Why Selling Sucks

Why Selling Sucks
Sucks
...the Life Right Out of Your Consulting Business
Why Selling
Jay Niblick
Foreword by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Why Selling SUCKS, The Seven Buying Motives, The Four Buying Styles, The CGS Diagnostic Sales Process, Diagnostic Selling are all trademarks of Jay Niblick. Why Selling SUCKS! Copyright 2012 by Jay Niblick All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Jay Niblick, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law or in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is sincerely appreciated. www.consultantgrowth.com Printed in the United States of America. First Publication: January, 2012 Book design by Ryan Scheife, Mayfly Design ISBN-10# (0-615-45268-X) ISBN-13# (978-0-615-45268-5)
Thanks to all those consultants, coaches, mentors, advisors and teachers out there who so selflessly shared their experience and wisdom and made such a wonderful donation to the pool of knowledge I now hope to share with others in our honorable profession. This book is dedicated to my peers, the professional, independent business consultant and coach. We have all taken that bold step Thoreau speaks of; to chase our dreams of owning our own business and delivering value to those we serve. I sincerely hope this book helps in no small way with your achieving that dream.
Why Selling SUCKS takes a hard sometimes brutal look at the logic behind how consultants have historically tried to grow their business and offers a refreshing, effective and surprisingly simple alternative that just works! Anthony Robbins, Entrepreneur, Author and Peak Performance Strategist I was a bit shocked when I first saw that title but, since I know and trust the author, I read on. And Im here to tell you its true! This book shows how you, as a consultant or coach, do NOT need to learn scripts or develop a steel-will to go out and sell. Instead Jay shows you how to make selling an integral part of all that you do so that you never experience those sweat-producing moments of call reluctance or feeling inadequate. This is a new mindset, one which is totally compatible with my concept of Selling. Get a copy of this book today. Jim Cathcart, Bestselling Author and member of the NSA Speakers Hall of Fame I believe in helping, not selling; in problem-solving, not persuading; in collaborating, not pitching a stock solution. Jay Niblicks newest book, Why Selling SUCKS, preaches all these same philosophies. Jay firmly believes in diagnosing before prescribing through online assessments and good questioning/listening skills. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to any professional engaged in business development. In other words, all of us! Dr. Tony Alessandra, Author of Collaborative Selling and The Platinum Rule for Sales Mastery
About time someone stepped up and took on the way selling is meant to be and turned that on its head. There will be a LOT of consultants that will not like this book; simply because they wont be able to hide behind the excuse of I am not great at sales anymore. This book challenges you to be you and simply communicate what you do and how you do it and therefore the hard sell is not required. Instead of teaching you how to change yourself to become a great sales person, Jay does not want to change you. He just wants to enhance you and the way you do business. Philip McKernan, International Bestselling Author, Speaker and President at Philip McKernan Inc. Having worked with thousands of coaches and consultants, its heart breaking how many never achieve success because they never figure out how to sell. In Why Selling SUCKS, Jay reveals a fascinating but simple strategy to be yourself, enjoy the process, and still dominate your market at will. The first time I saw Jays work, I immediately realized its sheer power and brilliance.It provides the missing piece that Ive never seen anyone else reveal.Thats why we now make his work a mandatory part of all our training programs for coaches, consultants, professionals and entrepreneurs. If youre looking for ways to grow your practice, stop searchingthis book is the answer! Greg Habstritt, Founder and President, SimpleWealth Inc. Jay Niblick has cracked the code when it comes to growing your consulting practice. His method to attract more clients is both simple and amazingly effective. As I read this book, I had one aha moment after another. If you want more clients and more time to do what you love, study this book and put Jays methods to use. It will change your businessand your life. Noah St. John, Author of The Secret Code of Success
The number one complaint my customers have is, I hate selling! Why? They dont have a great system, best practices or a methodology to do it; or at least not one specifically designed for consultants and coaches. Why Selling SUCKS provides a system, a methodology to sell better and sell faster if you are a consultant/coach. Most importantly Jay introduces the powerful psychology every consultant, coach and expert needs to break through and become a six-figure earner or go from six to seven figures! Do yourself a favor and adopt these concepts. It just might be the best business investment youll make all year. Mike Koenigs, Founder Traffic Geyser
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi Who is This Book For? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter One: The Problem with Consulting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 To Sell or Not to Sell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Cause #1: Selling is a full-time job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Cause #2: Selling isnt right for what you do. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Cause #3: Selling isnt right for who you are. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Cause #4: The myth of strengths and weaknesses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Cause #5. The Die-chotomy of being an independent consultant. . . 24 Cause #6. The Old Way is Dead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Chapter Two: The Psychology of Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Three Basic Truths of Sales Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Truth #1. The ABCs of traditional sales must be re-written! . . . . . . . . . . . Truth #2. The more you connect, the more you collect! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Truth #3. People buy for their reasons, not yours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 29 30 31 33
Chapter Three: The Diagnostic Sales Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Five Simple Steps (an Overview) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The Physician Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Step #1Induce the customer to come to you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step #2Establish a Concrete Power Source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step #3Advise them of Possible Causative Metrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step #4Recommend Diagnostic Profiling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step #5Negotiate the Appropriate Solution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
47 72 78 86 95
Chapter Four: Squeezing the Trigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Connecting the dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Dont Forget to Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 The Option of Multiple Yeses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Chapter Five: Putting it All to Work for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 The CGS Diagnostic Sales ProcessA Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Effective Communication = Effective Persuasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 The Seven Buying Motives (WHY people buy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 The Four Buying Styles (HOW people buy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Buying Style Communication Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Whos on First? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Connection Versus Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Buying Style Fit & Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Overview of all combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Foreword
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith Selling can be uncomfortable for professional business consultants and executive coaches. Ive known many coaches who want to be above selling their services. They believe that their work should speak for itself and that marketing and promotion -- selling -- is demeaning. Maybe they dont want to be associated with those pushy or annoying people that so often garner the title sales person. Perhaps they dont want their clients to think of them as one of these distasteful people. Possibly they see self-promotion as a reflection of professional or personal deficit. Whatever the case may be, it holds them back. One of the things that I frequently tell people when they ask me for advice about how to get a job in consult-
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ing is: You have to sell yourself. You have to develop the [You] Brand. Most people arent really sales people. The trick is to do it in such a way that you are not seen as a sales person, yet you still must sell, and thats where people need significant help. Why Selling SUCKS will give you that help. Taking traditional beliefs about how best to sell and turning them completely upside down, Jay Niblick rewrites the sales playbook for the consulting and coaching industry. Were in a different field than typical sales people. What we need isnt conventional sales techniques; its a sales methodology specifically designed for us independent business consultants and coaches and thats what Jay gives us in Why Selling SUCKS. So, stop struggling to grow your practice and pick up Why Selling SUCKSyou will be glad you did!
Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times and million copy bestselling author of MOJO and What Got You Here Wont Get You There.
Foreword
xiii
The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Proven Five-Step Sales Process for Professional Consultants and Coaches
Created by consultantsfor consultants.
The CGS Sales Formula
Who is This Book For?
This book speaks to professional, independent business consultants and coaches. By this I mean it is for those who are self-employed or work as part of a small, privately held practice, provide consulting and/ or coaching servicesprofessionallyto businesses. Can these lessons be applied to life coaches, trainers, mentors, advisors or any other title you choose? The answer is yes, as long as you are: 1. A Professionalyou make your sole living providing such services 2. Independent you work for or by yourself or with a very small group. These lessons were not learned from, nor do we know them to work for, consultants working in large corporate consulting firms where you have separate sales staff,
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or employees who provide in-house coaching to other employees 3. A business consultant while these same lessons could easily apply to a life coach, mentor or other advisor, they are more specific to business environments 4. A coach either exclusively, or in addition to being a consultant Note: while this book is addressed to both consultants and coaches, so as not to drive you crazy with constantly writing, independent business consultants and coaches throughout the rest of this document, I will refer to this population simply as consultants.
Introduction
In the course of doing business over the past twelve years, I have been privileged to certify over 1,500 independent business consultants around the world in our software and profile methodologies. In that work, Ive also been blessed to work with some of the best consulting and coaching professionals in the world. These experts include a world-renowned personal excellence coach; multi-million dollar management consultants; some of the top executive coaches in the world; perennial Forbes, Fortune and Wall Street Journal interviewees and contributing authors; one of the most published sales experts on the planet; and multiple New York Times bestselling business authors. Every one of these pros has generated literally millions of dollars through the application of their savvy and
2 Introduction
expertise . . . and our tools. Thats right; these experts have made significant use of Innermetrix methodologies and tools as an integral part of their businesses and how they grew them. The level of success Im talking about ranges, on the low side, from an independent coach who makes $300,000 USD annually to, on the high side, two independent consultants (coaches, technically) who make between $2MM and $4MM per year...working out of their houses. The CGS Diagnostic Sales Process you are about to learn is the distillation and compilation of these experts best practices and methodologies. As I watched these consultants work their magic, I realized I wasnt seeing any of the more traditional sales methodologies I was used to. As a surgical sales professional for years with Johnson & Johnson, I learned most of those sales techniques and they were absent in what I was witnessing. It soon became very clear that these consultants were practicing some new form of selling, one more ideally suited for the profession we all share.
Introduction
While each had their own unique way about them, they were indeed all practicing a common set of rules. Somehow, each had arrived at the same methods on their own, likely through much trial and error. The addition of our profiles played a vital role as well, because this gave each of them something new to leverage that they hadnt possessed before. As I realized I was watching a new model of selling that had not yet been formally structured or even named, I also realized it needed to be capturedand shared. This book does that capturing and sharing, and it is designed to teach you the lessons learned from those hyper-successful consultants and coaches. In a way, its fair to say that this methodology was developed by consultants for consultants. It is peer-created, fieldtested and results-proven, so you can trust that youre learning a process that actually worksnot some theory. Furthermore, as you will see me rail against in these pages, this sales method is not one borrowed from another industry and applied to our world of consulting. It is created specifically to consultative selling.
4 Introduction
If you are an independent business consultant or coach and youre struggling to grow your practice, this book will help you reach your objectives. If youre tired of putting on the sales hat when you neither want to, nor feel it looks good on you in the first place, this book will show you how to throw that hat in the trash and still grow your practice to incredible heights. If youve been guilty of masquerading as a sales person just so you can be the consultant you want to be, this book is for you. And, just for the record: Given everything Ive said so far and will to come some might assume Im condemning the act of selling altogether. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Im sure I will offend or irritate a fair number of people, both sales professionals and consultants, with the title of this book. The title, Why Selling SUCKS isnt meant to be an insult to anyone in the profession or the role itself. It is, however, meant to grab your attention, shock you a little and hopefully cause you to realize the contrary nature of this text and the process contained within because your belief system on how to grow your practice needs this shock to its system to knock it loose.
Introduction
While I am not condemning the profession of sales, I am arguing that sales is for sales people which you are not. The moral of this story is that, as a consultant or coach, while you need the benefits of sales, you cant commit the typical acts of selling. Ironic as it might sound, sales may be the objective...but being a sales person is the enemy. Whether a novice or experienced expert, Ive witnessed both types of consultants achieve significant growth for their practice by applying the lessons contained in this book. Inside you will find everything you need to stop sucking the life out of your practice and instead start growing your client base and increasing your profits...today! Enjoy!
Jay Niblick, FounderConsultant Growth Systems www.consultantgrowth.com www.whatsyourgenius.com
Chapter One
The Problem with Consulting
To Sell or Not to Sell

In both 2009 and 2010, my company, Innermetrix Incorporated, conducted polls of over 2,000 consultants. This simple survey was designed to help us understand how satisfied the general consulting community was with their dependence on selling to grow their practice and how satisfied they were with the results of their sales efforts. The results of that survey should come as no big surprise to anyone in this field, but they highlight a critical issue. While 99% of the respondents felt that increasing sales was their most critical issue, 98% felt an equally
8 Chapter One
strong dislike for the act of selling. Now, thats what I would call...a bit of a dilemma.
The Problem: Independent consultants need to sell to grow their practicesbut they hate to sell.
With such a significant problem, it is tempting to jump immediately to the solution; how to fix it. But, before you can fix a problem, you have to understand its cause. Only then can you hope to fix the problem. Otherwise you are treating the symptoms. Below are the six leading causes of poor sales for the independent business consultant/coach.
Cause #1: Selling is a full-time job.

