Competitor's SDR asking for pointers🤔

For context, the company I work for is pretty small and new and we go up against this hugely popular competitor who is also the market leader. A rep who was going to join them as an SDR reached out to me asking if we could hop on a call to understand our customer's usecases in general and how our tool compares against theirs.

While I'm almost always okay to do this, this was different. We're the underdog and this person is probably going to have an advantage over us already (status quo). I politely declined saying we could talk, but I wouldn't be comfortable talking about my tool though.

What would y'all have done? Could I have done something differently?

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10 comments

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salesnerd

WR Officer

Head of Growth

I would have said pretty much what you said...

"Hey, happy to connect with you on LinkedIn or whatever, but I don't feel comfortable sharing company information with a competitor, especially one that has a substantially higher market share. Good luck out there!"

fuzzy

Notable Contributor

CMO (Chief Meme Officer)

Lmao Bold move Cotton the stones on that guy

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

Lmao Bold move Cotton the stones on that guy

Trinity

WR Officer

BusDev

I would do the same, but I would even go as far as telling the person to reach out to the hiring company (competitor) for onboarding.

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

I agree. You made the right call.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

You might want to alert leadership that this company is trying to do that crap so they can send out a "don't do this" message to the whole org.

BmajoR

Arsonist

Account Executive

You made the right call for sure, that is so shady on their end.

softwarebro

Politicker

Sales Director

*Click* no way jabrone

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

ISR

At my time at Apple, I often sold them what was appropriate for them, even if it meant something non-Apple. "No sir, you do not need this $4000 laptop to check your emails."

Error32

Politicker

ISR

Love that move. It builds trust for the future. I've even had competitors reach out to me and ask the best way to send me leads because the companies aren't great fits for them.