Tools for success

 This book is a great book about delivering value and building trust with your prospects from day 1. It's worth the read, but here are the highlights and lessons to take away:

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.
• It's not just one decision but multiple decisions along the way
• Our brains are designed to resist influence
• We start with emotions and feelings and then justify with logic
• 99% of decisions are made subconsciously
• Dr. David Rock’s ”SCARF” model, consisting of five domains of feelings contributing to a decision: 1. Status  2. Certainty  3. Autonomy  4. Relatedness  5. Fairness

Chapter Two Buyer Empathy

• Build bulletproof trust during your interactions with the prospective buyers
• Every single interaction is a decision point for the buyers
• The less trust the buyer has in you, the more homework they will do (ex. References, blogs, etc.) which may delay or negatively impact sale
• Know where buyers will go to do their homework and know what they will find

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:

                      1. Number of Qualified Opportunities

                      2. Average Deal Size

                      3. Win Rate

                      4. Cycle Length

• Apply the TEMP model to assess qualified opportunities

                      T – Trigger: point where the buyer knows that their status quo is no longer working                

                      E – Engagement: Is the customer/prospect engaged? 

                      M - Mobilizer: Have we connected to individuals capable of "mobilizing" change?

                      P– Plan: success with drafting a mutual decision plan (MDP) with your prospect

  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 what the prospect really believe will increase revenue, reduce cost, or help avoid a direct hit from a freight train, with the highest return on perceived effort
• Types of buyers:

                          - Actively Buying (AB)

                          - 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 (ex. Share information that connects with their personal values, Share information about something useful for their role)
• Optimize your subject line plus first 10 lines of the email
• Deliver succinct, personalized value
• Be in demand
• How are you different than marketing if you just send generalized info? 
• Don’t give the prospect homework 
• What feelings are you communicating in your messaging? 
• Be giving without always asking for something

Chapter Six Positioning

  “To know that you do no know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease...” 

• 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?”
• Lead with your shortcomings
• Transparency as a culture
• Ex. Ikea doesn’t hide their downfalls but they are still successful (ex. you know that you have to assemble); wear their flaws instead of hiding them

Chapter Seven Mutual Decision Plans

•  Introduce the Mutual Decision Plan (MDP) early- show that you’ve done this before
• Make every interaction transparent- map every interaction back to the plan
• 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.”
• Help the 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:
• Give them confidence in our ability to execute through making the entire presentation about what is possible in their world.
• Having your last slide, contain only the word ”Questions?” is a mistake.
• Emotion binds, logic polarizes
• Create a presentation choreography/sales process
• Have empathy for your audience’s brain- create breaks in between sections; ex. Tell stories to break it up and keep their attention 
• Last slide- what do you want to leave them with? 
• There are multiple buyers- how do you connect with each of them 

  Chapter Nine Empowering References

• Asking a client to be a reference must be framed as valuable for the client. 
• There’s value to being a reference -position it as mutually beneficial
• Encourage your references to be transparent
• You have more potential references than you think – even imperfect ones
• Make the request with empathy- share that you’re okay with them sharing imperfections

 Chapter Ten Transparent Negotiations

• “Transparent Negotiation” is showing your hand to the buyer from the beginning, disarming their barrier to the discussion.
• Negotiation ”Levers” (ex. Volume, timing of cash, length of commitment)
• 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?”- create uncertainty otherwise lose credibility
• Identify your levers
• Assign value to your levers
• Enable your team
• Show your hand early and often
• Allow your buyers to essentially roll their own deal 

  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.
• Start in the middle: Create a legal document chock-full of unexpected surprises that create mutual value and scream partnership.
• Identify your self-serving terms and conditions
• Provide opportunities for unexpected honesty in your terms

  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
• Your level of trust cannot end with the signing of the transaction
• Do not lose focus on a client after the contract has been signed
• Take the time to invest

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- not after we fixed an issue.
• 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.
• Remember how decisions are made
• Listen thoughtfully
• Be cognizant of emotion in all of your interactions with your clients
• The trust building never ends

Read it. Learn it. Practice It!