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Suppose if a person is facing beta traps in his pitch. Explain how this person can solve his problem and win the deal?

Reference:

Beta Traps (Question 1)

In social interactions and business meetings as in nature, those who hold the dominant alpha rank are able to accomplish more than those holding a lesser rank. Alphas call the shots, give the orders, and create the outcomes they want with a minimum of effort. Its important to them emotionally and economically to remain the highest-ranking person in their social group.

Because they occupy a coveted rank, alphas have to constantly fight to maintain and protect their position. As top dog, their rank is under constant threat, and alphas protect themselves by asserting their authority over their employees and coworkers. They ask subordinates to run their errands, bring them coffee, and deal with matters that are disinteresting to them or are deemed to be below their rank. These are the nicer forms of dominant turf-protecting behaviors; many who hold alpha rank behave in far worse ways.

To shield themselves from people of higher social rank who visit them in their work environment, they erect a protective ring of social barriers intended to deflect and demote any threatening alphas.

A beta trap is a subtle but effective social ritual that puts you in the low-status position and works to keep you there, beneath the decision maker you have come to visit, for the entire duration of the social interaction. Most business environments are surrounded by a moat of beta traps that you already recognize and know: the reception desk, the lobby, the conference room, and any public meeting space in or near the office.

The first beta trap you encounter is the lobby. Its a venue created to welcome visitors, right? In fact, the lobby serves to demote you from the moment you arrive and keep you demoted throughout your visit.

You know the drill; how many times have you experienced this scenario?

You enter the lobby of the office where you will be meeting your target. You approach the reception desk. The receptionist looks upHi, can I help you?then takes a call before you can answer. You stand, wait, and take a business card from the tray on counter. The receptionist transfers a call and then looks at you. Yes? Can I help you?

You say, Im here to see Bill Jones for a 2 oclock. I talked to you earlier, I think, and you confirmed.

The receptionist looks past you. Sign the visitors book, please. Heres your visitors pass. Keep it with you at all times. Please take a seat. Bills assistant will come get you in a few minutes. She then turns to finish a text message. You take a seat in the lobby. A table filled with dog-eared trade magazines and week-old newspapers indicate that others like you have been here before.

This sequence, in translation, reads as follows: Be a well-behaved salesperson, do as youre told, and you shall be rewarded with a bottle of water, a short visit, and a vague promise to review your materials and information after you leave. When you observe office power rituals, you are signaling to your target that you are a beta.

At 2:10 p.m., a young aide approaches you. Hi. Yes, Bob is running a little late, shouldnt be more than another 10 minutes. Water and coffee are over there. Help yourself. You blink, shes gone.

Your target arrives late, offering a mock apology for his impossible schedule, telling you that he now has only a few minutes and still hasnt had a chance to review your materials. And now the decision maker, Mr. Big, wont be able to attend the meeting as planned. Sorry. At this point, you have been beta trapped and are completely and utterly defeated. You may as well go home.

What a demoralizing way to do business. Yet this is how millions of people set and conduct business meetings. Its a waste of time because the behaviors and outcomes are so predictable and so unproductive.

Another common beta trap is the conference room. If its empty when you arrive, you are usually left alone for several minutes, cooling your heels while you wait for your targets to arrive. When they arrive, the mood is often jovial, with lots of light social chatter, smiles, and handshakes. They are happy because they are now taking a break from their daily work to come into a nice, larger room to see todays entertainmentthats you. Who isnt happy when they step into a circus tent and take a seat at ringside? They know a show is about to start, and theyre looking forward to relaxing and having a good time.

As you wait for the latecomersthe decision makers you really need in the roomconversations are now taking place that do not include you. Others talk to each other as if you were not in the room, which is not only annoying, but its also one of the most degrading things one person can do to another. In this situation, you are the jester in another kings court, and your value is purely based on the quality of your entertainment. You have no status whatsoever.

Then there are public spaces where customers sometimes decide to take a meeting. Lets get a coffee and talk, they say, leading you into a cafeteria or close-by caf where you exchange small talk in the queue and manage an awkward moment over who should pay for the drinks. You take a place at a nearby table, within earshot of a dozen strangers. This is no place for a pitch.

Your status level is zero. You are owned, processed, and now are nothing but a pleasant social interlude in an otherwise boring day. But you press on, believing in yourself, and your offering. You open your pitch and are moving along nicely when suddenly someone walks up to your customer and starts talking to him as if you do not exist. Hey, Jim, hows it going? the intruder says, shaking his hand and ignoring you. Did you get my e-mail about the shipping delays in Dallas? They continue their conversation for a while as you can do nothing but stare.