Simply put, the mistake most consultants make is that they fail to recognize that they are NOT sales people. Professional sales people are just that professionals, whose primary role is to sell. Look at any large and successful company and they have a dedicated sales force. This is because they know that sales people are best at
selling, while other people are better suited for other roles like servicing, educating, manufacturing, etc. Salesmanship isnt just some sideline skill you pick up in order to become better at some other core job. It takes years of practice to become a very good sales person. It takes a specific personality type (more on that later), and the best practices for professional sales people arent something you can just pick up and transport to another role. It takes years of education, training and practice to become a great professional sales person. And, it takes constant attention to keep that skill honed and sharp. Treating sales as something else you have to do in order to do your real job will only result in mediocre resultsat best! Furthermore, thinking you can pick up sales in a few courses or as an ancillary skill simply wont work. The best professional sales people have spent years getting to the point where they become incredibly effective. Unless you come from a professional sales background, reading a few books or attending a short course on sales isnt going to work. When sales is treated like a collateral duty, the results are typically equal to the attention put into it.
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While I know that everyone out there has probably told you that, in order to grow your practice, you need to sell, and I know this makes rational sense (I mean, without customers, who would you consult to?); until you realize that your core profession is being a consultant, you will struggle. Sure, you may make some sales. How does the saying go? Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while? Even a novice sales person can get lucky sometimes. I personally dont like having those kinds of odds be the norm for the growth of my own consulting practice. Not when it comes to my lifes work.
Cause #2: Selling isnt right for what you do.

The key to understanding why you, as a consultant, struggle with selling lies in your realizing that youre borrowing best practices from another role. Youre using someone elses tools. Its like the carpenter borrowed your plumbing wrench to drive some nails. Just as assuming that the best sales techniques in retail will work for selling to the government is wrong, so too is it wrong to assume that the best sales practices of
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professional sales people will work for you, the professional consultant. A very common mistake Ive seen our consultants make is to try to emulate other sales people theyve known. As executives in their former lives, they have had lots of exposure to sales people trying to sell to them. Now that they are independent consultants who need to start selling, they try to copy what they saw other sales people doing to them. They try to switch the sides of their old desk and remember (imagine) what it was like to sell to themselves. It is like some perverse Golden Rule, Do unto others as you have seen them do unto you. The only problem with this, though, is that, in most cases, the person you are trying to copy was a professional sales person. You are not! Outside of the fact that your full-time profession isnt selling, the other reason you should stop playing sales person is because you, the consultant, must be seen as the authority, the thought-leader, or the expert. The moment you start selling, however, you undermine your prospects belief in you as the expert. While it isnt fair, the general perception of a sales person is not that of a respectable authority in your field.
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What words come to mind if I asked you to describe a physician who called your house offering you a free office visit. When I ask this in the classes I teach, the results are remarkable. With no more knowledge about the physician than this, the opinions range from, not very good and bottom of his graduating class to hack and even he probably killed someone. Really? All this poor physician did was try to promote his business to you (by acting like the best sales person he knew) and all of a sudden he is deemed incompetent, unethical or worse. Would you hire a corporate attorney that you saw advertised on the back of a bus? Would you trust your life savings to a financial advisor who cold called you or pulled out a pitch book at some networking event? Bill Brooks, author of over 11 best-selling sales training books and one of the most successful sales consultants of his time, had a list of the top mistakes professional sales people make. On that list was one of the more common old-school ones Ive seen in the consulting community. Its called a tie-down question and it goes something like this, If I could show you something today, Mr. Smith, that would meet your objec-
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tives, would you . . . ? Immediately, how do you feel in response to this question? More importantly, what happens to your view of the person who is asking it? Exactly! Experts, however, are seen in a completely opposite light. Thought-leaders, authorities and experts enjoy the very opposite perception in the public eye. While neither perception may be justified, they exist nonethe-less, and you must deal with this fact. Some have played around with what they call the Consultative Selling model, but even this isnt the same as the Diagnostic Sales Process. While consultative selling does seek to replace selling activities with consulting ones, it is still something a professional sales person does. A professional sales persons sole objective is to sell. Here, a sales professional is using consulting as a means to an end...to sell. Instead of sales people acting like consultants to sell or consultants acting like sales people to sell I champion the radically simple concept of consultants acting like consultants to sell. Its that simple . . . and authentic.
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To grow your practice you will learn to use consulting to sell consulting.
Cause #3: Selling isnt right for who you are.

Weve profiled over 500,000 people around the world and I can state with great empirical confidence that there are defined and different natural talents or traits that lend themselves to success as either a sales professional or a consultant. There are definitive traits that exist in the best sales people (e.g., dominance, aggressiveness, economic drive, tactical versus strategic outlook, etc.). And, there is an equally strong trend in what traits show up in the most successful consultants (e.g., cooperation, facilitation, strategic versus tactical outlook, etc.). The big problem is that the traits in each profession arent the same. Most great sales people love the hunt but hate to think they would then have to spend months servicing that new client (unless they see another sale nearby, of course). Why do you think larger companies have a
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dedicated customer service department? Trust me; it has less to do with a scale issue and more to do with the fact that each population is ideally suited for delivering a different core result. Customer service people deliver great support, but usually couldnt sell if they had to. And, most sales people deliver great sales, but usually arent great at delivering unconditional service and support. In other words, the natural talents, values and behaviors that are seen driving success in the typical sales role are not the same as those driving success in the typical consultant role. So when I say that selling is not right for who you are I mean that your personality profile is probably much better aligned with being a consultant or coach than it is for being a sales person. While there are always exceptions to any rule, the great majority of consultants Ive certified have a set of natural talents that makes them much more ideally suited to do what they love to do (i.e., coach and consult) than it does fill the role of professional sales person. And when you allow your success to become dependent on your non-talents (i.e., allowing your practice to depend on your selling), then you have created a sig-
16 Chapter One
nificant problem for your business. Youve created a weakness by allowing your practices success to depend on your becoming the best sales person not the best consultant.
Cause #4: The myth of strengths and weaknesses.

There is a myth about strengths and weaknesses that states that we all naturally possess them. In reality, we dont. No human possesses any single strength or weakness. What we do possess are natural talents and non-talents, but these are not the same as strengths and weaknesses. Dont get me wrong, Im not one of those who thinks it is too negative to tell someone he or she has a weakness and wants to call it an opportunity for development. I actually dislike this phrase, because more often than not, it supports the incorrect view that someone can fix a weakness by developing a new natural talent for something. If one of my clients is suffering from a weakness, I tell him or her straight up. But the key is that this weakness isnt natural, it is manufactured.
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Weaknesses and strengths dont exist naturally, only talents and non-talents. If, however, I rely on a non-talent, then I create a weakness for myself. Likewise, if I dont rely on my talents then they are never strengths for me. In this way, I manufacture strengths and weaknesses. In other words, you are ultimately in control of your strengths and weaknesses. You may be born with talents and non-talents, but you are in charge of whether or not those talents and non-talents are used to become strengths or weaknesses. When you allow your success to depend on your talents, you create strengths. When you allow your success to depend on your non-talents, you create weaknesses. This might seem like Im talking about some minor, semantic difference, but I assure you that this is much more than a simple play on words. Understanding this concept requires a total change of perspective. Most people buy into the myth that they possess their strengths and weaknesses and fail to understand that they dont actually possess them, they create them. The power is theirs as to whether these strengths and weaknesses exist.
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The thing that controls how these potentials turn out is how you apply yourself. Just as Mom used to say, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out, so you, too, bring your weaknesses into this world, and you, too, can take them out. But instead of trying to take them out by developing new natural talents, youre simply going to remove your dependency on themby not making your success as a consultant dependent on your success as a professional sales person! A great example of a consultant manufacturing a weakness by allowing her practice to depend on her becoming a great sales person can be found in the story of Beth. On a recent teleconference with Beth and twelve other coaches, as we talked about the concept of manufacturing weaknesses, Beth spoke up with a challenge and said that sometimes you dont have a choice but to rely on a non-talent. She went on to explain that she couldnt avoid having to sell as an independent coach, and that it was just a part of [her] job. As an independent business consultant, in order to grow her practice, she had to find new clients. Beths natural talents, however, didnt support the typical def-
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inition of selling. She didnt like prospecting; she wasnt comfortable cold calling or closing aggressively. Her natural talents were such that much of what it takes to sell was just not a strong suit for her. Even though she knew selling wasnt her strength, she bought into the same belief that so many others dothat the role is the role; that there are just certain aspects of a job that are beyond choice, and there is nothing you can do other than develop your ability to excel in all areas. As a result, she had been trying to fix herself and create a natural ability for selling where none existed previously. She had taken sales training programs, read sales development books, and tried everything that other consultants had said worked for them. No matter how many times she tried, though, she didnt see any real improvements. By the time we were talking she had reconciled herself to the fact that sales was just a part of the role, and if she wanted to be an executive coach she was just going to have to selleven if it meant manufacturing a weakness.
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Think about it. Even though she knew she wasnt very good at selling, it never really dawned on her that she could eliminate that aspect of her role altogether. Thats how ingrained the belief is that the role is the role. Thats how programmed we all are to think, If something isnt right, its me that has to change. When I asked Beth, Why do you try to be a sales person? she said, So I can grow my coaching practice. Then I asked her, If your objective is to be a great coach, then why are you trying to be a great sales person? Beths reply was, Because thats what the job requires. And there you have it. Beth had fallen into the same trap so many others had fallen into. Like many of us, Beth was conditioned to believe there was only one best way to fulfill her role, and with so many people telling her the same thing (e.g. you have to sell), she never imagined questioning it. The simple solution for Beth was to stop trying to be a sales person and instead just focus on being what she wanted to bea successful coach. She had not asked herself, How do I achieve my objective of growing
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my practice in a manner that doesnt involve my having to become a great sales person? However, once she asked that question, once she focused on the overall objective instead of the conventional path to it, she started coming up with all kinds of answers. It wasnt that the answers were terribly difficult to come by; just that she hadnt thought to ask the question. Once the right questions were being asked, though, the answers started to flow. It turns out that most successful coaches do very little sales-based marketing. Instead, they follow the education-based marketing approach. Sales-based methods may work fine when you are selling a commodity, but not so much for professional services. Ask yourself, have you ever gone to a physician whose office called your house to ask if you were sick? Once Beth was focusing her effort in the right place (i.e. figuring out how to grow her business without selling), she found a whole host of resources to help her create an education-based marketing program that had her authoring articles, lecturing as an expert, and sharing a newsletter with a growing subscription base in which clients were coming to her.
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Was it any less work? No, it wasnt; but if you ask Beth, shell tell you that it felt like a whole lot less effort, because she was relying on what she loved to do and did well (speak, lecture, educate) and growing her practice at the same time. In the end, Beth learned that by changing her focus from being a sales person to being a coach, she was much more successful, happy and satisfied with what she did. Her practice is up 250% now, compared to this time last year, by the way. In the classes I teach, I like to use lots of physical analogies, because they help you connect a new concept to one you either already know or can more easily understand. When it comes to understanding the general concept for the two different approaches for dealing with weaknesses, I like to think of two different paths through a minefield. Imagine you are a soldier tasked with getting from point A to point B. You look at your map and determine the best route to take to achieve your objective, and you start out on that path. Along the way, however, you come upon a minefield. At this point you
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have two choices. You could choose option A, whereby you stick to your original path but stop to defuse each mine as you come to it. Or you could choose option B, whereby you simply walk around the minefield. Which would seem the most advantageous and expeditious? Most people would choose option B because it is faster and less risky. Unfortunately, in real life most people are taught to choose option A. They are given an objective, determine a path to it and start down it. If along the way they realize that they have a weakness (a mine), instead of changing their path they stop to try and fix that weakness (defuse the mine). This is exactly what consultants do when they try to be great sales people...so they can be great consultants. The process of becoming a great consultant doesnt lie in becoming an expert at defusing mines or fixing weaknesses. It comes in being an expert in plotting a course that bypasses the mines altogether. If you choose option A, you manufacture a liability or a hazard. When you choose option B, the mines are still dangerous, but since your path to success doesnt take you through the minefield, they remain only potential hazards.
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This book is about helping you discover potential mental obstacles so you can plot a course around them instead of through them. In the end, this course is much faster, easier and less likely to blow up in your face.
Cause #5. The Die-chotomy of being an independent consultant.

