More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mahan Khalsa
Read between
July 6 - August 12, 2019
Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: title of a book by Annette Simmons
What happens, however, if clients give us a criterion that we cannot meet? Here are three ways to fundamentally change or reframe how they relate to a given criterion.
1. Change the relative importance of the criterion.
2. Show that no one could meet the criterion.
Change the client’s underlying beliefs about the criterion.
If clients want X, and you cannot give them X, can you give them what X equals to them? Failing that, can you show them examples of cases where getting X will not give them what they want?
For nonprice yellow lights, an effective pattern of resolution is to acknowledge, understand, resolve. ACKNOWLEDGE Slow down. Appreciate. Empathize. Do not necessarily agree. UNDERSTAND Understand the real issue. Understand how the client would resolve the issue.
Many consultants are vulnerable to price challenges because they: • Do not establish value up-front. • Know their prices are flexible. • Believe that all price challenges are real. • Believe that their counterpart knows competitive pricing. • Dislike discussing prices. • Focus on defending prices rather than providing results. • Want the sale.
Many clients will frequently challenge the quoted prices because: • They lose nothing by challenging the price. • They feel it is their responsibility. • Sellers often give in on price. • Value has not been created up-front. • They do not understand what it really takes to provide the solution.
Negotiation research shows that those who set higher targets realize greater returns. Yet if the price is too high, we lose credibility.
“No deal” is the price below which we would rather walk away than accept the business; we have better alternatives available.
Top consultants, in contrast, advocate for the aggressive, realistic target as if it were their no-deal point. If they concede, they concede in small amounts, concede slowly, and get some value exchange for each concession.
The general rule is: only negotiate price when price is the last issue on the table. Too many consultants capitulate on price and still do not get the business. We essentially tell the client we are liars (our price was not our price) and that we are stupid (we will give something for nothing).
General rule: only deal with price if price is the last issue on the table. To find out if it is the last issue, take price off the table and see what happens. If nothing happens, there is something important missing. Find out what it is.
We should not give the same scope, timing, and division of labor for a lower price without some meaningful exchange of value. Here are some possibilities: • We do not have to write a proposal and can pass on our cost savings to the client. • The client provides marketing and advertising value. • The client provides R&D collaboration; perhaps his company helps measure the effectiveness of the solution and we can write up the results in a white paper. • The client signs up additional business now and we write down our associated business development costs. • The client pays early and we reduce
...more
All nonprice issues are resolved. They want our solution and they want us. As long as we demonstrate a little flexibility, they will likely go with us, even if their price ploys do not work.
We faxed over exactly the same agreement. The purchasing person phoned back and said, “Well, as the saying goes, you can’t win if you don’t try. If that is the best you can do, let’s move ahead.”
If the decision we enable is not the final decision, we should confirm the remaining steps in the decision grid. We and the client should stay mutually aware of how we are jointly moving forward.
Start with the End in Mind: What do you want clients to comfortably and confidently say, do, or decide at the end of the meeting?
When you have covered the key beliefs, ask for the End in Mind. If there are remaining yellow lights, turn them to green the best you can.
Happy clients not only give us more business themselves, they are the source of vital references. The classic error of consultants is to get the business and then move on.
Turn future yellow lights to green—now.
We might talk about change of scope, their failure to meet commitments on time, changes in personnel, missed deadlines, etc. Set up lines of good communication now; if something occurs, we will know how to talk about it effectively, and we are not caught up in the emotions and fears of the moment.
Maintain the pressure on your company and clients to measure results. This is both challenging and important.
If we don’t treat current clients like prospective clients, they will become former clients.
Establish an account management strategy. We should always be thinking, “How can I help this client succeed?”
the reasons we think we have won or lost are not what the client was thinking or feeling.
Let’s figure out a series of steps we can take together, at the end of which, you would feel comfortable saying either yes or no—and “no” is perfectly okay.”
“Initiating New Opportunities” approach at a glance: 1. Prioritize: Do fewer; do them better. 2. Prepare: Develop in-depth knowledge of the company and people you will call on. Prepare client oriented communications. 3. Personalize: NO COLD CALLS! Get a referral to the person you want to see. 4. Practice: Rehearse what you will say and how you will say it. Rehearse your responses to potential questions and yellow lights. 5. Pre-position: Get agreement in advance for what will be a good use of time.
The 80/20 rule doesn’t go far enough. Apply the 95/5 rule.
When conducting research for companies in Scenario One, we want to learn the following: Context: What issues and trends are affecting the client’s industry? What are the clients key strategies and initiatives that affect everything it does? Issues: What business problems or results does the client have that are addressed by our solution? Evidence: What data and/or opinions suggest something needs to change? Impact: What are the probable financial and intangible consequences of the issues? Constraints: What has stopped or might stop the client from addressing the issues?
we should be able to talk about our solution in terms of the problems it solves and the results it produces, rather than its features and benefits. We should be able to talk about those issues in terms of specific evidence and impact. If clients do not care about the problems or results our solution addresses, they will not care about the solution.
The same Meeting Plan introduced earlier for final presentations will be used here for an initial call. MEETING PLAN
Even though we initiated the meeting, we want to ask questions that encourage the client to do most of the talking.
we were only able to talk about one, two, or three key issues (around the topic of interest) that would make this a good use of your time, what would you like to make sure we cover?”
Would you feel comfortable starting out our conversation talking at a high level about what you see as the top three to five business challenges or opportunities you face over the next one to two years?”
the questions prepared in advance were: 1. We want to ask a. What assets if any do you suspect are problematic? b. How would you size the potential—assuming it could be captured? c. What might prevent the company from trying a new approach? 2. We expect from them a. We have tried to address this ourselves and concluded that it would cost more to solve the problem than the size of the problem itself. How could you do it if we couldn’t? b. Where have you done this successfully before?
am happy with our current partner.” Response: “That’s good to hear. In the interest of continuous improvement, is there anything that your current partner doesn’t do, or do well, that might be worth exploring? No is an okay answer.”
“Thanks for being direct. Before we go, just out of curiosity, are you not interested because you are not experiencing these issues? Am I calling at a bad time? Or is it because you have these issues covered?”
A short sales cycle is in clients’ best interest, as well as our own.
Here are some helpful hints: 1. Give clients homework. Ask them to provide necessary information in advance. 2. Before a meeting, interview the people who will attend the meeting. Find out what will make the meeting a good use of their time. 3. Gain agreement on the End in Mind and key beliefs before the meeting (see Pre-positioning Meetings for Success on page 196).
AGENDA Is there something worth finding?
Is the necessary investment of time appropriate and feasible?
Do the economics make sense?
Decide:
Internet research and social networking technology have revolutionized the ability to make connections. When we research potential companies, we also do in-depth research on the people we will call on.
obvious key to always having a referral is to always engage in actively developing them. Referrals come easily when we are committed to helping clients succeed in a way they feel good about.
The single largest determinant of profitability is account retention. . . . We have found that many sales forces are overly focused on attracting new accounts and neglect the highly profitable retention opportunities. They are hunters not gatherers. Yet gathering is often more efficient, if less exciting.—Benson
Potential referrals tend to fall into three categories: people who know us well, people we know, and people we know of.
