Introduction
- It’s about framing our solutions as a 4.2-4.5 [where purchase likelihood peaks], and no longer positioning as though we’re a perfect 5.0.
- In my own experience, the use of unexpected honesty and transparency shortened sales cycles dramatically.
SECTION 1: TRANSPARENCY REDEFINED
Chapter One The Brain and Decision Making
- If we haven’t painted a picture of an easy path to evaluate, purchase, implement, and use our products, that uncertainty may drive a buyer to perceive more complexity in your solution than may actually be required, and as a result, may see your solution differently than an option where the path is clearly laid out.
- Dr. David Rock’s ”SCARF” model, consisting of five domains of feelings contributing to a decision: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and / or Fairness.
Chapter Two Buyer Empathy
- Build bulletproof trust during your interactions with the prospective buyers
Chapter Three. Why Doing it Right Matters – The Results Formula
- To reach our goals, we must know what the key inputs are to our success, then measure those inputs.
- Four fundamental components that are the
contributors to your actual results,
- Number of Qualified Opportunities
- Average Deal Size
- Win Rate
- Cycle Length
- Apply the TEMP model to assess qualified opportunities
- T – Trigger: When I refer to the trigger, I refer to the point where the buyer has recognized that their status quo is no longer sustainable.
- E – Engagement: When looking at engagement, I am asking myself: Is the customer/prospect engaged? Have we scheduled a next step or follow up?
- M – Mobilizer : Have we connected with the individual or individuals capable of ‘mobilizing’ an organization to make a change?
- P – Plan: The plan refers to how far you are in drafting a mutual decision plan (MDP) with your prospect. Have we had the discussion with the buyer around what steps will be required to fix the problem with their status quo? Have they contributed to outlining the plan?
Chapter Four Why Change, Why You, Why Now?
- The key isn’t convincing a potential buyer that your solution has significant ROI. Problems need to be prioritized. Typically, a buyer can only concentrate on fixing three to five problems at a time. [The key is understanding] which projects do [they] really believe will increase revenue, reduce cost, or help [them] avoid a direct hit from a freight train, with the highest return on perceived effort?
- Types of buyers:
- Actively Buying (AB): ABs will often ”commoditize” your products and services against the alternatives they’re looking at by lumping solutions together that, from their outside perspective, look similar.
- Passively Buying (PB)
- Status Quo (SQ)
- The Concept of Why: Why Change? Why you? Why now?
SECTION 2: WHY CHANGE?
Chapter Five Email Prospecting
- How do we optimize those first few words of the email? Through personalization and value creation, not through sales pitches and attempts to influence.
- Ways to provide value in a personalized way,
minus the sales pitch:
- Share information about the recipient’s competitor.
- Share information that connects with their personal values.
- Share information about something useful for their role.
- Offer to make a connection.
- Congratulate them.
Chapter Six Positioning
- The truth is, no matter what you sell, it probably isn’t perfect. [Ask your prospect,] ‘Would it be helpful if I start with how they’re better than us?’
- When Derek told our competitor about his decision to go with us, that competitor shared a couple of other issues clients have had in working with us. Derek’s response to them was, ”Yes, I know. [Todd] told us!”
- “To ensure we’re making the best use of our time together, would it make sense to highlight a couple of the things we DON’T do? If you and your team have determined these to be vitally important to the success of your project, it’s likely better to start with those, versus discover them later, right?”
Chapter Seven Mutual Decision Plans
- Introduce the MDP early
- Make every interaction transparent
- Revisit/follow the MDP through the entire process
- Limit options: This isn’t a list of things you have to do; it’s a mutual to-do list for both you and your buyer.
- Ask questions like:
- “Is there anything missing that you’re going to need to do?”
- “Are any of these steps unnecessary in your decision journey?”
- “What elements will take longer than the time period I’ve proposed?”
- “Which elements will need to be accelerated?”
- “Who, other than yourself, needs to be involved in this?”
- “Do we need to include steps to ensure they’re aligned?”
SECTION 3: WHY YOU?
Chapter Eight Presenting
- When we present stories and emotion, then support that emotion with logic, the result is a much higher propensity to drive connectedness and consensus.
- A short-term ”carrot” has a greater impact than a longer term ”stick.”
