Ever wonder what mediocrity sounds like? It has the sound of the self-imposed limitation. It's the stillness of the question that goes unasked, the hypothesis never tested.
They'll never pay that price. That's not how the customer wants to buy. Nobody's doing it that way.
Nobody gets up in the morning and says, Wouldn't it be great if absolutely nothing happened or changed today? But as we know, actions speak louder than words; sometimes the action is the choice of not acting.
In our industry, we are constantly challenged to evolve, invent and grow...to imagine whole new courses of behavior and economic models...to hit bigger numbers by selling brand new products and crafting them into entirely new packages and configurations. But in the face of this challenge, many sellers never get out of the gates. Instead they immediately begin negotiating against themselves.
They'll never pay that price. That's not how the customer wants to buy. Nobody's doing it that way.
When I led sales teams many years ago, and when I coach managers and individual contributors today, the advice I give them is shockingly simple.
Ask the question.
Failing to make the sale is acceptable. Failing to ask for the sale, the price or the terms is not. You may be right about how the customer will react, but go out and get me that 'no.' The act of making your case and putting an opportunity or a challenge in front of a customer creates a new dynamic and good things can fall out. Perhaps they start to actually negotiate and tell you where their boundaries are. Or maybe you end up finding another opportunity, or another path to the sale.
Ask the question.
George Bernard Shaw said, The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Sometime in the weeks and months ahead, an unreasonable seller is going to get in your client's ear and ask a question that seems unreasonable...and create a little bit of the future.
The only question is whether that unreasonable seller will be you.
