If you sell, getting people to change their minds or switch is part of the job. Sometimes people already have what you’re selling and you need to get them to try something else. You need to get them to switch. Getting people to switch is like selling to the monkeys; hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. No one is paying attention.

We don’t like to switch. We are normally very happy with our choices and unless there is a compelling reason, we will defend our choices to the end. We don’t want to listen to anything new, because we’ve heard it already. We don’t want to see an alternative, because we’ve seen it all before and we don’t want to talk about anything new, because there is nothing new to talk about. Considering a change without a compelling reason calls into questions our original decision and we don’t like to think we originally made a mistake

Getting people to try something new is hard. It’s even harder if you don’t have a compelling reason.

People don’t switch just to switch. This is especially true in b2b sales. To get your customers to switch, create a compelling reason. Make it difficult NOT to change. It can’t be because your new. New isn’t compelling. Save your customers 2X more money. Grow revenue by 25%. Increase productivity 2 fold. Shorten production by 15%. Reduce operating costs 30%. Shorten the sales cycle by 30 days. Make a real impact.

Selling to the monkey’s isn’t easy, they aren’t going to pay attention for a different banana. You need to bring ice-cream covered in chocolate. They’ll pay attention then.