Few industries are shaped as strongly by incumbency as paper, packaging, and forestry. Many buyers have worked with the same supplier for years, sometimes decades, and switching carries real operational risk: requalifying materials, adjusting production processes, and trusting a new company with a critical part of their supply chain. Winning business away from an entrenched incumbent, or protecting an incumbent position of your own, requires a deliberate strategy built around this reality.
Why Incumbency Is So Powerful in This Industry
Switching suppliers in this industry is rarely a simple decision. A buyer who changes packaging materials or paper suppliers often has to requalify the new material on their production lines, retrain staff on any handling differences, and absorb the risk that a new relationship doesn’t perform as reliably as the one they’re leaving. Many companies also run a formal RFQ or vendor qualification process before a new supplier is even eligible to bid, adding time and cost to any switch. This risk, more than loyalty alone, is often what keeps a buyer with their current supplier even when a competitor’s price looks attractive.
Understanding this dynamic changes how a sales professional should approach a prospect with an existing supplier, whether the buyer is a procurement lead, a packaging engineer, or a plant operations manager. The goal isn’t simply to offer a better price. It’s to reduce the perceived risk of switching while building a case specific enough to justify the disruption.
From a sales training perspective, one challenge we commonly see is sales professionals treating every incumbent-displacement opportunity the same way, when the actual gap, and the stakeholder who feels it most, is different in every account.
Identify the Specific Gap
Buyers rarely switch suppliers without a reason. Sales professionals win these opportunities by identifying a specific, real gap in what the incumbent is currently delivering: inconsistent lead times, a quality issue that keeps recurring, a lack of responsiveness when problems come up, or an inability to support a new requirement the buyer’s business has developed. A generic pitch about better pricing or service rarely overcomes the risk of switching. A specific, well-documented gap does.
This requires genuine research and listening before making a pitch. Sales professionals who ask a prospect directly about their current experience, including what’s working and what isn’t, often uncover the exact opening that makes a switch worth considering.
Build the Relationship Before the Buyer Is Actively Looking
Many of the strongest opportunities to displace an incumbent come from relationships built long before a prospect starts actively evaluating alternatives. Staying in front of a prospect with relevant insight, without pushing for an immediate switch, positions a sales professional to be top of mind the moment the incumbent relationship shows a crack, whether that’s a service failure, a price increase, or a change in the incumbent’s own capabilities.
This is a patience-driven strategy. It requires consistent, low-pressure contact over time rather than a single aggressive pitch, and it’s a skill that benefits from coaching and reinforcement rather than instinct alone.
Reduce the Perceived Risk of Switching
Once a genuine opening exists, the sales conversation needs to directly address the switching risk, not just the product or price advantage. This might include a trial or pilot program on a smaller scale, clear documentation of the qualification and onboarding process, or references from similar customers who made a successful transition. Reducing perceived risk is often what turns interest into an actual decision.
Protecting Your Own Incumbent Position
The same dynamics apply in reverse for sales professionals protecting an account they already hold. Competitors are actively looking for the same gaps described above, inconsistent service, a quality issue, an unmet new need. Protecting an incumbent position requires proactively staying ahead of these gaps: regular business reviews, addressing small issues before they become a reason to look elsewhere, and continuing to bring new value to the relationship rather than assuming a long history guarantees continued business.
Complacency is the biggest risk to an incumbent supplier. A sales team that treats a long-standing account as secure, rather than continuing to earn it, is the most vulnerable to a well-prepared competitor using the exact strategy described above.
Building This Skill Across a Sales Team
Winning business from an incumbent, and protecting an incumbent position of your own, are both learnable, repeatable skills. Carew’s Dimensions of Professional Selling program includes a structured approach to uncovering gaps, building trust over time, and reducing perceived risk in a buying decision, helping sales teams in this industry compete effectively in a market shaped heavily by existing relationships.