Don’t praise the competition. You should respect it and appreciate it, but praise it? No, absolutely not. Not once. Not ever!

Nothing good comes to a company if its SMEs heap admiration on the competition. Don’t do it yourself and don’t support it from your colleagues. No matter how stellar your competitors may be, they don’t deserve your praise. Praise is reserved for the people on your team.

Some SMEs have the mistaken notion that speaking supportively about the opposing team will make them sound informed and objective. They think that their unsolicited praise of the competition will make them appear unbiased and trustworthy. To the contrary, praising the competition makes the SME look disloyal and weak. You do a tremendous disservice to your reputation, your company, and your cause when you praise your competitors.

If the SME offers one awkward word of praise for a competitor followed by a thousand persuasive words about their own services, the competitor wins, and handsomely. If your competitor can capture your compliment, even if taken out of context, they will weaponize it and play it to your customers repeatedly.

Of course, SMEs must have in-depth knowledge of the competitive landscape. They should know the strengths and weaknesses of each product on the market. But they must not gather competitive knowledge just to give it away to any prospective customer who asks a probing question.

If it can be avoided, an SME should never mention a competitor by name. If asked directly about a competitor, the SME should skirt the question and talk about their own product or service. Questions about the competition should never be used as an opportunity to compliment them, nor should they be used as a reason for negativity. Just because the SME knows a lot about the competition doesn’t mean a question should pry open the floodgates. If pressed, and only if pressed, the SME can provide a direct one-sentence negative review of the competitor that hits at the heart of the competitor’s most vulnerable weakness. The SME should always bring into focus their strengths and their competitor’s weaknesses—never the other way around.

Never praise competitors.