When Carnegie Hall was completed in 1891, the verdict was clear: The location was wrong. Too far north.
Outside New York City’s cultural centre. Nobody would make the trip all the way out there.
Andrew Carnegie didn’t argue against it. He did something else.
For the opening night, he got Tchaikovsky himself to travel from Russia to conduct.
That evening, horse-drawn carriages queued a quarter mile outside the entrance.
The address stopped being a problem. It became part of the story. People didn’t go there because it was convenient.
They went because it meant something. The journey became part of the experience.
Carnegie had turned a disadvantage into an advantage by refusing to accept the premise and instead defining what should be perceived as valuable.
This is exactly where many B2B sales teams get stuck.
They enter when the customer already knows what they’re looking for.
They answer the questions being asked and try to win within that frame. Then they wonder why it comes down to price.
When the playing field is already set, there isn’t much left to compete on.
The best don’t accept that.
They come in earlier. Or they change the playing field once they’re in.
They shape what matters, surface what the customer may have missed, and make themselves relevant on grounds nobody else has thought to establish.
Carnegie created demand. He didn’t wait for it to happen.
Many say they do the same. Very few actually do.
That’s what Upstream Selling is about.
So the real question isn’t what you sell. It’s when and how you become relevant.
Are you helping shape the need, or do you show up when everything is already decided?
We’ve developed a short diagnostic that shows how you actually sell today, and where you’re losing deals.
It takes 5 minutes. No registration. No data stored.
