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Moving The Status Quo
How do you get prospects to move off of the status quo? All humans, including your prospects, are wired to want to stick with their status quo. They are good at rationalizing why they don't need to change what they're doing right now. You must break through the Status Quo Barrier and show them why they should change now. You have to do that before telling them why they should pick you. If you take them from an untroubled state to a place where they urgently want to change, you're ready to align your solution with their needs, and you don't have to cram in a list of specifications and features to pique their interest. It's not why you, it's why them! Logic is not enough to persuade people. Human emotion, motivation and behavior enter into the equation, and these factors are likely to be even more decisive than logic. Your prospects don’t care about your products or services. All they care about is the impact you can have on their business. Winston Churchill observed, “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on."
That means you need to talk about your offering in a different way. Learn as much as you can about the most common scenarios you have encountered. Pay special attention to their potential shortcomings. If your prospects haven’t changed in years, there are always hidden costs - ones that they may not even know about. Perhaps things are moving too slow. Maybe they’re paying too much. They might lack the right data to make decisions. Duplication of effort might be driving up labor costs. Your prospect’s aggressive new goals could be difficult to reach without changing their status quo. As consumers, we all happily go about our merry little lives, until we realize we need or want something. Then we’ll consider buying it. But until then, everything is status quo. For businesses, status quo change is a much bigger problem.
This Is a Lot of Hard Work That Sales Organizations Don’t Recognize. New start-ups build businesses and then wonder why people don’t buy. It’s probably because the customer didn’t realize that they needed the product or service and they were content with the way things are. You don’t move people instantaneously off of the status quo; you need to gently nudge them away from the status quo toward sales with baby steps. You haven’t created (or established) enough value. It’s a nice to have but not a need to have. The prospect may know what it is, but not clearly Page 1 of 7
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understand how it can measurably impact their business. Does the buyer understand how using your product or service will make them look good? It is not a big enough priority for your prospect. If you get this answer at the end of the sales process, you didn’t qualify the deal well enough. The vast majority of your qualified prospects will fall into the ‘not ready to buy’ category. The cost of changing is greater than the perceived benefit. Change creates work. Change creates friction. Change requires decisions that often are not fast enough or easy for an organization to make. Organizations change all the time. No matter what you’re selling, there’s a hard and soft cost to changing. The risk of staying the same is lower than the risk in doing something different. I don’t want to change if I don’t have to, if I don’t need to, if there’s a chance you might not do what you say you’re going to do, if I don’t understand the true risk of not making a change. Does your prospect understand the likely future if they stay the same? Have you helped them calculate the likely future pain of continuing on the same path?
People Prefer Things to Stay Relatively the Same. We talk to the same people, follow the same path to work, go through the same daily routine, and so forth. We enjoy the little changes -- like reading a new book, going on a different trip in the summer, or watching a new movie -- but not so much radical changes? The only problem is that the status quo bias costs us money all the time. Because we often prefer to stick with the familiar, we choose to remain with things that are less cost-effective than the alternative – which is change. Sticking with your old bank. Sure, it’s convenient to stay put -- you don’t have to spend a half an hour switching to a new bank -- but is it worth twenty dollar bills leaking out of your pocket each month? Always going to the same old grocery store. Instead of using a basic price book to actually figure out which store is the cheapest for what they buy, most people just get familiar with one store and do all of their shopping there. Keeping the same cable service. There’s a reason the cable companies offer amazing introductory deals, but their standard price after a year is really high. Keeping the same cell phone service; similar to the cable or satellite service, cell phone companies offer great introductory deals because they know it’s likely you’ll just stick with what you’ve got. These folks definitely know about the status quo bias.
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Most People’s Personal Objective Is to Be Happy. In order to do that, they must feel both satisfied and secure. In order to feel satisfied, they must initiate change of some kind. But, in order to feel secure they must resist change and cling to their status quo. Why does satisfaction require change? Essentially, it’s because the pleasure associated with satiation eventually wears off. One must find new horizons or challenges to conquer to remain satisfied. Satisfaction comes from achieving a difficult objective, when there was substantial doubt about the probability of success. Why is there security in resisting change? Security is a sense of wellbeing that comes from predictability of the events in one’s life. We feel secure because we can predict what’s going to happen in our lives -- today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. Beyond that, who knows? But, we’re confident it won’t be too different as long as we stay in our nice, secure little cocoon and -- don’t change much.