While Ive been talking about how the act of outright selling undermines your success as a consultant, is not right for what you do and not right for who you are, I cant be an idealist. I appreciate that, as an independent, if you dont bring in new business you dont survive. I appreciate that you are the only one in the business and it falls on your shoulders to grow the practice. The real problem is, unlike any other sales role, you are selling you. The one doing the selling is you, but the thing being sold is also you. Thats what I call the die-chotomy of being an independent consultant...having to be both the seller and that which is sold. Now, if you are a follower of old-school sales training you may have heard that you have to sell your-
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self in sales. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth! In your world, trust is far more important than just being liked. Its not about being liked, its all about being trusted. And, as Ive already said, every poll Ive ever seen shows that sales people just dont generally engender trust in the mind of most consumers. So, by taking any actions that position you as a sales person in your prospects mind, you erode their trust in you as the expert you hope to sell them. This is the very essence of the problem. The dichotomy of being both expert and salesperson will kill you in the end...if you let it. Most consultants will die trying to be both, never realizing the diametrically opposing view that each role creates in the mind of their prospect. Bear in mind that they appreciate the sales persons role to sell because he or she is the conduit to something the buyer wants. The key, however, is that the sales person is not what the buyer wants, just the conduit to it. In your case, as the consultant, YOU are what they want to buy. When you take up the sales person role you become both the product and the conduit to it, thus creating confusion and reducing the chances of the sale.
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The key to your success lies in your ability to pick just one of these two professions.
Cause #6. The old way is dead.

Along with any preconceived ideas about having to be a great sales person in order to be a great consultant, there is one other legacy belief you will have to get rid of if you want to truly grow your practice to incredible heights. That belief is that you market AT people.
Old sales-based methods of marketing are, simply put, DEAD!
If you need perspective on this simply ask yourself how effective any of this old kind of marketing is on you. If youre like me, you use a DVR to record what TV you do watch, so you can skip commercials. If youre like most people, you recognize an ad in your mailbox instantly and throw greater than 90% of them away without even reading them. If youre like the average human, you employ software specifically designed
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to destroy any email marketing and any that gets through pisses you off and alienates the sender in the end, anyway. Todays consumer has gotten way too smart, way too overwhelmed and way too tired of such marketing practices. In todays market, you must understand the difference between push and pull marketing. Push marketing is where you proactively contact prospects through such methods as cold-calling, direct mailing or phone solicitation. This is marketing at people, and, while it still may work for select kinds of products or even services, it just doesnt work effectively for the kind of sale you must make. Pull marketing, on the other hand, involves attracting the prospect to you through a broad-based program of methods like authorship, speaking, networking, referrals and being established as an expert in your field. Think of your prospect as having a rope tied around his waist. You cant push on a rope. You can only pull it. In other words, you have to attract the prospect to you. Just remember this simple phrase, When you employ push marketing, all youre likely to do is push your prospects away.
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To make sure you always pull the rope, you need to switch from a sales mentality to a marketing one. Theodore Levitt, onetime lecturer on business administration at the Harvard Business School, aptly described the difference between sales and marketing: Selling focuses on the needs of the seller and the need to convert product to cash. Marketing focuses on the needs of the buyer and the need to satisfy the customer.
Stop Pushing and Start Pulling
Chapter T wo
The Psychology of Sales
Three Basic Truths of Sales Psychology

The first thing you need to understand about the Diagnostic Sales Process is that it is based on the psychology of sales and the buyers perspective. Therefore, its important that you understand a few basic truths about the underlying psychology of sales and purchasing behavior that drives its effectiveness. There are a lot of variables when it comes to selling. Hundreds of models exist, each with their own pros and cons, and there are a great many different kinds of sales as well (e.g., farmer, consultative, hunter-gath-
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erer, technical, outbound, inbound, relational, ordertaker, etc). The specific type of sale were concerned with, however, is very well defined, and deals specifically with selling consultative services. And when it comes to doing just that, there are four basic truths about the psychology of sales that you must know:
Truth #1. The ABCs of traditional sales must be re-written!

The old sales adage, Always Be Closing has existed for years, and if you are a professional sales person, its still a very good one because it keeps you centered on the core of your value as a sales person. This oldschool approach only works, however, when what is expected of you in the eyes of your prospect is to sell. They know you are a sales person so its okay, and appropriate, to be seen this way. The common mistake most consultants make, however, is that they apply the rules for sales people to themselves as consultants or coaches. And its NOT okay, or appropriate, to be seen in this way as a consultant because your primary
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value to them is not to sell them something. Its to help them, as an expert, as a thought-leader, as an advisor. They dont want you to sell to them; they want you to help them. Instead of closing, you need to substitute consulting to this sentence so you will Always Be Consulting when you are in front of your prospect. Remember to always be demonstrating your true value. Any time you interact with a prospect, remember to NOT sell them, just CONSULT to them because thats what they want from you and thats what they must experience. Summary: In the spirit of Truth #1, resist the urge to put on your sales cap and stick with wearing your consulting cap throughout any and all contacts with prospects.
Truth #2. The more you connect, the more you collect!
While this is true in almost all types of sales, nowhere is it truer than in selling professional services like consulting or coaching. There is a direct positive correlation between how well you get to know your prospect
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and your ability to successfully offer them the appropriate solution. In short, the more you know about them, the more effectively you will understand their truest need, the more accurately you will be able to identify the causes of their problems and the more efficiently you will be able to help them solve those problems. Many consultants, unfortunately, fail to really connect with the prospect. They get so focused on explaining their solutions, or selling their tools or services, that they fail to stop and question their way to the sale by being the consultant they are supposed to be. At Johnson & Johnson, we used to call this show up and throw up, where you would get so focused on quickly sharing (throwing up) everything you had to offer that you failed to truly understand the core problem or seek to understand before being understood. Remember, an individual can only focus on one thing at a time, and there are truly only four things that an individual can focus on: 1. You, the sales person 2. Your product or service
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3. Your organization 4. Themselves Failing to keep the focus on #4 above (i.e., the prospect) will lead you away from the sale, away from the core problem and away from success. There are times to focus on the other areas, but in selling consultative services, weve learned that the focus must stay on the prospect as much as possible. Summary: The more you know, the farther you go. The key objective is not to sell the prospect; its to identify the problem, which leads to Truth #4 coming up.
Truth #3. People buy for their reasons, not yours.

Its common sense that people are different. They each have their own buying motives, drivers and interests. But, while its not hard to remember this fact . . . it is really easy to forget it. Remembering that your prospect will only buy for their reasons, not your own, will drastically improve
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your results when it comes to converting prospects into paying clients. Based on your motivators and drivers, you may believe that it is your price (being drastically lower than your competition) that holds the most significant value. The odds that price is the most important concern for any prospect, however, are only 14% (one out of seven). Based on your natural behavioral style, you may think that everyone prefers to stick to the top-level discussions, big-picture concepts and move quicklyrefraining from too much detail and minutiae. The odds, however, that your prospect shares this same point of view and preference are only 25% (one out of four). To effectively garner trust and commitment from your prospects you must replace what you think is important with what they think is important. And you must replace how you would prefer to talk about it with how they would prefer to hear about it. In other words, its all about identifying their values and behaviors, up front, so you can communicate the core value in the correct way for their specific styles.
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A cornerstone of the Diagnostic Sales Process involves a unique and foolproof way of securing this information about your prospect before you do anything else. This model will give you a guaranteed way of knowing exactly what the prospects strongest buying motives and communication style are so you arent left assuming, guessing or using your own. 14% and 25% isnt good enough when it comes to growing your practice. Summary: Failing to accurately understand the drivers, motivations, preferred communication style and needs of the prospect is a sure-fire recipe for failure.
Truth #4. He who identifies the cause of the problem gets to solve it.
Many consultants create an artificial barrier to their success by placing the objective of selling in front of their client, helping her identify the cause of her problem. In reality, the primary objective with any prospect shouldnt be to sell them; it should be to solve them. Instead of focusing on selling solutions, seek first to identify the problem and its cause.
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If you make your primary objective to identify the cause of their core problem, then you automatically position yourself as the expert, establish rapport, create favorable influence and know exactly what to make your proposal about. As you read through the rest of this guide Id like to share with you one of my personal mantras. It is:
He who identifies the cause of the problem gets to fix it.
Once you change your legacy thinking from, I need to sell to a focus of, I need to solve, I promise you will be better off, much more successful and much happier! It may seem like a subtle difference, but the impact of such a shift in thinking is immeasurable. The moment you learn to wake up seeking to go out and help prospects (yes, prospects, NOT paying clients) to identify the cause of their problems, instead of going out and selling them services, you will witness significant growth in your practice. Making this your daily mantra will help remind you of your true value proposition,
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keep you focused on the actions necessary to deliver that value and steer you away from most distractions that will take you down the unsuccessful selling path. Its vital that you understand the cause and effect relationship in selling consultative services. There is a causal relationship between identifying the cause of the problem and getting to fix it. In this cause and effect relationship, the effect you are after is, getting to consult to or coach the client. The cause of that effect, however, is that you identified the cause of their problem (pain) all before even asking for the business. There are many causes one can employ as a sales person, but weve found that by far, being the one who identifies the cause of the problem is the one that creates the greatest effect. Lets stack this cause up against some other common causes. Here are some of the most common causes consultants try to create in order to achieve that endeffect of getting the business: You had the best price You had better marketing collateral You related better with the prospect
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You had the best credentials You had the best references You showed them the actual cause of their problem While all the causes above are pretty good, in my experience it is the last one that has the greatest effect on the prospect. In addition, it is the one least likely to be replicated by your competition. There is no more powerful a cause leading to the effect of your being hired then actually helping your prospect to identify the cause of their problem. Do that and they will ask you to help them fix it. Trust me! Summary: Its not about getting to the bottom of the sales funnel. Its about getting to the bottom of the problem. Do that, and they will become your client! Okay, now that youve learned some of the basics, understand some of the sales psychology and understand why your problems in sales exist in the first place, lets learn about the Diagnostic Sales Process that will alleviate those problems.
Chapter Three
Five Simple Steps (an Overview)

