Having spent most of my working life in and around the workplace supplies sector, I’ve watched it reinvent itself more than once. We moved from product catalogues and separate suppliers to single-source solutions. We adapted to e-commerce, consolidation, Amazonification, hybrid working and a fundamental shift in what the office actually is. Now we are being asked to reinvent ourselves again – this time through diversification.
The logic is difficult to argue with. Traditional OP is a mature, declining category. Those products are still needed, of course; but they do not occupy the same share of budget, attention or strategic importance that they once did. Meanwhile, the wider workplace presents a substantial opportunity: furniture, interiors, hygiene, washroom, catering, workwear, print, technology, managed services, sustainability and many other categories that sit naturally around the customers we already serve.
Yet the pace of adoption remains mixed. Some dealers and salespeople have embraced the broader workplace proposition with energy. Others have added categories to a catalogue or website but have not truly added them to the sales conversation. The product is technically available, but the salesperson still opens with paper, toner and stationery.
I do not believe that this is usually down to laziness or a lack of ambition. In many cases, it is due to a lack of confidence. An experienced salesperson may know and understand OP inside out: the products, the margins, the likely objections and the people who buy them. But ask that same person to lead a conversation about washroom compliance, workplace design, sustainability or managed print and suddenly they feel like a novice. Retreating to what they know is entirely human.
The danger is that experience becomes an anchor. The salesperson waits until they know everything about a new category before mentioning it. In the meantime, the customer continues buying it elsewhere and the dealer concludes that there is little demand. That is not a product failure. It is a confidence and positioning failure.
The opportunity hiding in plain sight
The irony is that business supplies salespeople are better placed than almost anyone to diversify. You already have relationships, trading history, service credibility and access to the customer’s workplace. You may know where every ream of paper is delivered, how many sites the organisation operates, when its busiest periods occur and which people influence purchasing. A new entrant would pay dearly for that intelligence.
Diversification does not require you to become the world’s leading expert in every category. It requires you to become expert at recognising where a customer could benefit, asking better questions and bringing in the right specialist when required. Your value is not limited to knowing the product code; it lies in grasping the customer’s operation and joining the dots.
This is where AI can make a genuine difference. Not by replacing a salesperson, writing thousands of generic emails or pretending to know things that it does not. Its most useful first role is much simpler: supporting a salesperson’s preparation. It can reduce the blank-page fear, organise scattered information, reveal useful patterns and suggest questions that move a conversation beyond OP.
For an established salesperson, that creates a bridge between the confidence of the old category and the opportunity of the new one.
“I know”, not “I think”
One of the principles I use in sales training is “’I know’, not ‘I think’.” It means we should not approach a customer merely because we think they might buy something. We should engage when we know – based on evidence – that we can improve some aspect of their business. This does not mean knowing the final answer before the first conversation. It means doing enough work to form a solid, testable point of view.
Instead of saying, “I wonder whether you might be interested in our new furniture range,” you should be able to say, “I believe we can improve your workplace in three specific areas and here is the evidence that led me to that conclusion.” Better still, earn the right to say: “I know we can help – let me show you why.”
Those reasons might be that the organisation is recruiting quickly and will need to equip new people; it has opened another site and appears to be managing suppliers locally; its sustainability commitments are not reflected in its current purchasing approach; or its offices were designed for a working pattern that no longer exists. None of these insights start with a product. They start with the customer.
In the past, gathering that level of intelligence could take hours. Today, AI-supported research can do much of the heavy lifting in minutes – provided that the salesperson directs it properly and checks the result. The tool does not create the commercial judgement; it gives your judgement more material to work with.
Start with the customer, not the tool
The worst way to begin is to buy an impressive AI platform and then ask the sales team what to do with it. Start with a customer, a business question and a defined outcome. Choose one existing account where you believe there is untapped potential or one prospect that closely resembles your best customers. Then use the following process:
1. Build a useful profile
Most ideal customer profiles (ICPs) are too shallow. “Companies with 50–500 employees within 50 miles” is a list criterion, not an ICP. A useful ICP describes the organisations that are likely to value your particular solution. Begin with three to five customers where you already deliver strong results and acceptable margin.
Give an AI assistant non-confidential facts about them: sector, size, number of sites, workplace model, growth stage, buying complexity, service challenges, categories purchased and the outcomes that you create. Ask it to identify the common characteristics, likely trigger events and operational problems that make those customers a good fit.
The results should not be accepted as gospel. Discuss them with colleagues and compare them with what you know. The exercise is valuable because it converts instinct into a working hypothesis. You can then ask: which other organisations share these characteristics and what evidence would confirm the fit?
2. Create a customer intelligence brief
Select one target account and gather information from reliable public sources: its website, annual report, Companies House filings, job adverts, LinkedIn activity, local and trade press, sustainability statements, office or site announcements, leadership changes and published supplier commitments.
Search-enabled AI tools such as ChatGPT or Copilot can assist in pulling this material together and summarising it. LinkedIn Sales Navigator can add account, people and trigger-event signals. Companies House remains a useful free source for filings, officers, addresses and company history.
Ask the AI to organise what it finds under commercially useful headings: changes identified; likely workplace implications; possible cost, risk, efficiency or employee-experience pressures; key decision-makers; evidence still missing; and questions still to verify with the customer.
Insist that it show its sources. If a claim cannot be traced to a credible source, label it as an assumption or remove it. AI can be confidently wrong and a salesperson repeating an invented fact will destroy the very credibility that this exercise is intended to build.
3. Look for change
A static company description rarely produces a compelling reason to call, but trigger events do. Recruitment, acquisitions, new sites, relocations, contract renewals, different leadership, sustainability goals, hybrid-working changes, regulatory pressure and rapid growth all create new workplace requirements.
