{"id":463,"date":"2011-12-16T02:08:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T02:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matriximpact.com\/fsf\/?p=463"},"modified":"2011-12-16T02:08:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T02:08:45","slug":"you-might-be-a-commodity-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/2011\/12\/16\/you-might-be-a-commodity-if\/","title":{"rendered":"You Might be a Commodity if&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us remember Jeff Foxworthy\u2019s famous routine \u201cYou might be a redneck if\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You think &#8220;loading the dishwasher&#8221; means getting your wife drunk.<\/li>\n<li>You ever cut your grass and found a car.<\/li>\n<li>You own a home that is mobile and 5 cars that aren&#8217;t.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just a sample of his more memorable lines to jog your memory (and because I couldn\u2019t resist).<\/p>\n<p>Well, in sales, we have an affliction that is far less funny and much more tragic. <strong>When our customers think of us as a commodity they either can\u2019t or don\u2019t perceive the difference between us and our competition and\/or they have ZERO recognition of the value of our product\/service<\/strong>. I don\u2019t know if there is a more deadly one two punch in sales.<\/p>\n<p>So, in the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy here is a list of some of the most common and DANGEROUS signs of this affliction.<\/p>\n<p>You might be a commodity if\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>After a lead generation campaign, when calling prospects, they don&#8217;t recognize your name or your company or worse when they hear your name you hear <strong>\u201cUGH, oh Hi John\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>If you try to set an appointment with a prospect and she says, <strong>\u201cTell you what call me back in a week and I\u2019ll let you know what I want to do then.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>After the initial discovery appointment the customer tells you thanks for your time and he\u2019ll be in touch.<\/li>\n<li>During the presentation you ask your prospect what he likes best and he says <strong>\u201cGood question\u201d<\/strong> yet never answers you.<\/li>\n<li>You find yourself negotiating your price on<strong> 2 out of every 3<\/strong> closing presentations.<\/li>\n<li>Before the presentation they told you they needed to make a decision by next week and now it is next month and you still have not been able to get them on the phone.<\/li>\n<li>After the presentation you attempt to schedule a next step meeting and your prospect says, <strong>\u201cI think we have all the information we need.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Calling to schedule a next step meeting your prospect says <strong>\u201cwhat was this about again?\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>You go to a networking function of 100+ people and you don\u2019t come back with <strong>ANY<\/strong> actionable leads.<\/li>\n<li>The closest you get to an opportunity at a trade show is somebody who comes to your booth for the free candy and chotchkies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have a webinar coming up on Wednesday December 21st \u00a0that will offer some cures to this deadly disease and in the meantime, check you and your team for these symptoms. If \u00a0any of these have manifested themselves my prescription is to attend our webinar and call me in the morning.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us remember Jeff Foxworthy\u2019s famous routine \u201cYou might be a redneck if\u2026\u201d You think &#8220;loading the dishwasher&#8221; means getting your wife drunk. You ever cut your grass and found a car. You own a home that is mobile and 5 cars that aren&#8217;t. Just a sample of his more memorable lines to jog [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17,25,39,56,44,40,45,48,18,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-players","category-best-practice","category-change","category-continual-development","category-lead-generation","category-motivation","category-new-contact-touches","category-sit-touch","category-sales-superstars","category-suspectprospect-customer-dynamic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matriximpact.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}