The Diagnostic Sales Process consists of five simple steps. They are: Step #1Induce your customers to come to you: Replacing old-school push marketing with contemporary pull marketing techniques. Here, education-based marketing must replace sales-based marketing. Step #2Establish a Concrete Power Source: The critical issue (and its implications) in the mind of your prospect that drives everything, that keeps them up at
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night and that will be the source of power needed to fuel any call to action you will give them. Step #3Advise them of Possible Causative Metrics: Key variables that typically cause the critical issue identified in Step #1. These variables must be measurable, typically through one of the IMX Profiles (e.g., personal competencies, natural talents, behavioral style, etc.). Step #4Recommend Diagnostic Profiling: The actual diagnostic profile from IMX that you will use to quantify the variables and help you diagnose the cause of the critical issue (e.g., DISC, Values, Attribute Index, OHC, or any valid psychometric profile you have access to). Step #5Negotiate the Appropriate Solution: The recommendation you make to address the causes of their specific critical issue. In other words, your proposal for consulting, training or coaching. Each of these steps feeds directly into the next. By walking this process (i.e., taking your client through it step-
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by-step), you will hone in on the exact problem that will drive your successful sale. There is a natural progression to this model. It starts small and uses the clients own needs to drive to the next step. Word of caution: never skip a step. While you will be tempted, and the prospect will give you the signs (so you think) that they are ready to skip to the end and buy, for reasons you cant appreciate at this stage in this guideDONT!
The Physician Analogy

Before we walk through the steps of the Diagnostic Sales Process, lets witness it from a real-life scenario that all of you have actually experienced in some form or fashion. This approach isnt new to you; youve actually been on the receiving end of it before. To show you what I mean lets use the analogy of a trip to your physicians office. For practice, as you read through this analogy, see if you can pick out the equivalent actions you would take as a consultant walking through a similar process with your prospect. Dont worry, though; I will unpack the entire thing in the role of consultant later.
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Step #1. You have a pain in your knee so you schedule an appointment to see a physician. You dont respond to being pushed to a specific physician because she called your house. You were induced to reach out to this particular physician because of the education-based marketing that she has done in your local community. It may be through a referral from a trusted friend, or it may be because youve come to view this physician (or at least the medical group) as a respected authority in your area. Notice, however, how you would not be likely to choose the doctor you saw advertised on the back of the bus in front of you on your morning commute. Take a minute to ask yourself why you wouldnt call that physician and understand how you want to make sure you dont position yourself similarly. This is the equivalent of Step #1 (Induce your customers to come to you) in the Diagnostic Sales Process. Step #2. So, you are sitting in the exam room and the physician walks in. Her first objective is to ascertain exactly what your pain is (e.g., where does it hurt, when does it hurt, how badly does it hurt, how long has it hurt, etc.). The key is that she will conduct a very thorough exam to make sure she has a complete understanding of the pain. This is the equivalent of Step
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#2 (Establish a Concrete Power Source) in the Diagnostic Sales Process. Step #3. Your physicians next step is most likely to put forth some possible causes of your pain; the most common reasons why others have had similar pain (e.g., Typically such pain is caused by a meniscal tear, Mr. Smith). The importance of this step cant be overemphasized. Were she to jump straight from inquiring about your pain to recommending some tests or treatment (e.g., So your knee hurts? I have no idea what could cause such a thing, but lets schedule an MRI to see if we find anything. Or So your knee hurts? Id recommend we schedule exploratory surgery next week.) you would feel she is taking action without the full story. It is vital, in order to establish herself as an authority in your eyes, that she educate you on the most common causes of such pain. Doing so establishes her as someone with enough experience and expertise to have seen this kind of thing many times before. Psychologically, this reinforces her expertise in your mind. By stating some potential causes of your pain, something absolutely crucial happens in your head with respect to her ability to help you. Whereas you walked in with pain of an unknown origin, she has already
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offered up some possible causes. Being something you didnt know when you walked in, she is immediately positioned as someone who knows more about the subject than you do. This might have been inferred given her title and reputation, but now its made concrete with a literal example. Now, the key is what she does next. Any good physician will make a similar statement as those above, but they would never act on a possible cause without first verifying or proving as much as possible that such a cause really is to blame. Thats why she will make a statement like, While it sure sounds like a meniscal tear, Mr. Smith, it would be malpractice for me to just assume so and prescribe treatment. While I strongly suspect this is the case, we need to be sure. Id like to order an MRI (diagnostic test) to prove that this really is the cause of your pain. And, like 99% of all patients, you would gladly comply with her recommendations to do further testing because you want to stop the pain. This is the equivalent of Step #3 (Advise them of Possible Causative Metrics) in the Diagnostic Sales Process. Step #4. So, you get your MRI and find yourself back in the physicians office waiting for her to go over the
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findings, in the hope that she will have discovered the cause of your pain once and for all. Your doctor brings with her the actual results from the MRI and displays them for you to see with your own eyes. While you dont really have any idea what the images mean, which way is up or down, or what is right or wrong about the inside of your knee, your physician does. And, as she interprets the results of your imaging studies she tells you (and more importantly shows you) what is and isnt correct. Even though you yourself dont understand the results, the fact that she is showing you (not just telling you) is incredibly powerful. Were she to simply walk in and say, I looked at the results and they show... you wouldnt have near the belief or conviction as you would when she shows you the actual images. The key here is that even though the patient (prospect) doesnt understand the results, they believe your interpretation much more because you showed them something tangible. This is the equivalent of Step #4 (Recommend Diagnostic Profiling) in the Diagnostic Sales Process. Step #5. And, finallyhaving come to believe in your physician as the knowledgeable expert she is, you come to the point where you look at her and ask, So,
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how do we fix it, Doc? With absolute conviction you trust her advice and actively (desperately perhaps) seek it out. She doesnt have to sell you on anything. Quite the opposite, you find yourself literally asking for her help and recommendation. This is the result of her education-based marketing that conveyed her expertise in the first place; her thoroughness in identifying your core pain; her having demonstrated her expertise by identifying possible causes right off the bat; her ethics in not acting recklessly by prescribing treatment before definitively identifying the true cause; and the belief that has been created in your head, by all of this, that she is the best person to help you correct the problem and cure your pain. With all that she has put in to establish herself as the expert, it would be most unlikely that you would say, Thanks, Doc. Hand over those MRI results; Im going to get another doctor to fix my knee. Youre going to hire her. In a sales analogy, you are not being sold you are begging for the solution. If she suggests physical therapy, youll take it. If she recommends surgery, youll take it. In all likelihood, whatever her recommendation is, you will be prone to follow it. This is the equivalent to Step #5 (Negotiate the Appropriate Solution) in the Diagnostic Sales Process.
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Unbeknownst to you, you just witnessed the Diagnostic Sales Process in action. Every step, every cause, every effect and every nuance perfectly fits the exact process as youre about to learn it. I wanted you to see it in action first, so as you learn it, you can immediately connect each step to something you actually know quite well, and the psychological underpinnings that made it work. So thats the physician analogy. Now lets really get to know the five steps of the Diagnostic Sales Process.
Step #1Induce the customer to come to you.

