Few in sales will argue that the Stats Quo is you biggest barrier to entry, why change if it is working.  Yet sales people continue to do the same thing over and over, sell the same way over and over to try and overcome the Status Quo.  The end result is they basically develop their own “Seller Edition” version Status Quo.  Some even see it as a “Special Edition”.

You see it everywhere, especially in industries where the client has choice and where 80% of suppliers are hardly distinguishable.  If you are a small business in Kansas, tell me the major difference between your top four options in wireless, if you find a weak sales person, maybe price.

So if for the buyer it is all about “safe sameness”, the only way you as a seller have a shot is to be different, really different, not just in the shade of beige blandness.  Some of these buyers get 10 or more calls a day from 10 or different beige reps.  Any wonder why they don’t react.  You look beige; you’re going to get beiged:

Buyer: “We’re all set, gotta a (place your product here)”
Seller: “Well perhaps I can send you some stuff, you never know when you may have need for an alternative”
Buyer: “Sure, send me some beige, and I will look at it and keep you in mind” {still some room in that drawer, on second thought} “You can just send it by e-mail instead”

But if instead you were bright red, challenging, enticing, inviting, what would that mean?  How can you do that?  Start by abandoning you and put the focus on how to make a difference beyond your buyer, on his customers.  Different than focusing on the buyer, put the light on the success he is measured on, and the people doing the measuring, his customers.  Now there is a difference, looking beyond the obvious, and concentrate on the impact you can make to his customers, internal and external. 

It is not what he is expecting; it is beyond his Status Quo, and the everything he has been conditioned to expect from the beige army of sellers who have paraded through his office and phone.  This is taking a people by from people to a an alternate space.  Doing it requires no more effort than the same old same old happening now; a bit of knowledge, a bit of creativity, and a lot of energy in engaging the buyer.

Most sellers knowingly or unknowingly spend a lot of time trying to fit in by finding their shade of beige and hoping it catches the buyers eye, why not catch them by standing out by being bold in the way you make a difference.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto