Power Dynamics Are Subtle & You Might Be Losing

You may have had the experience of being asked to “get to the demo” on a call or in a sales meeting.

This type of request, and other similar statements and comments, are meant to establish control and dominance over an interaction. Consciously or subconsciously the asker of the question is lining up the parameters of the meeting in a way that gives them the upper hand. It is a power play. It is meant to establish the asker as the “judge” and leader of the conversation, and to establish the responder as the one looking for approval from that “judge”.

There are other versions of this question, such as, “I have a hard stop in 20 minutes so you should get started”, or “I assume you brought slides to show us?”. Many sellers, trying to develop relationships, and conversational interactions experience these types of situations. What is important to grasp is what statements and questions like these can accomplish for the asker if YOU are not prepared to respond in the right way.

As mentioned above, the goal of these types of questions, whether the asker knows it consciously, or not, is to establish or gain power. The concept of power dynamics is quite hard to grasp and even harder to manipulate, so oftentimes, simple power plays can have a significant effect on a meeting because many people are not equipped to respond in a way that shifts that balance of power away from the original poser of the question. In these cases, if the seller submits and launches into a demo or pitch, the power dynamic is set by that simple power play early in the interaction and never gets reversed.

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When a buyer says to you, “Just tell me about the features of your product” or “Give me a demo” or “OK, how much does it cost?”, your first reaction might be to think that these seem like normal questions, but these questions establish a frame in which you are presenting a response to a “judge” who is comparing you to others who have presented similarly. The asker of these questions is subtly, maybe even unconsciously, telling you that your job, as a seller, is to state your claim as to why your product is better than the competitors’ products, and then they, the asker, will process your information next to all the other information they already have and judge you against your competitors. You are one piece of a puzzle to them, no different than any other piece, and they are the “all-powerful judge” of your merit and likelihood of success. OK, sure, I am being a bit dramatic, but that doesn't take away from the reality that this is how the power dynamics work.

In Oren Klaff’s very informative book “Pitch Anything” he asserts that any two individuals have perspectives, and often different perspectives. These perspectives govern how they each see a particular situation or thing. These perspectives, or frames cannot coexist because whoever’s frame of the situation is more persuasive, or powerful, will be used to discuss and evaluate the matter at the expense of the other frame. This is very important because it means that if you allow the customer’s “all-knowing judge” frame to persist, then you must adhere to being a single puzzle piece, no different than any of your competitors. That reality will give you very little ability to influence the ultimate outcome of the buying decision.

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Any time you find yourself in a situation where you are being judged, you cannot win. Sure, if the other party was leaning towards buying, they may still do so, but you cannot improve your situation, you can only maintain the status quo. This is because those who put themselves in a place of judgement derive their power and control of a situation from the fact that they can identify issues and problems with what and who they are judging, namely you and your product. Identification of problems is what allows them to stay in their position of power. After all, if everything you said were to be right, and were to make sense, then who needs them? You become the hero, and they lose their power. This means that their incentive is to look for reasons to judge you and your product harshly.

So, it is imperative for you to change the frame in this situation. In order to do this, you must break their frame. You must change the situation so that you are not the one being judged, rather, you are the imparter of information that they cannot otherwise access. Better yet, you could even position yourself as the “judge” who decides if they are the right client for your solution or if your time is better spent elsewhere. Oftentimes you must do or say something unexpected in order to make that transition. This is why the worst thing you, as a seller, can do in this scenario is jump right into a presentation. Asking a seller to “just move on to the presentation”, or “show the slides” or “the demo” makes complete sense for the buyer. As soon as you are presenting, they are the “judge”, and have control over the situation. However, it makes no sense for the seller to acquiesce to the role of being judged.

This is a pivotal moment in any call or meeting. When the person across the table asks you to demo your product, explain your features or explain why you are the right vendor for them, you must derail their version of the process. Sure, you will answer their question, but you will do it in your own way and on your own terms. This must be professionally done and well executed, but you must interject in a way that wrestles control of the situation back from the other side of the table.

Simple questions that establish what the other person cares about in a solution, what they are currently missing, or what they need most, can help you shift the balance back to a focus on why they need you, and not, why you need them. Shifting this balance is important because if the potential buyer needs you, then logically, they are not the judge, which means they don’t control the power. These types of questions are hard to engineer because simply replying to a question about your product with a question about what is important to the asker can signal a resistance to share, or worse, that you just want to say exactly what the buyer wants to hear; so, it is important to flip the script in a subtle way. It is even important to remind the buyer that you know things that they don’t, like how their competitors are solving these problems, and how they are using tools similar to yours to make their lives easier. These reminders will legitimately move your customer to a position of need and start to wrestle control back to your side of the table.

The toughest part of derailing the asker’s process is the transition to your questions. Use things like social proof, examples, and insights, as well as occasional interjections to make the transition; here are some examples:

1. Before I jump into a demo, I'm not sure if you are aware of how some of your competitors {name them} are handling this issue that you mentioned {name it} and I wanted to share a bit with you and get your thoughts.

2. Actually, yes, I want to give you a demo, but you mentioned something earlier {name it} that caught my attention, and we should explore it before getting to the demo because it can help us understand if we are the right solution for you, or if we might be better off if I recommended another vendor.

3. I want to tell you about an insight that our research team developed over the last few months that has really interested some of your competitors {name them}. That might frame the conversation around the demo a little better, so you get more out of it.

4. Normally, sure, I would love to jump into the demo, it’s my favorite thing to do {wink; if you can pull it off}. But we have to cover a little ground on the problem you are looking to solve that you mentioned before {name it} because there are a few features of the tool that I can show you depending on your specific needs.

Remember, people value their time. They would not be meeting with you in the first place if they did not potentially need you. That makes it your job to figure out the buyer’s understanding of their need for your solutions, and what terms they use to describe that understanding. Then you can frame the entire call, or meeting around the words that they use to describe that need. Not your words and terms; theirs. That’s how you remind them of their need for you, which allows you to wrestle back control of the situation and ability to influence the outcome to your side of the table.