Hey, just my observation but I have always found that people who "bag" their opposition (them personally or their equiptment), usually bring out their competitive instinct instead and as a result tend to "raise the bar" rather than knock them out of the "race"
I may be a little perverse, but if I "win" (anything) I enjoy it much more if the "losers" "bag" me for my performance I.E "you were just lucky" or "If my boat wasn't such a dog today you would never have beaten ME", etc. That always makes me feel better than if the people that I won from say things like, "well done", or "you were definitely the best person out there today", or "I sailed as good as I ever have but no one deserves it more than you". Those sorts of comments tend to make me feel almost apologetic for winning, which takes the edge off the joy. It always feels better to have won over "bad" loser rather than "good" ones, makes what I have done feel just that little bit sweeter.
Ya gotta love the sore losers. They make it very hard not to smile from ear to ear while you beat them on every point of sail. But, always take the high road whether it's competition or selling boats or anything else. This thread was started because of precieved negative selling.
Negative selling only goes so far. Once the customer catches on that the majority of the pitch is trashing the competition they'll probably walk. A good example of no negative sell are NFL coaches. You'd think the opposing team were all gods from Mt. Olympus the way they talk.