Change Poses a Risk for Its Initiator. In the security versus satisfaction dilemma, it clearly leans toward the satisfaction. Not changing naturally leans toward the security side. The degree to which a particular person -- the decision maker embraces or resists change depends on their predisposition to search out or avoid risk. This is a personality trait; some people get a ‘high’ from taking risks. One of the most renowned behavioral psychologists is Chris Argyris; professor emeritus at Harvard coined the term ‘mental maps’ to explain people’s behavior. He said that the mental maps we create in our minds help us plan, implement, and review the actions we take. He also suggested that these actions are often at odds with the theories or philosophies that we often espouse. The result, he said, is behavioral incongruence: a difference between what people say they do and how they behave.
We can see this in organizations, when the verbal expressions sound like, Good idea! Let’s do that’ -- then nothing happens. The reason is because their mental maps tell them something completely different from what they (or others) say. Some people are risk-takers and others are risk averse. Risk-takers are those for whom their need for satisfaction outweighs their need for security. The risk-averse are exactly the opposite. A significant number of people lie somewhere in the middle. In other words, for most people, some degree of calculated risk is acceptable. Completely Risk-Averse. The risk-averse don’t communicate with any of the other population segments. They flat refuse to change. Such companies may be ones that don’t use computers much, or who prefer old-fashioned manual labor to automation. These people and these companies never get it. Page 3 of 7
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Reluctant Risk-Takers. Reluctant risk-takers are one step above the completely risk-averse. The only reason they even consider changing is because they see their other mainstream contemporaries doing it. They don’t like the idea of changing, but they’re also afraid of being left behind. This group would include the last company to computerize its recordkeeping. Conservative Risk-Takers. Conservative risk-takers communicate with the reluctant risk takers but, they also communicate with the ambitious risktakers, too. They don’t initiate change on their own, but they’re willing to watch some other person or company take that chance. However, some other external motivating factor is required for them to take the chance in changing. They require persuasion. In other words, ‘Show me somebody in my line of business that has already done this successfully!’ Ambitious Risk-Takers. The ambitious risk-takers are people communicate with both the conservative risk-takers and the ‘death-wishers’. Ambitious risk-takers are constantly on the lookout for ‘the next big thing’. They want to be first on that train, not chasing it as it leaves the station. Ambitious risk-takers will eagerly embrace new ideas. They’re willing to experiment and even stumble a bit, but only when they seem some practical application that they can exploit to their benefit and odds of success are at least 50-50 (some of these risk-takers may accept slightly worse odds). The ambitious risk-takers include the first company to install ERP software. Death Wishers. The ‘death-wishers’ are people who are a largely insular bunch -- the computer geeks of the world for example. They communicate with the ambitious risk takers occasionally but, usually they live in their own little world. The, ‘If it’s new, I want it’ mentality’. Their attention span for new things is relatively short. They are quickly on to the next new thing.
The Implications for Change Agents. First, there is that chasm between the ambitious risk-takers and the conservative risk-takers. Change comes naturally on the left side of the chasm, but not on the right side. There is a serious challenge getting across that chasm. 67 percent of the potential market lies on the right side of the chasm, so from any rational perspective – it is definitely worth trying to find a way to get them across it. The business environment death-wishers and ambitious risk-takers are going to seek it out on their own and try it. Many, if not most of them, have gone on to the ‘next big thing’ without your help. What remains, however, is still that unexploited mainstream market - the 67 percent under the curve represented by the conservative and reluctant risk takers. The challenge of persuading the conservative risk-takers should be easy, shouldn’t it? After all, logic should win the day! In extreme survival situations, people often Page 4 of 7
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let their long-held mental models overrule their common sense - even at the risk of death. This is particularly true in stressful situations, when the tendency is to revert to instinct
The Odds of Success for Change by Persuasion Are Very Slim. A more likely outcome is rejection, or reversion to past behavior. Incremental, evolutionary changes have a better chance of long-term success but, they require patience! Second, if you’re determined to attempt revolutionary change in the face of these long odds, imposed change has a better chance of success -- at least for the short term. But, imposed change requires a champion with formal authority, because, in the immortal words of Charles Colson, ‘When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow’ -- at least until you relax your grip. If you relax your grip, all bets are off.