As weve discussed, traditional sales-based marketing just doesnt work well anymore. It is especially poor in your profession as a consultant. It alienates the prospect, positions you as a sales person, attempts to push on the rope and, in the end, takes you farther away from where you want to benot closer. What does work in your profession, however, is what is called education-based marketing. This is what all
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the successful consultants I know do, and, by doing so, they induce their prospects to seek them out, find them when they have a need/want...pull the rope, if you will. So, what exactly is education-based marketing (EBM)? There are really only two broad categories of marketing: sales-based marketing, in which you take on the role of a salesperson and deliver a sales message, or education-based marketing, in which you take on the role of an expert, consultant or educator and educate prospective clients about their problems and the solutions for them. Sales-based marketing is built around a sales message or sales pitch. The sales pitch is delivered using methods that reach out to prospective customers, such as telephone selling, direct mail and door-to-door sales. Marketing experts like Seth Godin and Donny Deutsch call these kinds of activities interruption-based marketing, because they interrupt people. They also talk about how the market is becoming way too savvy and inundated with such interruptions, and the effectiveness of them is decreasing rapidly. Simply put, interruption-based marketing is DEAD! That means things
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like cold calling (phone, email or in person) and mass mailings seeking to sell are dead. Dont bother. Dont do it. Did you know that the average response rate for direct mailings has dropped below 1%? Our own EBM seminars, however, commonly see conversion rates as high as 55% and 60%. EBM is built around an educational message instead of the old sales pitch. The educational message is delivered to prospective clients through educational means. These include written materials, media publicity (articles and interviews), advertising, seminars, newsletters, audio and videotapes, and websites. Typically, EBM programs work like this: You create an educational message, which you first put into the form of a written handout. You share this article everywhere you can (more on repurposing later). Submit it online at article sites, or to magazines and newspapers. Make it available at every networking event you attend or BNI conference you are a member of. Then you turn that into a podcast recording for your website. Then you break it up into a couple of blogs or newsletters. You even turn that article into a speech that you make readily available as a free teleconference
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class, free video on YouTube or free power point presentation that is available for download for free off the Internet. Finally you contact any and all associations that have anything to do with your target market and offer to present this work for free at their next conference, as part of the Executive Education series your firm puts on for free. There is a great deal that could be discussed about creating a super-effective education-based marketing program, more than I can share in this document. But, suffice it to say that wherever and whenever you can you should be finding ways to speak to the public to educate them about some ill they may be suffering from. Your objective is to become an established authority on a topic. For some, the idea of becoming a celebrity is off-putting, but you dont have to become the star. Just the expert. Sales-based marketing creates the following problems: Clients go out of their way to avoid you because they are tired of being sold to and sales-pressured. A basic tenet of buyer psychology is that you have to give before
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you receive. You cant be successful simply asking to receive with sales pitches. Clients dont think they can trust you because you immediately position yourself as a sales person associated with all the other perceptions of sales people (true or otherwise). Clients are defensive and protective because they expect you to try to pressure them into buying something they dont want or need. EBM provides these solutions: You give clients what they want (i.e., information and advice), and you remove what they dont want; a sales pitch. You establish yourself as an authority, a reliable source of information and an expert. You dont seek out clients; instead, they are induced to seek you out. You reach clients during the first stage of the decision-making process, often before they call your competitors.
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You identify even marginal clients who suffer from phone-call fear, but who arent afraid to call for your free information. You receive calls from clients who are genuinely interested in your services and you screen out people who are not real clients. You begin to earn your clients loyalty because youve made an effort to help him, even if he doesnt become your client. Now you understand why the American Marketing Association featured this innovative method on the front page of its national publication, MARKETING NEWS. For some great additional resources on education-based marketing and positioning, check out: Unleash the Idea Virus and Purple Cow, both by Seth Godin, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim. EBM is all about being seen as an expert. You must become the source people look to on a given topic. Here are more specifics on ways you can position yourself as an expert to your target market.
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Speak: Contact all the local member-organizations, Chambers of Commerce, professional associations, or anyplace else where your target audience congregates. As part of their corporate charter, these associations are expected to provide value to their members, and they are constantly looking for new content and benefit. Offer to speak as an expert on something you know a lot about at their next event, or schedule a dedicated event yourself in partnership with a local bank or other organization that shares similar but non-competitive interests in the same market. You can create a speaking business if you like, but you dont have to become the worlds greatest speaker for our purposes here. If you want to join Toast Masters or the National Speakers Association thats great, but again, you dont have to become the most polished speaker on the planet. The reason you dont have to become a great speaker is because youre not trying to develop a business as a professional speaker. Speaking, in this instance, is only a means to an end. That end is establishing yourself as an authority and speaking is just one vehicle for communicating that authority and building that credibility. This means you can speak on webinars or telesemi-
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nars (that you host on your own web site for free or fee), or speak at local events. You can speak in the form of a video that you record with a $150.00 HD camera (I recommend the Kodak Zi8 as its the only one on the market in that price range that comes with an external mic port so you can plug in a $20.00 lapel mic and sound MUCH better). Basically, find where your target market lives, listens or congregates and figure out how you can find a way to speak in front of them (on and offline). Write: Submit articles to local outlets (e.g., print, radio, TV, journal). Anything that addresses your target markets issues and positions you as a source of expertise on that topic is fine. Try responding to the editor on articles of interest (either with a supporting or even dissenting opinion). When you write, however, make sure to FOLLOW THE DIAGNOSTIC FORMULA! By this, I mean start by stating a problem (i.e., Power Source). For example, select a significant problem you know your target audience suffers from. Then, talk about the cause of that problem (i.e., causative metrics), but make sure, in the spirit of the formula, to discuss causes that you are able to measure. For example, if the problem is poor customer service, some
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causative metrics might be: poor emotional intelligence/empathy (low Empathy in the AI profile), poor people skills (very low I as measured in the DISC Index), lack of motivation to serve or help others (low Altruistic or S as measured in the DI or VI profiles). Then, discuss ways of combating that problem (e.g., better hiring practices, training, coaching). And, at the end of the article, offer them a call to action to get their own free profile to see if this is really the cause of the problem. The only trick when writing, because youre not interacting with a live individual, is that you flip the last two steps by offering them some solutions first, then the profile as the call to action afterward. Dont worry, because when they take you up on your offer and inquire about how they can take that profile for free you will have that chance to walk through the process in the right orderfrom scratch. I know we havent talked about it yet, and I will in Rule #1 in the very next section, but whatever you do, make sure your writing is about helping solve a problem, not selling anything. Many old-school advisors will tell you to talk about the solution, but only allude to it and not to give it away or they wont need you. If you follow this
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path and try something like, The solution involves training. Here at Acme Consulting weve developed the best training methods in the industry and we would be glad to talk with you about how we can help you with your training needs, then your education-based article just became a sales article and nothingrepeat NOTHINGpisses your prospect off more than feeling like they were misled into thinking you were educating them, then giving the ole bait and switch. Having bothered to put in the effort to read your article, they will feel cheated and angry. Do that and I promise you they wont become your client! Network: There are way too many books on how to effectively network for us to cover much of it here. But, heres where you can witness an excellent example of pull-marketing or EBM. Ivan Misner has positioned himself as the undisputed authority in all things networking in my mind. As a result, here you find me recommending him as the go-to-guy, and here we find ourselves seeking him out because he has induced us (at least one of us) to come to him. Thats education-based marketing. Use your network to generate buzz about what you are doing. When people are looking for help,
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familiarity is key. Future clients are ten times more likely to reach out to someone who they have a relationship with when they need help. Interestingly enough, psychologically, that relationship can be perceived to exist even if the prospect has only read something you put out, or knows someone who has benefited from working with you. This is one major reason why statistically over 95% of consultant growth is through referral. The trick is to get out there talking about matters of the heart to your target market. You need to be seen. Be prolific: Whatever you do, do lots of it. If its a blog, a newsletter, speaking, writing, whatever...just make sure you are out there as much as possible. And, make it consistent. Niche: One simple concept: you cant specialize too much in one area. Being the general consultant is just okay at best in my opinion, but becoming an expert requires hyper-specialization. One reason is rarity. Plus, the more rare, specialized or elite the area you specialize in is, the less competition there is. Ask yourself, who typically makes more money and is seen with greater esteem, the general practitioner or the neurosurgeon? Obviously, it doesnt do any good to specialize in something with little
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to no relevant application to your clientele, or so infrequently needed that they never need you, but, as niche as you can get without becoming irrelevant is the ideal. Also, this doesnt mean you have to become specialized in just one area. There is nothing wrong with you being seen as the expert in leadership in multiple industries, or leadership, customer service, sales and hiring in a single industry. You dont need to restrict yourself, you just need to speak as closely to your prospects world as possible. If your prospect is an executive in the banking industry, reading an article on improving hiring practices is somewhat relevant. His reading an article from you that speaks to reducing turnover in the banking industry, however, resonates a whole lot more! Repurpose: The key to repurposing is to maximize your efforts on as many fronts as possible. Instead of starting from scratch, get the maximum exposure for your thoughts (your expertise, your genius) by disseminating that expertise out to the world in as many channels as possible. Repurposing is all about building something of value for your prospects (that positions you as the expert, of course) and then finding as many vehicles to stick
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it in as humanly possible. If you write something, figure out how to repurpose that effort and disseminate it in at least three other ways (although you could probably think of 20 if youre really good). Turn it into a blog posting, newsletter, online article, magazine article, journal article, etc. You can post it to free, online-article submission sites like www.ezinearticles.com or www.maximumarticles .com. Turn it into a spoken message with any computer and a microphone. All computers nowadays have software that will allow you to record your voice and export it as an MP3 file (audio file) that can be posted on your website, downloaded from a link in an email, hyper-linked to in your newsletter, tagged in Facebook/Twitter and Linked-In. Getting the picture? Not done yet, though. Now take that thing you wrote and turn it into a Power Point presentation (or Keynote if youre a Mac user like me). By doing so you can actually post it online at sites that allow you to upload Power Point presentations for search by the general public online, sites like www.slideshare.net or www.authorstream .com (which are basically like YouTube for PPT presentations). Of course, youre going to be linking all of these to your Facebook page, your Twitter
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account and your LinkedIn profile (and whatever other social media you use). Thenand this is the really cool part, I thinkyou take that presentation, record your voice over it as you click through the slides (something both Power Point and Keynote allow you to do easily by clicking the record button) and when you click the share button you can export that presentation as a video (it does it for you)! Post this video on your YouTube account (something else you surely have) and give it a great title that is based on what your target audience is likely to be searching for. YouTube and Google make this video searchable to the 7 billion people on the planet now. Think youre done repurposing? Not yet, because if you niched that article to the banking industry, how little of it would you have to change to speak directly to another industry you target? Could you take that article (blog, video, presentation, speech) and tweak it slightly to talk to manufacturing executives instead of banking executives? Wouldnt take too much work, in most cases, but now you have two (or five) articles without having to do that much more work. Lastly, be strategic about how you title it so when you post it to your YouTube account, it will troll
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the internet helping pull leads to your site where they get to know even more about you as the expert. Of course, you can always post these videos on your website for anyone to learn from. All of this is designed to create a viral machine, working 24/7/365, to help position you as the absolute authority in your field. Your mission is to find 10-20 topics about which you could speak with authority and get started on at least one of these vehicles. Check out the EBM template in Appendix F in the back of this book for a guide to creating one of these campaigns. Education-based marketing is the most effective way to grow your consulting practice, and, when done properly, consistently and prolifically, it will be a great benefit to you. When butchered, however, it can do you just as much harm as good. Below are the three biggest rules Ive learned when it comes to doing it right. Ive learned these lessons by investing tens of thousands of dollars on experts who sell millions of dollars a month (no, that isnt a typo) using education-based marketing. Ive learned these lessons from other consultants who have perfected their craft, and Ive learned these
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lessons the hard way as well, through my own trial and error, and error, and error.
Jays Golden Rules of EBM

