Status Quo Losses Are Business Vampires

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Welcome to the Same Side Selling podcast. I am your

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host, Ian Altman. What's the biggest thing that drains

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resources from your business? Well, if I ask that question to

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a group of executives, I might get a variety of different

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answers. And ironically, the least common answer is the one

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that I think might be the biggest drain for businesses.

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And that is when you're selling into an opportunity, and your

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client just stays with the status quo. So what do I mean by

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that? I mean, that you're trying to sell something to that client

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or prospect. And at the end of the process, it's not that you

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lose out to a competitor, you lose out to a non decision. In

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essence, what they do is they say, You know what, we're just

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gonna stick with whatever we did in the past, if we did this

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manually in the past, we're still gonna do it manually. If

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we're using this other vendor in the past, we're gonna keep using

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that same vendor, we're just gonna stick with the status quo.

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If you want to get top results for your team, take a look at

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the Same Side Selling Academy, just visit same side selling.com

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to learn more. So for starters, why does that happen? Well, one

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of the biggest reasons why organizations stick with the

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status quo is because there's not enough pain for them,

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there's not enough impact to them of not changing. So what

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happens is, ultimately, they're saying, you know, your stuff

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might be pretty good. But I don't yet think that it's worth

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it for us to take the risk of stopping what we're currently

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doing to switch to your stuff. And when that happens, what it

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means is that as the seller, we were more passionate about

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solving this problem than they were. Because if they truly felt

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that what they were doing right then wasn't effective, if they

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truly felt like there was a consequence of their business of

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not changing, then they would have changed. But what's

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happened is, they've all of a sudden decided that it's okay to

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just stick with whatever they were doing in the past. Now, as

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an organization, if you're looking to change, you have to

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do two things that are very difficult for our customers to

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do. The first thing is you have to acknowledge that maybe you

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made a mistake, hiring that other vendor, or using that

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other method to solve whatever it is you're trying to solve.

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And that's something we as humans, we don't like to do. The

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second thing that you have to do is you have to potentially fire

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the person you liked enough to hire to begin with. That's why

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in many cases, what will happen is, somebody has an existing

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vendor, they're doing a horrible job, you come in and identify

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some areas, that would be great improvement for their business.

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And in fact, you identify deficiencies with their current

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vendor. And instead of switching to you, what they do is they

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say, oh, you know what, that's a really good point. And they

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reach out to their existing vendor, and they say, here's

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this idea. Can you guys fix this? Here's this deficiency,

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can you remedy this for us? As if that organization will never

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make another glaring mistake again? But of course, they

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probably will. So how do we avoid those status quo

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decisions? Because I will tell you that it's extremely

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frustrating for sellers. Because if you lose to a competitor,

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you're like, well, the competitor had a better

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proposal, they had a better solution, they better understood

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the client's needs, we decided to go with them. No, No. The

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status quo is, look, we decided doing nothing was better than

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doing business with you. And that's kind of a deflating

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mindset to walk into. How do we get past that? Well, it's

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probably no surprise that we're going to get past it using the

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Same Side Quadrants. The Same Side Quadrants are a part of

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chapter four of Same Side Selling in the hardcopy of the

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book, it's on page 76. I don't know where it is, and the

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electronic version. But if you search for Same Side Quadrants,

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you'll find it. And the idea of the Same Side Quadrants is it's

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a method for taking notes during our meetings. The idea is that

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in the upper left quadrant, we take notes about the issue that

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the client is trying to solve the upper right quadrant, we

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take notes about the impact or relative importance, namely,

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what happens if they don't solve this, how important is this

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compared to other things on their plate? In the lower left

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quadrant, we take notes about the results, namely, what does

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success look like? What are we going to measure together and

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the lower right quadrant, we make sure that we identify who

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else needs to be included or involved in this process, who's

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most directly impacted? The big mistake that people make is

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sellers find themselves trying to convince the client they

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should do something? And here's a pivotal change that I want you

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to consider. I want you to be a little bit skeptical. I want you

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to when you reach out to clients, always in the back of

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your mind. Ask yourself, have they convinced me that they have

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a problem that's worth solving? Had they convinced me that if

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they don't make this change, something bad is going to happen

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with them, that makes it worth going through the effort of

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making a change. See if I went to a good doctor, and I said,

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Yeah my shoulders bother me a little bit, I want to have

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surgery. A good doctor wouldn't say, Okay, let me scheduled for

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surgery. A good doctor would say, How long has this been

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going on? What have you done to try and solve this? Have you

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taken ibuprofen? What about Tylenol? Does it keep you up at

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night? Does it wake you up at night? Does it impact your

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ability to do things every day that you'd like to be able to

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do, because what they're trying to gauge is the severity because

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a good physician is always weighing the risk, and your

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current discomfort with the potential outcome they can

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deliver for you. And if they don't feel that it's worth that

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delta, that change between where you're at and where you're

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trying to get to, they're not going to try and push you into a

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procedure or surgery. Now, a bad doctor might, but a good doctor

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won't. And in sales, it's the same thing. So we have to do is

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you have to go into those opportunities with a little bit

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of skepticism. I don't mean, throw a damp towel on on

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whatever their ideas are. So what happens if you don't solve

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this? And how important is this compared to other things on your

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plate? What would happen if three months from now we hadn't

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done anything? And if they say, Well, you know, then we'll wait

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another three months. That's not someone who's likely to make a

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decision. Now, this almost sounds counterintuitive, because

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typically, in sales, people say, Oh, this is an opportunity, I

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can't let this go because I'm supposed to bring every deal

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across the finish line. It doesn't work that way. That's

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not the way business operates. We have to have the humility to

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say not everyone's a good fit for us. And as soon as we do

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that, then we start realizing that we need to be more

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selective in the pursuits that we go after. So we don't waste

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our time and energy on the people who aren't going to do

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anything. If your client or prospect can't convince you

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their problems worth solving. How much time should you spend

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trying to develop a solution to something that they don't think

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is worth solving? And the answer is zero. So next time you're

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looking at opportunities, ask yourself, have they convinced us

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for each opportunity that this problem that's worth solving,

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have they convinced us that if they don't solve this bad things

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are going to happen? What that'll do is that will

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eliminate many of the vampires that are sucking the resources

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out of your business, and you'll be able to better focus on the

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right opportunities that will lead to growth. Instead of

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wasting your time with people who are never going to make a

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decision. There are topics you'd like to hear just drop me a note

Ian Altman: 00:07:25

to Ian@Ianaltman.com and I will see you on the next Same Side