Ask the AI: “What has changed in this organisation during the past 12 months, what workplace consequences could follow and which of our solution areas might be relevant?” Then challenge every answer. Is the link logical? Is it supported? Is it important enough for the customer to act upon?
Imagine a regional legal practice recruiting 40 people across three offices. The obvious OP response is to quote for more stationery. The solution-led response is to consider furniture and ergonomics, onboarding packs, print and document workflows, hygiene, refreshments, storage, branded workwear where appropriate and the consistency of supply across sites. AI has not sold anything; it has enabled the salesperson to see the whole workplace.
4. Turn features into business benefit
New category confidence often collapses because the salesperson learns product features rather than customer outcomes. Features matter, but they rarely start a senior-level conversation. Give the AI a short description of your solution and ask it to translate each feature through three levels: the immediate benefit, the operational effect and the wider business outcome.
A consolidated facilities supplies programme might reduce the number of orders, in turn reducing invoice processing and management time. The time freed up might allow a finance or operations team to focus on more worthwhile work. That final ‘sell-through benefit’ is usually where the strongest conversation begins.
Ask the AI to produce benefits for different stakeholders too. A finance director, facilities manager, HR leader, sustainability lead and end user will not value the same thing in the same way. You are not changing the truth; you are making the relevance visible.
5. Prepare three reasons
Before making contact, complete one sentence: “I know we can improve this customer’s business because…” Then add at least three evidence-backed reasons. For example: “You have opened two additional sites, but your published information suggests that local purchasing is still decentralised. You have committed to reducing supply chain emissions, yet your current model may involve multiple deliveries and vendors. You are recruiting heavily in operations, which suggests that standardised workplace onboarding and replenishment could free up management time.”
Notice the language: specific, commercial and centred on the customer. Also notice the restraints: ‘suggests’ and ‘may’ distinguish an informed hypothesis from a known fact. The purpose of the first approach is not to announce that you have diagnosed the business from the internet. It is to show that you have done enough work to ask an intelligent question.
6. Use AI to rehearse
Once the case is clear, ask the AI to act as the customer. Tell it the person’s likely role and ask it to challenge your three reasons. What would a sceptical finance director question? What evidence would a facilities manager need? Which part sounds generic? What might make the proposal feel risky?
Then practise answering aloud. Ask the tool to score whether your opening is customer-centred, evidence-led and free of unnecessary jargon. This is particularly useful when entering an unfamiliar category: you can test the conversation privately before testing it with the client. Finally, use AI to draft a short approach, but never surrender your voice to it. If the result sounds as though it could have been sent to 500 companies, it probably will not interest one.
Add detail only that you know: the relationship history, the operational frustration, the site you visited or the colleague who should be involved. AI should increase personalisation, not industrialise blandness.
A simple first-week challenge
You do not need a transformation programme to begin. Choose one salesperson, one account and one adjacent category. Allow 45 minutes for structured research. Produce a one-page brief containing five items: what has changed; what the customer may need; the evidence; three questions to verify; and three ways in which you could create value.
Review it with a manager or category specialist, make the approach and record what happens. Repeat the exercise with five accounts. You will quickly learn which sources are useful, which prompts produce noise and where specialist knowledge is required. Save the best prompt and brief as a team template. The habit matters more than the technology.
A useful starter prompt could be: “Act as a commercial research assistant for a UK workplace supplies salesperson. Using current, cited public information, analyse [company]. Identify recent changes that could affect its workplaces, employees, sites, supply chain or purchasing. Suggest possible implications across [relevant categories]. Separate verified facts from hypotheses. For each hypothesis, provide the evidence, the likely stakeholder and one question that I should ask to validate it. Do not invent any information.”
That final instruction matters. So does your company’s policy on data. Do not upload confidential customer information, pricing, contracts, personal data or commercially sensitive material into an unapproved public tool. Use approved systems and keep a human responsible for every conclusion and communication.
The toolkit can be small
For the first steps, resist assembling a long list of expensive platforms. One search-enabled AI assistant, your CRM, LinkedIn, Companies House, the customer’s own website and a disciplined research template are enough to create a meaningful improvement.
If your organisation already uses Microsoft 365, explore the approved Copilot options available to you. For ChatGPT, use web search or deeper research features when current, sourced information matters. If prospecting is a major priority, Sales Navigator can identify people, relationships and changes within target accounts. Whichever tool you use, its value depends on the questions you ask and the judgement you apply.
The salesperson remains accountable for checking facts, protecting data, understanding nuance and deciding whether the insight is genuinely relevant. AI is a capable research assistant; it is not a witness, an expert on your customer or an excuse to stop thinking.
Confidence follows preparation
Our sector does not lack products, supplier partnerships, catalogues or categories. What it sometimes lacks is the confidence to begin a different customer conversation. Experienced salespeople possess something that AI cannot manufacture: years of pattern recognition, commercial instinct, resilience and trusted relationships.
However, AI can help them to apply that experience more widely. It can also accelerate research, expose connections and translate an unfamiliar category into a credible business discussion.
Do not begin by asking, “How can I sell this new product?” Ask, “What is happening in my customer’s world and where can we make it better?” Then gather the evidence until your proposition is no longer a hopeful claim. Diversification will not be won by the dealer with the longest catalogue. It will be won by the salesperson who understands the customer best, sees the opportunity first and is prepared to make a position statement based on knowledge.
Move from “I think they might need this” to “I know we can help – and here are three reasons why.” That is a far better place to start.
Gary Naphtali is Managing Director of Sales Perfect