EBM Rule #1: In order to effectively use EBM to grow your business, there is one incontrovertible, inexplicable, unavoidable law that must NEVER be broken:
SEEK TO EDUCATENOT TO SELL
Warning. This is easier said than done. You will have to undo years of programming that has taught you that you must close the prospect; pitch your wares and sell them. Simply put, the moment you do this, you have moved from education-based marketing to sales-based marketing. Doing so will close the door on that prospect forever because nothing reinforces the image of the slick sales person like hiding sales pitches in educational gift wrapping. If you promote an educational event, provide 15 minutes of bland, obvious and easily available content as your educational message, then
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switch to pushing registration for your upcoming leadership boot camp you will forever be seen by those in attendance as not trustworthy. Do you need to close them? Yes, but well talk about that more in a few moments. That is a part of a sales process, this is marketing and the two shouldnt be confused. Make your education-based messages educational, and give freely. Check out a friend of mines website as one of the best, and most relevant examples I can think of. Go to Marshall Goldsmiths website (http://marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com) and check out his free resources section. Notice how he gives away a ton of free advice, content and his pure expertise. Bear in mind, Marshall is an executive coach who has built a very strong image as an authority in his field. He typically only coaches top executives from the Fortune 500 as a result. Anyway, notice how in all of his educational material he doesnt sell. Does he have a marketing blurb at the end? Absolutely! But notice how it isnt about selling you as much as it is offering you more resources. The key is that he doesnt tease you with some hints about what you can do and then hit you with a sales offer that
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you must follow if you are to actually gain any benefit. Also, pay attention to how, where he gives you his free educational content, he does make his sales pitch (for his book) readily visible, but its kept separate. He doesnt force you to pay him to get his expertise. At the risk of being egotistical, I refer you to my own public website (www.whatsyourgenius.com). Go to the Resources tab and look under the Genius Files, and youll find a long list of educational articles. Wherever Ive placed any one of these on the internet, there has been a link leading them back to all the rest. Do I have a sales pitch on the page? Absolutely. But, like Marshall, Im offering them additional resources. Something Im particularly proud of is under the workbook section (same resources tab). Here you can create your own private username and password and actually get access to a ton more educational content all free. Its educational, interactive and powerful stuff that allows me to connect with prospects (yes, prospects) in a way like no other. Heres another example of positioning myself through giving away tons of strong content that makes a differ-
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ence in the prospects life...all before Ive even taken the first dollar.
http://bit.ly/dqerR9
When you land here, you will see four lengthy videos that I created using my Mac and Keynote program mentioned in the previous section on EBM. I sketched out some images I had in my head, scanned them into the computer and loaded them into the Keynote software on my computer. From there I simply made the equivalent of a Power Point presentation. The main reason Im sending you here, however, is that this site has been made available for free to prospects only. No one who gets sent here is a paying client. Its 100% pull-marketing and lead generation. What I want to point your attention to, though, is the responses from the viewers. Just look at some of the power in these statements, and Ive never physically met any of these people. I set out to position myself as an authority by giving (and giving and giving) loads of free content that held the potential to change someones life for the
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better and in doing so Ive seen thousands of people respond in positive ways. Heres just a sample of some of the more powerful statements (from prospects, remember): Hey, great video...Never thought about this and really looking forward for the next videos, cant wait for them. Note how they have become excited about watching morebeing pulled? I think this concept is brilliant it makes so much sense. I have already started to spread the word. Forget being pulled; now they are helping pull others virally. Smart and successful entrepreneurs offer something for free to attract traffic to their sites and increase sales, but you did something more, Jay. You gave out a piece of yourself with the sincere intention of serving others. At least, thats what I received out of your whole project (the videos, the assessments, the worksheets, your articles, your ideas, everything). Just priceless! Just
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an example of how EBM works when done sincerely. I genuinely think that you and Tony Robbins may have saved my life. I have spent this whole Christmas week watching all the videos, doing the tests and listening/watching. The writer of this comment, and the others, went on to opt-in to a program I was offering for $3k per head. The end effect is that these people now view me as an expert in this one small area, and weve established a relationship of value. They start asking me questions. They contact me looking for what I have to offer. And, as more of them leave such comments, others see those comments and immediately the psychological rules of social proof come into play and that credibility and expertise rises even higher. So this is all great, but what good is it if I give everything away? I hear you asking. Watch the fourth video in this series and youll see where I do make a sales offer. And Ive sold a hell of a lot from this fourth page, by the way! Depending on when you read this, that
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final offer might be as low as $47.00 for an e-course, or as high as $3k for a group coaching program. But, and its a big but, I have given them an incredible amount of value already and all up front. Ive built a psychological connection with them, given them value and helped them and as a result they seek out my recommendation. I actually get emails throughout the week with people asking if they can get the fourth video now (I make them wait two days before sending them the link for the final video). They are actively seeking me out, not the other way around. Get it? Remember, you are not educating them on what your company can do for them (thats sales-based marketing). You are actually giving them actionable content they can use tomorrow to improve some aspect of their life. The more unique, easy-to-apply and effective that content is, the more valuable an expert you become. EBM Rule #2: You dont get paid for telling someone what to do. You get paid for actually showing them how to do it. Tell them what to do, but make an obvious link to your ability to show them how to actually do it. While you want to truly educate your market, the whole purpose is to get them to pay you to help them
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do what you are telling them to do. As Dr. Goldsmith says, All the leaders read the same articles, they listen to the same thought leaders, and they all have access to the same educational content. Where I make my living is in the fact that its not about understanding the practice of leadership its about learning how to practice that understanding. The reason you want to give away your expertise is because its not about selling knowledge. Making a real living as a consultant lies in clients who pay you to actually show them how to do what you tell them to do (i.e., not about learning the practice, its about practicing that learning). Marshall does this because he knows that his clients dont need him to educate them on what to do. They need his help figuring out how to actually do it. Sir Francis Bacon was wrong when he said, Knowledge is power. In reality, only applied knowledge is power. When it comes to EBM, You give away knowledge but you charge them to help them apply it. Also, Ive learned a valuable lesson that anyone who takes the knowledge I share and decides to run with it themselves is not a good client anyway. There is actually a sort of filtering aspect to this kind of approach wherein those cheap prospects who are only looking
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to invest the least amount possible, only focused on the activity not the objective, select themselves out of contention for my business by taking the knowledge and deciding they no longer need me. When this happens, and it does, I thank the good Lord above and count my blessings that they didnt go from a cheap prospect to a cheap client. EBM Rule #3: Own the blood bank. Theres an old, albeit morbid, quote that says, I just want to own the blood bank in a time of crisis. Whats meant by this is that you want to control the supply when demand is at its highest. Your objective in your lecture is to create a significant demand for something you control. Examples can be for a very specific set of developmental steps, or the knowledge, training and experience to effectively coach someone or even diagnostic metrics that you can measure. Example #1: If your topic is, The core competencies of effective leadership then being able to actually measure those competencies would become of vital importance to your audience. You would want to highlight those specific competencies (e.g., self-direction, empathy, long-range planning, etc.) in the body
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of your lecture so the demand for being able to measure such things becomes high. At the end of your session, simply provide a call to action, offering to give them their own free profile (with debrief ) so they can put your good education to work. Example #2: If your topic is, The keys to building customer loyalty then having a structured process to train and develop such loyalty would become vital to your audiences ability to achieve greater customer loyalty. You would want to highlight those specific steps, and any proprietary materials, in the body of your lecture so the demand to know the specifics becomes high. At the end of your session, simply provide a call to action, offering to give them a free consultation to evaluate their needs. They key is to weave your core value into the body of the presentation. In other words, what youre educating them on is something that they need your help to accomplish completely, cost effectively or in a timely manner. So, whatever topic you pick in the next section, ask yourself, What is it about this message that only I can provide?
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Note: an effective EBM campaign can take some time to build momentum. Dont worry that this entire process will take you months to start benefiting from. The truth of the matter is that an EBM program can start paying dividends quite quickly, but it will take time and effort to build it along with your reputation as the expert. That said, however, the following steps are things you can apply tomorrow with the very next person you meet. Steps two through five can start generating results for you instantly, and they stand somewhat apart from Step one. Together, they make up an easyto-remember formula (Figure 1 below).
Step #2Establish a concrete power source.

The power source (and its implications) is the critical issue in the mind of your prospect that drives everything, that keeps them up at night and that will be the source of power needed to fuel any call to action you will give them.
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The reason I call this the Power Source, by the way, is two-fold. First, its easy to get off track and start focusing on the solution too early. Delivering training, consulting, or coaching is only a means to an end. It is the Power Source (or correcting it) that is the end. Actions mean nothing only results so dont start focusing on actions (solutions) too early. Using this term helps you to remember to always remain focused on solving the core problem first. Second, I use the term Power Source because soon you will be giving them a call to action, and action requires energy. The thing that will drive their actions is their pain, so by remembering that their pain is the power source, you will always remember to connect any call to action you give them with the source that will power it. All power sources (e.g., critical issues, desires, pains, etc.) should have two key things well fleshed out: A financial valueits vital that you establish a specific financial value (i.e., actual monetary amount) to the core problem. Doing so helps you better understand the scope of the issue and it will be
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instrumental in Step five when you move to your proposal phase. Also, there is one pretty cool little side effect of getting this information. It actually helps position you even more as the expert. If the prospect has a concrete answer for this question, great. Believe it or not, however, more often than not my prospects dont have a solid answer when it comes to the question of exactly what this issue is literally costing them. While I seek to establish this for my own benefit as much as theirs, Ive found that in insisting on getting a number before moving on any further in the conversation actually allows me to deliver my first value to the prospect. By forcing them to stop and answer this question Ive shown them something that they didnt really know, and which they almost always feel silly for not knowing. The response is typically along the lines of, Wow, I guess we havent stopped to assess it to that actual level but I see why we should have. Thus, in the very first interaction with them, Im already providing value and positioning myself as a valuable asset. I know youre thinking that any good executive should already know exactly how much the problem is costing them, but just watch what happens when you start making
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this information a requirement. The corresponding impression in the mind of the prospect is, Hmm, if he is already asking us stuff we didnt stop to answerhow much more value can he provide once we start to actually pay him? Note of caution here: whatever this number is it must come from them. You can help by asking the right questions (e.g., what his sales quota is and how much hes off by, whats it cost to get the client back, if turnover costs X% of annual salary per year and you lose 20 people a year that equals exactly how much) but whatever they say is the number I use. I say this because many times I think the number they give is way off (e.g., turnover is worth annual salary multiplied times 1.5yeah right) but I cant get into an argument here. I can advise, I can suggest, but they need to be the one who physically states the actual number and whatever it is thats what Ill use moving forward. An emotional valueit is equally as beneficial to make sure you get some emotional cost qualified as well. While this will also be useful in the proposal stage, its more important that you have a good understanding of the real power source, because you will need to refer to it multiple times
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in the process to come. You cant use your words or emotions either. The words and emotions you will record here must come from them. Many times its not the financial ramifications that will drive the sale, its the emotional toll. For example, in addition to the big money being lost on this one sales person, the business owner you are talking with is often more concerned over the emotions involved (e.g., the security of his company, his ability to provide for his family, the satisfaction of his customers, his reputation, his plans to retire in five years, etc.). It is these emotions that will drive more action than anything else. Also, dont forget that people buy what they want, not what they need. While the money may speak to what they need, it is the emotions that will speak to what they want. A common mistake of many consultants is to try to educate the prospect on what they need (in the way of training, coaching, etc.), but you havent gotten to that point in the process yet. Dont worry, as one of the formal steps in this process involves you making just that kind of recommendation, but not here. For now, stick to focusing on what they want.
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If you fail to identify a problem (power source), youll fail to get any significant business...period. If you do get business, youre one lucky SOB, so rejoice in it, but dont count on it repeating with any regularity. If you establish the problem (power source) but dont clearly identify it, youll have trouble finding it in the dark later when you need to plug into it (to get the power you need for the call to action you will be giving them). If you establish the problem and the financial ramifications but forget the emotional side, you will struggle with getting the really big business because, in the end, the most power comes from emotions. Also, make sure you have their true biggest issue. Plugging into a less significant power source will only deliver less powerful actions. The bigger the power source, the bigger the call to action can be (i.e., the larger the proposal they will act on). Once you feel you have a thorough enough understanding of exactly what the biggest problem is, and its financial and emotional ramifications, youre ready to move to the next step in the process.
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Step #3Advise them of possible causative metrics

