."

I want my competitors to do well also. That way we're competing on like playing fields. When the sh*tball companies get all of the work, we all suffer.


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## huggytree (Nov 3, 2013)

if a customer would ask me about a competitor id be truthful

sometimes i tell them 'im a remodeling plumber and they are more into service....so i know what im doing because its what i specialize in'..........i dont see whats so bad about that?

or sometimes ill explain how they are a low end/price only type shop and will use lower quality parts....then ill pull out some of my parts and explain the differences

if they are more expensive ill explain that we are similar companies, but im a bit more reasonable because im smaller

i never knock someone without being truthful about what i know about them.

is it being negative? or educating the customer??

one persons trash talk is someone elses form of education

my sales doubled when i started educating customers on how cheap other plumbers can be....by explaining what quality is helps me sell......i typically dont mention any company by name unless the customer asks


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## Irishslave (Jun 20, 2010)

The one who bad mouths his competition is usually the one that turns out the worst product.........A professional is confident enough in himself that he doesn't have to do this


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## avenge (Sep 25, 2008)

I'll bad mouth anyone whom I know as fact sucks and shouldn't be in this line of work. But I'll praise the good ones as well. I just give my honest opinion if I have one.


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## Chris Johnson (Apr 19, 2007)

A few months ago we got called back onto a project we bid but did not win, the guy who got it was about 35% less then us. Not only was the work that he had completed complete ****, but he never finished the job either.

I rubbed it in a couple times to the GC...well you saved money and we finished the job at our price plus some for the PITA factor. Did I bad mouth the other guy...a few times when we found voids in the walls and most of the project was so far out of square we had to just pick 2 points and start our own thing.


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## NYgutterguy (Mar 3, 2014)

Guy around here owns a gutter cleaning company that gets bad mouthed by every single trade and deserves every word of it. He rips people off at every turn. Was caught gauging after hurricane sandy after charging the homeowner 800$ for a flu cap. Was featured in a news segment by Chanel 2 news in NYC not some local station. He still does very we'll cause has cheesy tv commercials that the average low information homeowner buys hook line and sinker. I'd never bad mouth my competition otherwise. There a a bunch of small companies locally and we are all somewhat friendly with each other . One guys box van caught on fire so I dropped gutters off for him to help him out whenever he needed.


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## PatChap (Jun 1, 2012)

We were doing a roof next door to another crew doing the same roof. After day 1 they left bout 5squares open to the weather, no paper no tarps. I felt bad for the homeowner, he asked me if that was normal practice(they left at 4pm exactly). 
Just said I wouldn't do it, not that the guy was an irresponsible hack.


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## owattabuilder (Sep 2, 2013)

bad mouthing a competitor only makes you look bad. I will say that "they are good competition" but we feel we provide an upgraded product for a similar price and point out the things we do differently and describe why they are better. In the end sometimes it works, sometimes it does not as they customer was only looking for a cheap price and not enhanced quality.


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## blacktop (Oct 28, 2012)

I would never speak badly about one that sends more work my way!


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## Zack78 (Dec 1, 2009)

I was never asked that question. But if i would I would probably say something like
"I cant talk about my competition simply bc I dont know them and I much rather prefer to talk about how we work. Here is a book with a lot of photos of our recent projects which are similar to what you want to do. I would be more than happy to take you to any of them to show you the work we did. Its hard to put everything on pictures but I thought it might be good starting point for us to find out what you are looking for. And based on that we can establish a budget for the project. ........."


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## Zack78 (Dec 1, 2009)

I would probably say also something like
" I think competition is good. Motivates people to do better work. Your house is very beautiful and yes needs some updates but I know that you will love it ever bit of it by time we done. I also think its important for you to know that we are license and fully insured and we will provide you copies of it before we start any work..........

All this time I am talking like I already have the job bc we good and we will deliver good product for fair price and on time. Your goal is to sell yourself the way that they dont look for anybody else bc they have you. And you are what they need.


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## Calidecks (Nov 19, 2011)

Irishslave said:


> The one who bad mouths his competition is usually the one that turns out the worst product.........A professional is confident enough in himself that he doesn't have to do this


Bingo!


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## brickhook (May 8, 2012)

I have a former employee , lives a few miles from me, go out on his own years ago.

He's struggled to get work, and I've even sent him some small odd jobs, let him borrow equipment, and even give him materials.

........Meanwhile he stands down here at our local corner store everyday drinking his coffee and running everybody else in the ground.

For the last 4 years or so, he's been going to my jobs around here telling the HO that he would do their job for half ,what I would charge. :laughing:

I've never let his mouth bother me cause everyone around here knows him, and I've never considered him as competition.

Then one morning he caught me on a bad day :laughing: And in front of everyone, I just told him , he could talk about me all day long....just tell the truth! .....Problem solved! :laughing:


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

I've always said those that have to tell you how good they are probably are not. And those that have to put others down in order to build themselves up are short on skill and talent.


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## FrankSmith (Feb 21, 2013)

When a customer lets me know they are talking to other contractors I usually say something along the lines of: I assumed you would be and have no problem with that. I appreciate that I am one of them. I would love to do the job for you but if you find someone who is a better fit or a better price for what you are trying to accomplish it won't hurt my feelings. 

It seems unnatural to say it won't hurt my feelings. I don't like when customers bring up other contractors. It causes me to wounder if they are trying to get a better price. That is my polite way of letting them know my price is my price. 

I have never been told that some one had badmouthed my business. If that happened I would start by making sure they hadn't accurately found a shortcoming. If all was good its a great time to tell the customer why you do what you do.


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## fast fred (Sep 26, 2008)

people may bad mouth me, I don't really know nor do I care

I"ll go look at a job, and a previous contractor has done some work on the place and it's horrible and the customer starts telling me how they hired idiots and so forth, I keep my mouth shut, say yes, and "things like that can happen" I think it's important to just stay neutral and not badmouth anyone, you just look like an idiot if you do

I did go look at a job a month ago, the guy called over and over on a sunday night, and then finally I called him back tue morning, he said he wanted me to come out to his house (40 min drive each way) he was in a hurry because he was leaving town, I told him lets meet when he's back in town, he didn't buy that, so I went and looked, I was irritated because I had a million other things to deal with and I knew that this was a false lead, well he went over what he wanted done and kept asking how much.......... I gave him a ballpark with the usual disclaimer, so it came out to be a total of 30 k and I think he has 3k in his bank acct.

well then he says so and so was coming over to give him a bid and do the work asap, I just let it slip that so and so is an idiot and they screwed up half of the things they touched. I was tired and realized how much time I was wasting, after I let loose I apologized and told him i should not have said those things and it was just my opinion and not the facts (it is true the other company has a list of so many screw ups it not even funny) the customer never called me back like he said he would or get me the info he said he would, so something worked out in my favor


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