Let's say you sell widgets, and you are prospecting for new customers. Who do you call?

Do you call the "person you're supposed to call?" You know - the person who buys widgets?

This is the person who has been buying widgets for years; who has considered many different widget vendors; who has honed his or her process for buying widgets; who selected their current widget vendor 6 years ago; who has become personal friends with their widget supplier; who went out to bid for widgets a year ago after developing an RFP that the current widget vendor couldn't lose; who has received a bonus based on how much money he's saved buying widgets...

This potential customer is probably getting what they think they need from their current supplier, and may be reluctant to even considering a change.

What does this tell us? Does it say that we can't win here or don't even want to try? Not necessarily. We might have some capability, experience or solution that this company needs - even if they don't know it yet. Of course, we have to do our research and qualify the opportunity. We have to better understand the customer's business direction and application requirements, identify our unique capabilities and determine the business fit that could exist between our companies. Then we need to compel the people that can buy our value.

What this does tell us is that we're going to have a tough time if we only call on "the people we're supposed to call on". We better work the network and call on others - people who just may be open to coaching us and buying our value.