Beware of Status Quo Organizations

We all know that “no decision” is the most frequent opponent we lose to in selling, especially with technology sales. And, yes, I do consider it a loss when we’ve invested a significant amount of time into pursuing an account and they don’t select us.

Today I want to talk about the kings and queens of no decisions, or what I call the “status quo organization”. That’s because another way to look at “no decision” is that they’re deciding NOT to change (i.e. to stick with the status quo).

Change takes people out of their comfort zone and most people hate that. Status quo organizations tend to avoid risk at all costs. Even when not changing incurs more risk than that of the proposed change.

So, the million dollar question (or however much your potential deals are worth) is this: “Is this organization prone to the status quo (bad for you) or amenable to change (good for you)?”

Two simple ways you can tell are by their language and their actions. Let’s start with the second one first.

Examine their actions - Does this organization have a track record of change? Has this executive team implemented changes in direction or process in the last 5 years? What triggered it? Who led the charge? Was it successful? These are some of the questions I want to have answered, either directly or via research.

Now, if the executive team is new, the chances of change are higher than if they’ve been in place for decades. If the business is experiencing significant growth or significant decline the chances for change go up as well. But when things are moving along as they always have, then having them implement change becomes a much longer shot.

Listen to their language - Less reliable than their actions, though still something to pay attention to, is the language they use. Do they talk about continuous improvement, seizing opportunities, adapting to the market or use other phrases like that? If so, that’s a good sign and it’s something to probe deeper on.

But, the reason it’s less reliable is because talk is cheap. It’s easy to talk about stuff but hard to do stuff. When I hear someone use “change phrasing”, like those terms used above, I’m encouraged, but skeptical. I want to find out what they mean by that, how they define those terms. I want to know if they’ve done things like this before, and I want to know if there’s a plan to do something about it going forward.

Because if it ends up being all talk and no planned action or past action, you’re dealing with a “status quo” organization. And it’s going to take a big triggering event (or a very lengthy sales investment by you) to get them to change.

Have a great week!

Bob

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, there are four ways I can help you, either as an individual or as a team:

(1.) Comprehensive courses with coaching (like All-Win Negotiating and Developing & Delivering Great Presentations)

(2.) Mini-courses (where we focus in depth on one key success topic)

(3.) What to Do Next (strategies and counterstrategies for every sales situation and obstacle)

(4.) One-on-One coaching (customized to achieving your specific outcome).

Just email me [email protected] if you’d like to talk about what you want to do. It’s a no-cost consult.