Causative metrics are key variables that typically cause the critical issue identified in Step one. These variables must be measurable, typically through one of the IMX Profile (e.g., personal competencies, natural talents, behavioral style, etc.). Wow, now thats a title, huh? Causative metrics? Why give it such a convoluted, technical name? I use these words because they define exactly what you are doing here, and the title helps remind you of this because its so easy to skip right over cause and go directly to solution. This is your title, by the way, not anything you ever say to the prospect. This is where you will tell the business owner, based on what youve seen in other situations, what has caused similar pain/problems. I use the word causative because you have to give him the likely causes, not treatments or simply restate the problem itself (as many consultants are prone to jump straight from problem to solution without ever stopping to identify
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the root cause. This is analogous to treating the symptoms in medicine). Remember the psychological impact it had on you as the patient when your physician gave you some possible causes of your pain (e.g., That sure sounds like a meniscal tear)? It builds confidence in your prospects mind when you are able to offer up likely causes of their pain. You dont have to worry about being irresponsible here because youre never going to act on these potential causes without proving they exist first. By following Step #4, you will not make the common mistake of prescribing treatment before identifying the underlying cause of the pain (e.g., So you arent selling effectively? Id recommend sales training). To do so would cause you to be guilty of treating the symptoms without understanding what it is about the person that is causing them to perform poorly in the first place. And, if you dont know whats broken, how can you fix it? Also, a common mistake consultants can make is to jump at any request a prospect makes, without first understanding the reason they might deliver it. Ive had so many examples of consultants who were talking
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with someone who asked, So, could you provide sales training to our staff ? To which they reply, absolutely and immediately theyre sending over pricing and proposal sheets. This is so wrong for so many reasons, I dont know where to start. First it isnt a good practice because you have failed to establish the true power source and when the prospect sees your prices you will likely have a hard time getting them to buy into any large amounts. Your leverage is shot and you are likely to become a commodity, fighting over per-person prices with a competitor who is offering the training at a lower cost. Second, it is wrong because your reputation is priceless and if you prescribe treatment (training, in this case) without understanding what the problem or cause is, youre very unlikely to deliver any real value. Being that the odds are very unlikely that your undirected training will really solve the problem (the one you never identified), instead of creating a power advocate that could generate significant value for you in testimonials and referrals, youve created a less-then-impressed former client. And as you know, people love to share dissatisfaction with others they know. Pretty soon you will have someone who is busy telling everyone else they know how they paid X number of dollars for you to come in and deliver no real
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results. It doesnt matter that they were just as responsible. The only thing the market will hear is them saying you took their money and delivered little in return. Youre the authority here, and while the customer is always the customer, that doesnt mean they are always right. Just as I could no more walk into a reputable physicians office and order surgery, you too must be the expert who walks the prospect through this processeven if at times that means telling them no. I use the word metric because whatever causes you put forth, you must be able to actually quantify or measure them so the client can see them and have as much belief in them as you, the patient, did when your physician showed you the MRI results. Being able to actually quantify or measure the cause (i.e., show them something concrete) is vital to your success. Its all about turning something that is intangible into something tangible and real for the prospect. Also, I try to limit the number of causes I give the prospect to no more than three. Ive found that one is too little and makes me sound as though Ive decided before investigating. Similarly, giving them five or more causes makes it sound as if I dont have a clue and am
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just tossing out anything I can think of. Three causes is the ideal number. To help you decide which causes to choose from and which profiles to use Ive created a library of all the causes we can measure in Appendix I. Heres a common statement in Step three. Well, Mr. Smith, Ive coached hundreds of sales professionals and in my experience some of the most common causes of poor sales performance are: call reluctance, lack of emotional intelligence or a lack of aggressive closing. Of course, I couldnt be sure any of these were the real cause behind Johns poor sales performance until I actually measure them. And I wouldnt be ethical if I were to just assume any of these were the problem and recommend generic sales training, coaching, whatever. While Ive got some strong suspicions that a couple of these are behind the problem, given what youve said about John, Id like to give John a diagnostic profile that is specifically designed to measure these kinds of sales traits then well know for sure. As I always say, why guess when you can know. I dont charge for these tests, by the way, because until I know what the cause of the problem is, I dont know if I have any solutions to offer, so its just as much of a benefit for me to know as it is for you. Its a simple online profile that takes 5-10 minutes to com-
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plete and Im the only one who would see the results (which I would share with you of course), but being able to identify traits like aggressiveness, emotional intelligence, ability to handle rejection, even his clarity and confidence in his role will allow me to help explain the real reason why he isnt selling effectively. Lets stop here and break this statement down, because there are some absolutely vital pieces to it that, were you to leave them out, would reduce your success rate drastically. 1st Segment. Ive coached hundreds of sales professionals and in my experience some of the most common causes of poor sales performance are: call reluctance, lack of emotional intelligence, an inability to adequately connect with the customer or possibly a lack of aggressive closing. The key objective here is to create that psychological belief that you can help by offering up some common causes to the problem at hand. Notice how I establish credibility by letting the prospect know Ive coached hundreds of people in this situation. This is where you state three or four common causes, which you also know that you can measure in an IMX profile.
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2nd Segment. Of course, I couldnt be sure any of these were or were not the real cause behind Johns poor sales performance without measuring them. And I wouldnt be ethical if I were to just assume any of these were the problem and recommend generic sales training, coaching, whatever. While Ive got some strong suspicions that a couple of these are behind the problem, given what youve said about John, Id like to give John a diagnostic profile that is specifically designed to measure these kinds of sales traits then well know for sure. As I always say, why guess when you can know. The key objective here is to demonstrate your professionalism and ethics by not jumping at the sale, and by making a rational argument that it is irresponsible to treat the symptoms without understanding the underlying cause. I cant tell you how many times your competition will not follow this step and jump at the chance to recommend a solution or switch into sales mode. Resisting that urge here will significantly differentiate you from your competition, not to mention the fact that this actually helps make sure you actually fix the problem. 3rd Segment. I dont charge for these tests, by the way, because until I know what the cause of the problem is,
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I dont know if I have any solutions to offer so its just as much of a benefit for me to know as it is for you. Its a simple online profile that takes 5-10 minutes to complete and Im the only one who would see the results (which I would share with you of course)... Key objective here is to remove any obstacles or barriers that automatically pop up in the prospects mind relating to costs. Why let some $300.00 profile block the path for your $10,000 coaching solution? Also, and more importantly, it prevents them from seeing you as a sales person whose ulterior motive is really just to sell them a profile. 4th Segment. ...but being able to identify traits like aggressiveness, emotional intelligence, ability to handle rejection, even his clarity and confidence in his role will allow me to help explain the real reason why he isnt selling effectively. The key objective here is reinforce the potential causes you already provided and, most importantly, connect the call to action to its power source! While we can hope they make that connection themselves, its important that you make sure to connect it for them. I do that by ending the sentence in a way that restates the reason for taking the profile is to identify the cause of the pain, which I restate specifically (e.g., poor sales). If you dont plug the call
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to action in as I call it, you may not find any power to drive them through the action. Now that youve adequately explored the problem and sufficiently understand what it is, youre ready to move to Step Three and recommend some form of diagnostic testing (i.e., an IMX profile). Having psychologically gained the prospects belief by being the expert who stopped to better flesh out the problem itself, and by being experienced enough to put forth the most likely causes of their pain, and by earning their respect by not jumping straight to the sale, you have the buy-in necessary to get them to complete the diagnostic testing.
Step #4Recommend diagnostic profiling.

This step involves selecting and recommending the specific diagnostic profile from Innermetrix that you will use to actually quantify the variables and help you diagnose the cause of the critical issue. Are there problems that arent caused by some individuals traits like those measured by a psychometric pro-
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file? While some of you might be answering, yes, in my opinion, there are not. Now is as good a time as any to let you in on another of my personal mantras. It is my firm belief that:
All performance is generated between the ears.
Argue if you like, but the reason Im able to identify the cause of any problem my prospects might have with this process is because Im using profiles that measure the human element involved. And, ultimately, everything that could be causing them pain comes back to the human element (i.e., a decision, trait, motivation or behavior either theirs or someone elses). Think theres an exception to this theory? Let me address some of the more common ones people toss out in an argument against it. Thinking the exception is a problem out there caused by lack of supplies so the employee cant perform his jobsomewhere down the line a person made a poor
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decision about how many supplies to stock so thats the cause of the problem, not the employee whos unable to perform. Thinking the exception is inadequate manufacturing equipmentwhich human/s decided not to update the machines? Thinking the exception is poor sales because the product suckssomeone somewhere made the decision to design it or manufacture it that way so guess where the real cause of the problem is? Get my point? Feeling lucky? Give it a try and let me know if you find one that doesnt somehow eventually come back to the human element and between the ears. As to the question of which profile to recommend, you want to get the right profile for the job. Just as it wouldnt do the physician any good to recommend blood work for a broken leg, you want to use the right profile. Below is a short list you can use to help determine which profile to recommend.
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Note: You Need Profiles to Use the Diagnostic Sales Process.
If you already have psychometric profiles that you use in your practice, they will work just fine in this model. Just make sure you can get access to them on an unlimited basis, though, because you cant afford to pay perprofile if you apply this process aggressively and with gusto (love that word, dont you?)! I found early on that when I charged the consultants per report they restricted their use, thus limiting the effectiveness of this process. Passing your cost onto the prospect in Step three doesnt work well, either. If you dont currently use any profiles, or cant get access to them on an unlimited basis for a set monthly fee, I invite you to check out our tools. They have best-of-class validity, great depth and because we developed this sales methodology we decided we needed to make them available on an unlimited basis for a single monthly fee. For a complete listing of all the traits or characteristics that you could measure, check out Appendix I at the back of this book. Visit www.consultantgrowth.com
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Heres a short list of IMX Profiles that fit the bill nicely: DISC Index (DI): Whenever the problem has anything to do with communication I immediately think of the DISC Index. It is best suited for dealing with intrapersonal communication issues (e.g., not being aware of your styles impact on others), interpersonal conflict (e.g., lack of communication between two people), dysfunctional teams (due to imbalanced teams where everyone shares the same low dimensions what I call a lack of talent diversity) or even turnover (if I think the problem is an inability for a manager to get along well with others). Its a simple report, not one likely to bring up potentially difficult discussions at this early stage in your relationship with the prospect (a safe aspect sometimes depending on what the results could show were the prospect to take it) and still provides you with ample opportunity to identify some core causes of a problem with an individual. A final critical issue that might justify a DISC Index alone would be poor performance on the job. Remember to be the physician, and dont forget the title of this sales program (i.e., diagnostic). You have to become the diag-
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nostician. So, as you are expanding on the critical issue, if you hear of a problem with the individual not doing the actual tasks of the job (e.g., he is just so disorganized, she just wont make a decision, he is so slow to get anything done, she is too busy talking and socializing) think of the dimensions of DISC and how they could relate to the problem. For example: being disorganized could equal very low C; being indecisive could equal very low D; being too slow could equal very high S and being overly talkative and social could equal very high I. Values Index (VI): whenever someone has a critical issue that is at all related to motivation, passion, fire or engagement, I immediately start to think Values Index. This is the simplest of the profiles I use and in minutes you could be helping your prospect understand how their employee (or they themselves) is very poorly aligned with their most dominant motivations or drivers. For someone whose values (motivations) are poorly aligned with what they do, passion, motivation, excitement and engagement dont come easily. If, during Step two, I hear anything that makes it sound as though
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the individual in question is lacking motivation of any kind, this is the profile Im likely to recommend. Also, the Values Index is great for helping to understand cultural issues because I can model the entire culture of an organization, team or department using this tool. For mergers and acquisitions, this is a great tool to help understand why two disparate groups arent functioning well together. For newly formed teams, this is a great tool as well to help them understand what motivates each other. And, Ive found it extremely valuable in hiring because it helps employers understand what really motivates the candidate. In cases where voluntary turnover is the issue I might look at values, because people leave when they dont enjoy the work (i.e., arent excited, motivated, engaged). If involuntary turnover is the issue, I might go back to the DISC Index, because the person might be happy at work, but since they cant do the actual tasks its the company that asks them to leave. Attribute Index (AI): Whereas the DI and VI are something Im more prone to consider if the problem is organizational or team-based in nature, whenever the problem is more about
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the person Im talking to I often go with the AI. It digs deeper than the other two profiles, and the internal section on the Dimensional Balance page is unlike anything else on the market. Also, if Im primarily interested in selling coaching services, I tend to use the AI because the internal dimensions of the report open more doors into coaching than anything else Ive ever used. The only note of caution I have with the AI, however, is that this profile can bloody some noses. Unlike the others, its not as easy to walk out afterward with everyone feeling all warm and fuzzy. So, by using the AI, you increase your chances of having to tell a prospect that they are not talented in this area or that. As for me, I relish this opportunity to be honest with the prospect. Not because Im mean or anything, but because often times Im the only one who will tell them they are a part of the problem and executives appreciate that more often than not. Note that I said more often than not, not all the time. If you are newer to using profiles or havent developed a very high level of comfort in using them, you may reserve the AI until a later point where you have a stronger relationship with the person. Of course, theres nothing that states that just because you give them an AI you have to deliver every page of it back to them. This
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is for free, so choosing to avoid pages that could be problematic is not being unethical when youre in this early stage of a relationship. ADVanced Insights (ADV): Of course, the best option in my opinion, is to use the ADVanced Insights profile. While it takes a little longer for the prospect to complete, it provides me with absolutely the most comprehensive diagnostic possible on the prospect. That means that my chances of identifying the cause of the problem are greatly increasedplain and simple. If you are an existing IMX profile user, and take advantage of the unlimited use plan, price is not a concern. Feedback time is not a concern either, because as long as they are still a prospect, Im not going to debrief the entire report, but more on that under Step five. Remember, its absolutely vital that you plug your recommendation in. By this, I mean that you have to connect the reason for taking the profile to the critical issue (i.e., power source). Asking the prospect to complete it is a call to action. Since action requires energy, heres your first opportunity to plug their pain
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into some action. Saying, Id like to give John a behavioral profile Mr. Smith so we can understand him better wont be nearly as effective as saying, Id like to give John a profile that will help us see whats causing his lack of sales. The latter is a plugged in statement because, instead of assuming the prospect makes the connection and drives the energy needed to take action, you want to plug it in for them. Dont leave anything to chance! Plus, this keeps everything focused on the main reason youre there...to solve the problem. To help you decide which causes to choose from and which profiles to use, Ive created a library of all the causes we can measure in Appendix I.
Step #5Negotiate the appropriate solution.