- [Your goal is] to help [your prospect] understand their problem more fully, to inspire feelings that their status quo is less sustainable than they originally thought, to motivate them to change, and to connect them in a way where they want to change with you!
- Framework to disarm, educate, engage emotion to
bring the audience together, and compel action:
- Step 1: Alignment Begin the meeting with a verbal agreement on the purpose, agenda, and ground rules of the meeting. We then asked each audience member to introduce themselves, along with why they were investing their time in the presentation.
- Step 2: Disarming: “In preparation for today, we experienced what it is like to be a Fingerhut consumer. Also, we chose to start with some vulnerability about our own company. We explained how, as an upstart competitor, there were pieces of our technology that were behind.
- TRANSITION: “As we were preparing for this discussion, we discovered three potential opportunities where we felt there could be a major impact on your business. Can we briefly start there?”
- Step 3: Diagnosis Now is the time to teach them something about their business that they likely had not ever considered such as: A missed revenue opportunity? A missed cost savings opportunity? A potential risk to their business that they are potentially not seeing?
- Step 4: Prove It!
- Step 5: Potential Reward: What are the feelings this opportunity can impact in terms of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness?
- Step 6: The Path Together: We put together a ”here’s how to proceed” framework.
- We gave them confidence in our ability to execute through making the entire presentation about what was possible in their world.
- Having your last slide, contain only the word ”Questions?” is a mistake.
Chapter Nine Empowering References
- Asking a client to be a reference must be framed as valuable for the client. For example: “Would you be interested in speaking with the senior vice president at Acme Corporation? She has an incredible background, is evaluating our products, and would like to speak to someone about their experience. You immediately came to mind, as I figured there would be mutual value in a conversation with her.”
SECTION 4: WHY NOW?
Chapter Ten Transparent Negotiations
- “Transparent Negotiation” is showing your hand to the buyer from the beginning, disarming their barrier to the discussion.
- Negotiation ”Levers”
- Volume
- Timing of Cash
- Length of Commitment
- Timing of the Deal
- At the start of the sales cycle, when a prospect asks about how our solutions are priced, be transparent right from the beginning
- When the buyer makes a request to extend that discount beyond the mutually agreed upon date, create uncertainty in your answer. “We do not know if we’ll be able hold the price into October. What I do know is that this price is still valid through the end of September, so can we talk about October in October?”
Chapter Eleven Negotiating Terms & Conditions
- Clients want their relationship with you to be as easy as possible. The more effort, burden, or homework you give the client, the less confidence they have in the relationship.
- Build trust the first time you send the legal document to the buyer. Example: “The ninety (90) day notification requirement for the contracting party will only be valid if the selling party reminds the contracting party of this provision 120-180 days prior to the end of the term.”
- Start in the middle: Create a legal document chock-full of unexpected surprises that create mutual value and scream partnership.
SECTION 5: WHY STAY, BUY MORE & ADVOCATE?
Chapter Twelve Post-Purchase Interaction
- The first days post-signature will likely determine whether they buy more from you, stay with you long term, refer you to others without being asked, and call you first when they join their next company.
- As a seller, work with your internal teams to establish a communication process that starts from the minute the signature is made.
- Kickoff call
- The buyer’s objectives
- Why the buyer chose you: A reminder of exactly what they purchased, and what they did not
- Introductions to your team members:
Chapter Thirteen Client Success
- Don’t send client interaction surveys after troubleshooting. Instead, send post interaction surveys after business reviews, trainings, or well-being checks.
- The effectiveness of a QBR isn’t determined by how good you make the client feel; it’s about ensuring expectations are being met, and exploring opportunities to achieve even more.
BONUS CHAPTER
Chapter Fourteen Transparency Applied To……
- …Your Job Search : “Well, let me start with why I may not be the perfect candidate for the role. In reading the job description, the majority of the requirements are a great fit for my experience, expertise, and passion. However, there are two here we should probably address right from the beginning.”
- … Your Recruiting: Consider presenting your open roles as though they are a 4.2-4.5.
- … Your Requests for Proposals: I highly recommend creating a list of RFP questions the client can include in their process.
- … Your Conference Booth:
- Network with their peers… in their booth!
- Arm your booth with your top client success representatives, solution consultants, or even your product team members. Then, make sure it’s clear to any conference attendees who are walking the floor that your booth is a sales-free zone,