In the world of sales, there are often no right answers. What would you do in this tough sales situation? Make the call below, and see instantly how your judgment compares. Final results will appear in LBM Journal. Be sure to check back next month for a fresh Tough Call.

Tough Call - Fun & Games with Rumormill Lumber

Instead of milling lumber, your competitor is manufacturing rumors about your business. What would you do?

Since many lumberyards evolved, decades ago, from lumber mills, it’s not unusual for a lumberyard to mill its own lumber products. In fact, this is how your cross-town competitor, Rumormill Lumber, came into being early last century. For the most part, you’ve been friendly competitors—to the extent that if one of you didn’t carry a specific product, you’d send a driver over, or even send the customer to the competitor’s store. Though it now seems like a scene from long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…it hasn’t been that long since it seemed that there was plenty of business for everyone.

What a difference a recession makes.

Today, with housing starts at a virtual standstill in your market, and large scale remodeling jobs few and far between, competition between you and Rumormill Lumber is more intense than ever before. As expected, you’ve both cut back on expenses, and have become very aggressive with pricing, terms, and value-added services. The one thing you didn’t expect was for the folks at Rumormill Lumber to start playing dirty.

Three of your sales reps have returned from separate sales calls and reported that their builder had heard from Rumormill Lumber that your company is in serious trouble. Specifically, that your company fired its president, is closing its design center, and is cutting back on deliveries and other key services. This would indeed be bad news—if any of it were true. As the president and majority owner, you know that the first part is wrong—since you have yet to fire yourself. The second and third parts are just plain false. Apparently, the Rumormill Lumber reps told your customers they “heard it through the grapevine.” None of it is remotely true, and you know exactly where the rumors came from; they were manufactured and distributed by Rumormill Lumber.

You know that Rumormill is the source, because several of your good builder customers have forwarded emails that they received from the competition, questioning your company’s staying power.

It’s well known among area dealers that Rumormill recently laid off 15% of its workforce. While this is an actual fact, it’s not something you took joy in—and using this fact against your competitor is not how you operate.

As disappointing as it is that a formerly honorable competitor has decided to stoop this low, the most important thing right now is to come up with an appropriate response.

What would you do?

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