The Invisible Game: Why Elite Sales Reps See Competition Where Others See Cooperation
You Should Never Be Satisfied with Winning a Participation Trophy in Sales
In the 1970s, Stanford psychologist Ellen Langer conducted a fascinating study. Participants who chose their own lottery tickets demanded five times more money to sell them back compared to those who received randomly assigned numbers. Same odds. Different perception of control.
This isn’t just about lottery tickets—it’s the perfect metaphor for what separates elite sales performers from everyone else.
I see it constantly: mediocre reps view each opportunity as a collaboration with the buyer. Elite reps recognize every interaction as a competitive event—not against the buyer, but for mindshare, against invisible opponents, against status quo, against time itself.
These top performers aren’t just participating in sales conversations. They’re competing in them. And they’re acutely aware that the scoreboard is usually hidden.
The Invisible Competition
Your prospective client won’t announce they’ve got five vendors in rotation.
They rarely reveal that your champion is secretly advocating for your competitor’s solution.
And they almost never signal that you’re losing mindshare before they ghost you.
In enterprise sales, the most important signals are the ones you don’t receive. The game is happening whether you acknowledge it or not. The difference is that elite reps act like they’re in competition even when they can’t see the scoreboard—because they know they always are.
The moment you assume you’re not competing is the moment you’ve already lost.
The Invisible Players
Most sales conversations create a dangerous illusion - that you’re seeing all the players. But you’re not.
Too many reps believe they’re playing one-on-one when they’re actually in a multiplayer game. The buyers you never meet are often the ones determining your fate. The questions you’re never asked are shaping the evaluation. The conversations happening when you’re not in the room are setting the rules.
Elite reps understand this instinctively. They map the invisible players—the technical evaluators who never join calls, the procurement specialists who lurk in the shadows, the executive sponsors who make one appearance and vanish. They create strategies for influencing people they may never meet.
How to Know You’re Not Really Competing
You think you’re in the game. But are you really playing to win? Here are the warning signs I see with struggling reps:
You’re letting the prospect control the pace and sequence of the evaluation.
You’re responding to requests rather than proactively shaping the buying journey.
You’ve accepted their definition of the problem rather than expanding or reframing it.
You can’t articulate why they would choose a competitor over you (or vice versa).
You don’t know what happens if they do nothing instead of buying your solution.
You’re not creating urgency because you believe “it’ll happen when it happens.”
Each of these indicators reveals the same fundamental issue: you’re participating, not competing.
The Four Questions Elite Reps Answer
When I work with top-performing sales reps, I notice they instinctively identify the structure of the competition before engaging. They ask four critical questions:
What game are we playing?
Is this a price game? A political game? A compliance game? A vision game? Each requires fundamentally different approaches.
In complex sales, correctly identifying the true nature of the evaluation makes all the difference. A capabilities-focused approach falls flat when the real game is about risk mitigation. Understanding what matters most to the decision-makers—beyond the stated requirements—is what separates winners from runners-up.
Who makes the rules?
In every evaluation, someone establishes the criteria, timeline, and process. If you’re not influencing the rule-maker, you’re playing at a disadvantage.
Elite reps identify who controls the buying process and invest disproportionate energy in shaping their thinking. They know that winning the rule-maker often means winning the deal.
Who are the real players?
Most deals involve 6-10 stakeholders, but only 2-3 typically join vendor calls. Great reps map the hidden influencers and create strategies to reach them—whether through content, existing relationships, or by expanding the conversation.
What defines a win?
This is the most crucial question. What does winning actually look like—not just for the company, but for each key stakeholder?
Many deals are lost when reps focus solely on ROI or technical capabilities, missing the personal win conditions that drive decisions. Sometimes the true win condition is about the stakeholder’s reputation, their ability to demonstrate innovation, or solving a problem that isn’t in the official requirements.
The Competitive Actions of Elite Performers
Once they understand the game, top reps operate differently:
They reframe conversations around business impact rather than features
They create micro-commitments throughout the process (“Can we align on implementation timeline next week?”)
They address competitive differences proactively rather than reactively
They accelerate timelines when they have momentum and slow things down when they need to strengthen their position
They constantly test their champion’s advocacy through increasingly difficult requests
Notice that none of these are about being aggressive or pushy. They’re about awareness and strategic action.
The Hidden Cost of Not Competing
The most painful losses aren’t the deals you know you’ve lost. They’re the ones still sitting in your pipeline months later, gathering dust and false hope.
These zombie deals reveal the true cost of not recognizing the competitive nature of sales: you lose without learning. There’s no clear moment of defeat, no opportunity to analyze what went wrong. The feedback loop breaks. Development stalls.
Many sales teams struggle with this exact problem—reps with stalled opportunities who can’t explain why they’re not advancing. They don’t realize those games ended long ago. They’re standing on an empty field, wondering why no one’s playing anymore.
Recognize the Game, Change Your Results
No one accidentally wins complex sales deals. Victory comes from conscious recognition of the competitive dynamics at play, even when—especially when—they’re invisible.
Next time you’re reviewing opportunities with your team, start by asking:
What game are we actually playing here?
Who controls the rules and criteria?
Who are all the players, seen and unseen?
What constitutes a win for each key stakeholder?
Because if you can’t answer these questions, you’re not really competing.
And in sales, not competing doesn’t mean you’re collaborating.
It means you’re losing.