How Do New Ideas Get Into an Organization In The First Place? Game-changing knowledge must come from outside of a system; it doesn’t by nature reside within it. The problem with introducing ‘something game-changing’ is that in most cases the people with the decision-making power (the executives) are too busy running the company on to worry about searching out new ways of doing things -- they don’t have the time. When a new idea or method penetrates an organization at the middle level, it requires persuasion up the chain of command. When it enters at the top, it can be imposed down the chain. It’s the folks in the middle levels of large organizations -the working professionals who aspire to upper management.
Executive-Led Change. Unfortunately, change initiated by an executive is no guarantee of long-term success. It’s definitely required for initial success. Once it does happen, this model provides a potentially effective roadmap for implementation and sustainability. The leader’s commitment precedes everything else -- then the leader must define the new, modified behavior required of both themselves, and of subordinates. Simultaneously, leaders must communicate the new mission, task, or charter to all subordinates and visibly demonstrate by their own behavior -- their commitment to the new way of doing things. This requires a cognitive acceptance on their part, of the need to change and the value of doing so.
Executive Acceptance. Now, whose security and satisfaction are we talking about when we’re trying to foment a revolution? It’s the security and satisfaction of decision-makers -- the executives! If it requires hard work and time to become an executive, then reaching
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executive status is not easy. There is no shortage of qualified ‘replacements’ waiting for an executive to ‘screw up’. Executives are constantly looking over their shoulders; executives realize that there is nowhere to go but down. Executives don’t want to lose their status and power. Executives are comfortable making low-risk decisions. Executives must make major decisions daily, and every decision carries a degree of risk. Executives are uncomfortable making high-risk decisions. If delaying a decision, or not making one, is perceived as low-risk, executives are comfortable making lowrisk decisions. Paradigm-changing decisions are risky, and executives often delay or make no decision. Executives make high-risk (paradigm-changing) decisions only when absolutely necessary.
Behavioral Reinforcement. Here is the cognitive side of changing the status quo -- emotionally internalizing the need to change. There’s a powerful behavioral side that must also be considered. If you’re fortunate enough to overcome the cognitive challenge with the organization’s leader -- the nature of evolutionary change -- still means that extensive reinforcement will be required for an indefinite transition period if a change is ultimately going to succeed. It takes a long time to modify mental models.
Conclusions. True behavioral change occurs naturally at a more evolutionary rate, not a revolutionary one. People’s behavior is ‘hard-wired’ and largely emotional. People behave according to their mental models, which provide a comfort zone. Logical persuasion is likely to have little impact, in spite of what it might seem like at the time it’s attempted. Relatively few people -- those whose need for satisfaction -- outweighs their need for security and will risk changing on their own; those that do, most will do so only cautiously or reluctantly. People’s actions often don’t reflect their words about it.
Reasons They Didn’t Buy. Your prospects can come up with almost as many objections as school children. Objections are not the real reasons they don't buy. They are signals why you need to clarify your value proposition. You haven't qualified those buyers who can afford you or, you didn’t arrive at user-acceptable price points. It isn't enough to be cheaper than the competition, nor is it enough to be able to show cost justification; you must Page 6 of 7
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be able to meet real and emotional pricing constraints. The prospect's ‘financial comfortability’ factor sometimes has less to do with your profit than it has to do with the prospect's budgeting demands. You are not presenting to the prospects that can use what you sell. No matter how much you pride yourself at being able to sell ‘ice to the Eskimos’ if your product or service doesn't fill a void, it's a real tough, time-wasting sell. You didn’t establish enough confidence with them so that they will trust you. They’re often too embarrassed to tell you straight out but. Maybe it isn't that they think you're a shameless, lying slime ball who will say or do anything for a sale (although many prospects have just that opinion of salespeople); perhaps it is just that they don't have confidence in your recommendation or your professionalism. You didn't create the relationship that gets your prospects to really like you or your company. It is a mistaken belief by many in sales that likability and trust are solely the sales person's job. That's why big companies give prospects copies of internal company newsletters that gush with recommendations. The buyer has to care about you and he has to believe that you are nice enough to want to care about him. You failed to understand the internal politics of the prospect firm and create a true working rapport with all of the forces for change. Some people think that it is enough to train salespeople to target somebody called the ‘key decision maker’ but, this may not always be the top dog.
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