"We can't sell on service. We can't sell on price."
A seller once told me, in frustration: "Steve, I can't sell on service because everyone says they have good service. I can't sell on price because they've commoditized us. The only thing I have left is relationships — and the customers' idea of a 'relationship' is: if you don't give me a good number at bid time, then screw you."
That's not a broken customer. That's not a broken market. That's a market full of hyper-inflated D's — and once you see it, you stop taking it personally and start working with it.
The pattern
If you sell ready-mix, aggregates, or asphalt, your primary buyer is almost always going to be:
- A dispatcher, estimator, or PM — task-driven by definition.
- Under deadline pressure — the job starts Tuesday, they need numbers Monday.
- Judged on cost — their boss measures them on margin, not supplier quality.
- Talking to five suppliers at once — the conversation is a commodity conversation whether you like it or not.
Put all four of those together and you get someone acting like a D whether their personality actually is one or not. The role pushes them into D behavior. I call it hyper-inflated D — people whose personal style might be an S or an I in real life, but whose professional context has them pushing, demanding, short-fusing, price-pressuring.
Why this matters for how you sell
1. Don't read D behavior as a D person
An office manager who's a warm, chatty I at the kids' soccer practice will sound like a D at 9am Monday when they need ten loads priced for a Wednesday pour. Treat them like a D in that moment — fast, direct, no fluff. But know that the I underneath is still there. That's where the long-term relationship lives.
If you can give the hyper-inflated D exactly what they need in the D moment — the number, the delivery window, no drama — you've earned the right to have an I conversation later. Coffee. Birthdays. Stories. That's the layer underneath the transaction.
2. Stop being offended
Sellers burn out in this industry because they read professional D behavior as personal rudeness. "She was so nice last time, why is she being like this now?" She's not being rude. She's under pressure from her boss, her customer, her deadline — and the quote desk is where the pressure leaks out. If you take it personally, you'll lose your edge by Wednesday.
3. Match the pace — every time
Because the whole industry runs on hyper-inflated D energy at the point of transaction, the default pace for sellers has to be faster, more direct, more confident than it feels natural to most of us. If you're an S-style seller who's being your natural self, you will always feel one beat too slow for this market. That's not a flaw — that's a signal to adjust.
4. Your differentiator is almost never price or service
Both are commoditized. Everyone claims both. The buyer has heard every version. So what's left?
Being the seller who reads them correctly. The seller who treats them like a D when they're acting like one. The seller who doesn't waste their time. The seller who, on the quiet moments, remembers they're a human with a family and a hobby and a bad back from last summer.
That's the differentiator. And it's invisible on a quote sheet, which is exactly why it's defensible.
The flip side — the real D
Some of your buyers aren't hyper-inflated. They're actual, genuine D's. And those you treat even more like D's than you're already doing.
The way to tell:
- A hyper-inflated D softens on the second or third interaction. They joke. They ask about your weekend. The D is situational.
- A real D stays sharp. Interactions are efficient in year three the same way they were in week one. That's not a problem. That's just who they are.
For real D's, the work is the relationship. Do the work right, protect their time, don't fold on price, and they'll stick with you for decades. They just won't ever talk to you the way an I would.
The play, in one line
"Most of your buyers are going to act like D's even when they aren't. Match the style, don't take it personally, and find the actual human underneath the role."
That's the whole game in our industry, compressed. The rest of the DISC pages are about giving you the precision to execute it.
Where to go next
- DISC hub — the framework this page lives inside
- D-style customers — the full playbook for selling to a D
- Style-matching — how to dial up D-style behavior when it's not your natural default
- The Last Look conversation — the negotiation moment where hyper-inflated D energy peaks
- Information Pull vs. Push — the pull moves that work even on the hardest D
Source: drawn from multiple canonical moments in the live-coaching corpus — including group sessions where the "can't sell on service, can't sell on price, all hyper-inflated D's" framing emerged as the industry diagnosis. Voice preserved.