Eventually, when he decides he needs to go bother someone else, the intruder leaves, and your customer turns back to you. His face is blank, his

eyes are empty, and his brain has stopped functioning. Where were we? he asks. Need I go on?

There have been many frame collisions in this interactionbut you didnt win a single one of them. You have no control over the situation.

In general, public spaces are the most deadly beta traps and should be avoided. For a real pitch, coffee shops are an absolute last resort. I will mention one more public beta trap because its common: trade shows and conventions.

If you exhibit at trade shows, you know that the absolute worst possible venue for pitching a customer is in a tiny booth or even on the convention floor. There are so many distractions that not even a frame-control ninja could hold an audiences attention for more than a few minutes without being interrupted by noise, announcements, or throngs of bag-carrying conventioneers mindlessly gathering free items to fill their brightly colored sacks.

If you need to pitch someone attending a conference, rent a hospitality suite or a hotel conference space or borrow someones office conference roompitch anywhere but on the floor of the convention hall.

A person standing in a trade show booth may as well erect a neon sign above his or her head that reads, I Am Needy! Like a caged pet-shop puppy or a late-night infomercial host, you try to draw them into your 8- by 10-foot cube and hope to wow them with your pitch. Its sad.

Beta Trapping in Bentonville. In the town of Bentonville, Arkansas, the art of beta trapping has been taken to an unparalleled level. You might call it the Frame Supercollider.

The world leader in the design, construction, and operation of beta traps is Walmart. At its headquarters in Bentonville is the worlds most efficient salesperson-grinding apparatus you will ever see. No matter what you have to offer the company, no matter how great its value, to do business with Walmart, you must submit to a process that is designed to beat you down and wipe out your status, all in the name of lower prices.

Think Im exaggerating? Go to 702 Southwest Eighth Street in Bentonville. Walk into the lobby. There you will find two enormous reception desks, one on each side of the room, with a hospitality area on the far right filled with grade schoolstyle chairs with writing desks attached to them for those who need to fill out forms. The perimeter of the room is lined with junk-food vending machines for those who need a quick energy boost to endure what is coming.

Between the two reception stations is a gleaming blue hallway marked with the Walmart logo that leads to another long hallway lined with dozens of six- by eight-foot meeting rooms. These meeting rooms are equipped with a door, one window, one small table, and four small plastic chairs. These rooms are where Walmart buyers meet with vendors.

Lets take a look at the companys process. First, you sign in, receive a visitors badge, and are told to wait in the lobby. You are welcome to enter the companys hospitality room, and you can purchase candy and Walmart-branded soft drinks from the vending machines. The person you are visiting receives a message that you are in the lobby. When the buyer is ready to meet, you are paged to the reception desk and walked back to an assigned meeting room, where you are instructed to wait for your buyer to appear. As you are escorted to your assigned meeting room, you are allowed to see other vendors through the small glass windows of their cells. When you reach your cell, you are instructed to remain in the room until you are escorted out. Finally, the door is closed.

Eventually, one or two buyers will enter the cell, and your meeting will begin. The meetings are short and focused on price, volume, logistics, your financial ability to support the Walmart account, and then price again. Price is methodically and systematically driven down, whereas your logistical and product-support responsibilities are increased until you can no longer negotiate. When this point is reached, the Walmart buyers make a decision (buy or not) and move on to the next item in the product category.

The frame is so tightly controlled that even the most successful selling techniques do you absolutely no good. Walmart turns everything into a commodity, and every commodity is acquired through this process. Using scale, magnitude, and domination psychology for purchasing, Walmart has created the most effective frame supercollider in the history of free enterprise.

This is an extreme example of how beta trapping strips you of your power and ability to do good business. Old-fashioned sales techniques can help, but you are disadvantaged, you do not control the frame, and you are at the mercy of the buyer.

To compensate, you would need an enormous amount of self-confidence and self-belief to be convincing enough to succeed. You are forced to browbeat, manipulate, and cajole targets into buying decisions, and this is precisely why conventional sales methods focus on pressure closing.

Most of us dont have the required stamina and chutzpahI certainly do notand its emotionally draining to have to make 100 sales calls to win an order or two.

When you are held down in beta position, the only tool you have at your disposal is emotional manipulation. At best, it works in the moment, and maybe you can land a deal. But your success is random, and its not satisfying because the buyer really does not want to buy. He is doing so to please you now and will regret it later (buyers remorse).

There is a much better and more natural way to attract business opportunities. You simply elevate your social value, and its easier to do than you might think.