Here, in this final step, you will be debriefing the actual report and making your recommendation for action; all in the same step. In other words, showing them the cause of the problem and proposing the appropriate consulting, training or coaching.
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The reason I put the actual debriefing of the profile in this step, and not in the previous step, is because you want to tie the debrief together with the recommendation back to back. The reason for this is that the prospects most powerful buying emotions will exist immediately after discovering the cause of the problem. The prospect is the most excited at this point. The buy-in they have for your expertise is also the greatest at this point because you just showed them the cause of their problem; something that has plagued them for perhaps a very long time and something no one else has been able to do. From a functional standpoint, its also very timely due to the simple fact that it is at this point (i.e., during the debrief ) that most people give you their big buying signs. That buying signal usually comes in the form of a question (e.g., So how do we fix that? or What can be done to solve that?). Any question about how to resolve the cause of the problem is, in effect, a buying sign. So, putting the debrief and recommendation together makes the most sense because instead of having to switch to a sales mode your recommendation is simply in response to their request for assistance.
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Lets discuss the debrief portion of this step first. When I am debriefing a profile to a prospect I give a very different debrief than I would if I were going over the profile with a paying client or someone with whom Im in a paid coaching relationship. Where I could easily spend up to an hour or more debriefing a profile for an existing client, with a prospect I might only spend 10-20 minutes maximum. The reason for this is that when dealing with a prospect, Im not going to do all the education I would with an actual client. Im not going to go through every page of the report with a prospect. This is because the reason Im going over the profile is vastly different between a prospect and an actual client. In the case of an actual client, Im using the profile information as part of the coaching or developmental work Ive been hired to provide. Its a much more involved relationship and theyve already paid me to provide it. With a prospect, however, Im using the profile for one simple reasonto identify the cause of their problem. Being that my objectives are very different (i.e., effecting actual change versus identifying a cause) the degree of interpretation is equally as different.
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Since all I want to do in the prospect stage is identify the cause of the problem, I dont need to educate them on every nuance of the report. I dont need to cover every aspect on every page. For one, they know they havent paid anything yet so I dont find people pushing back that they feel I have an obligation to spend two hours going over their results. And, as long as I show them what the cause is, I dont need them to understand what it all means, just that this profile just highlighted a cause (or causes) of their problem. Because of this, I simply give them a very high-level overview of what the profile looks at and isolate just those variables that point to a cause. Heres an example of a debrief introduction with a prospect: Hi, Mr. Smith, and thanks for having John complete the profile. While this profile could be the center of many weeks worth of coaching, for our purposes here lets just look at what I see with regard to Johns poor sales performance. This graph shows us that he has a very low level of what we call Decisiveness, which means that he may not be comfortable thinking on his feet or acting decisively out in the field when handed a curve ball. Also, this graph (very high C) tells
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me that John is likely to be very perfectionistic and overly detailed. Another thing I noticed is that John has a very low drive for financial compensation (Economic on the Values Index is in 6th place). In my experience, this can cause a lot of problems for sales people because their passion has less to do with making commissions through sales and more to do with, in Johns case, helping others (he had a high Altruistic on the Values Index). By simply meeting with the prospect and supporting their needs, he may not need to move all the way to the actual sale to satisfy his greatest motivation, or driver. Lastly, this score (i.e., the role awareness score) tells me that John has a lot of insecurity around his role. Usually this means that the person is questioning their fit in a role, which undermines confidence, causes hesitation and in general just gets in the way of optimal performance. So, in summary, I think we see in John someone whose behavioral tendencies may not be as conducive to the type of sales he is expected to do, who isnt nearly as engaged by the compensation model as others and who has significant doubt about his role right now. I can clearly see why he is struggling! If the prospect asks specific questions about what any one aspect of the profile means, I will give them that explanation to a certain extent. I dont want to leave them feeling dissatisfied by any means. At the same
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time, however, I dont go out of my way to educate them nearly as much as I would if I was actually coaching to this profile. I find, by the way, that leaving them with some questions actually benefits the sale because the more they want to know, the more motivated they are to become a paying customer so I can give them a very thorough debrief, shed light on all of those areas and give them the answers they want. If you prefer to give away a free coaching session as your marketing program, then perhaps a full debrief is in order. As for me, Im only seeking to do one thing, and thats identify the cause (or causes) of their problem. Just like the doctor doesnt share with you her years of education, which led her to say what she said about your MRI results, I dont find I need to go into all the details when Im in prospecting mode, if you will. I just need to tell them what I see.
Chapter Four
Squeezing the Trigger
Connecting the Dots

Regardless of the length of your debrief, there is one thing you must always make sure do to. You have to connect the dots between what you see in the report and what the prospect sees in reality. Better put, you have to let the prospect connect the dots for you. Each causative factor I point to in the profile needs to be clearly connected to the problem in your prospects mind. For example, if I simply say, John will likely not react quickly to unplanned events in his day, and leave it at that, Im hoping the prospect makes the connection between that tendency and his performance on the job. And I dont want to leave the prospect in charge of
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the sale ever. I want to make sure they see the connection between cause and effect. Its not unlike the plugged in concept from earlier in this process. Just as I wouldnt want to hope they make the connection between what Im suggesting and their pain, I dont want to leave it to the prospect to connect the dots between what we find in the profiles and how it relates to the performance at hand. To do this, you have to stop at each point and ask the prospect how they feel that particular finding is or is not contributing to the problem. In effect, you are giving the prospect examples of how a particular score might manifest in reality and helping them link cause to effect for you. Lets take the discussion above, where Ive intentionally left out the interaction with the prospect, by the way, and see what it looks like when you connect the dots. Ive highlighted the interactive (connecting the dots) portion underlined below. Hi, Mr. Smith, and thanks for having John complete the profile. While this profile could be the center of many weeks worth of coaching, for our purposes here lets just look at what I see with regard to Johns poor sales performance. Is that okay with you? This graph shows us that he has a very
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low level of what we call Decisiveness, which means that he may not be comfortable thinking on his feet or acting decisively out in the field when handed a curve ball. How often does something like this happen in your kind of sales environment? Is it a pretty predictable scenario most of the time? Just how important is the ability to think on ones feet in this role? Also, this graph (very high C) tells me that John is likely to be very perfectionistic and possibly even overly detailed. Have you noticed this with John? Does he take longer to get rolling than other sales people, needing more time to completely familiarize himself with the products, territory, etc.? Does he ever get stuck following the process instead of adapting to the situation? Another thing I noticed is that John has a very low drive for financial compensation (Economic on the Values Index is in 6th place). In my experience, this can cause a lot of problems for sales people because their passion has less to do with making commissions through sales and more to do with, in Johns case, helping others (he had a high Altruistic on the Values Index). By simply meeting with the prospect and supporting their needs, he may not need to move all the way to the actual sale to satisfy his greatest motivation, or driver. Have you seen John do well when it comes to supporting or servicing his existing clients, but not so well with aggressively capturing new ones? Has he ever been guilty of giving too much away or not going for the close
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because he was more concerned with making the prospect happy then making the sale? Does he seem as competitive as others? What is your compensation model, and do you think it motivates John as effectively as it does other more successfulsales people? Lastly, this score tells me that John has a lot of insecurity around his role. Usually this means that the person is questioning their fit in a role, which undermines confidence, causes hesitation and, in general just gets in the way of them performing optimally. Would you say that John seems comfortable in his role? How confident would you say he really is, despite outward appearances? Has his performance been inconsistent, which is another symptom of a very low role awareness? So, in summary, and based on the specific examples youve just given me, I think we see in John someone whose behavioral tendencies may not be as conducive to the type of sales he is expected to do, who isnt nearly as engaged by the compensation model as others and who has significant doubt about his role right now. I can clearly see why he is struggling! Prospect: So how do we fix that, Jay? Is there anything we can do? What do we do to correct this problem? My answer to this last question (i.e., the buying sign) all depends on what the situation is, what I think will work, what I have to offer, etc.
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This takes us to the second piece of Step five, and the final step in the Diagnostic Sales Process . . . recommending the appropriate solution.
Dont Forget to Close

Having thoroughly given the act of selling the boot, there is actually one aspect of selling that you just cant get rid of ...the actual close. Not that Im advocating the use of some canned closing technique or anything, just that, if you never ask for the business, it wont come. You will have to make a recommendation of some sort. Some of you will ask for their business in the form of the interrogative close (e.g., Mr. Smith, would you like to sign John up for my Sales Development course?). While others of you will stay more true to the physician analogy and go the route of the recommendation close (e.g., I recommend John go through our Sales Development program, Mr. Smith). I dont have a preference and I think the situation will dictate which feels right for you. The key, however, is that you push for action of some sort. If you simply debrief the report, thank them for
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their time and leave them with your business card and hope they will call you (e.g., Thanks, Mr. Smith. If you have any questions you know where to find me.) you might as well not even waste your time. Sounds silly? Youd be surprised how many times a month I hear someone tell me, I dont understand, Jay. I debriefed the report. I gave them everything and at the end there was this sort of what now moment and they said they would get back to me and they never did. When I ask these consultants what recommendation they made, they said none. And the prospect didnt call you back? Shocker! I bet that when you go fishing the fish dont jump into your boat for you, either. In effect, the prospect did exactly what these consultants recommended nothing! They recommended nothing; the prospect did nothing. And there you have it, the reason why you cant lose the close. Look, at this point in the game youve developed something of a super power. You may not be aware of it, but if youve executed these steps correctly you have the newfound ability to influence their decision-making with no less scary an influence than a Jedi knight (think these arent the droids you are looking for).
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Whatever suggestion you make, they are more than likely to comply. I know this sounds crazy and youre probably thinking of examples in your life where you made a suggestion to a prospect and they completely didnt do it. My guess, though, is that in that example you were selling, werent you? Selling is like kryptonite to your super powers. But trust me, if you have stayed the consultant, they will listen. Of course Im not suggesting you employ some tricky sales close either (e.g., the Benjamin Franklin close, the four-square close or the puppy dog close). This will kill you faster than anything. Bring that tie-down statement back to life at this stage (e.g., If I could show you a solution that met all your needs Mr. Smith, would you...) and you might as well pack your bags. Heres a great rule of thumb to help you close the business without closing the door altogether. I like to think of it as the You Asked Close. Whatever you say, whatever your call to action is, simply make the statement as if the prospect was already a paying client. Basically, the You Asked Close is simply you making a recommendation from the perspective of an
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expert responding to a question from someone seeking advice. In case you havent figured it out yet, this entire diagnostic sales process is specifically designed to get the respondent to ask you this kind of question. Everything youve done so far in this process has been carefully crafted to get you to this point, where they ask for you help. But you still must make that recommendation! You have to give them a call to action!
The absence of any recommendation equals the absence of any action.
Its in this recommendation that the work you did in Step one comes back to support you greatly. That work Im talking about was your fleshing out of the real impact of their critical issue. Remember when you stopped to quantify their critical issue by ascertaining the exact financial and emotional toll of the problem? This is where you bring that back in because whatever solution you recommend is going to have a price tag on it. The funny thing about buying psychology, how-
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ever, is that our simple reptilian brains are very much driven by our emotions. In fact, according to Professor Zaltmans research at Harvard University, as much as 90% of our purchasing decisions are controlled exclusively by our emotions, not rational decision-making. So, if your proposal has a tangible price and their problem doesnt youre in trouble. If you compare the tangible price of your proposal to the tangible price of their problem, however, you should always be able to make a compelling emotional argument. For example, your coaching program will cost John $5,000.00. If you imagine an old-fashioned scale and all you do is load your $5k price on one side, and all that exists on the opposite side is some ethereal, nondescript, intangible problem (e.g., sales are down to some big percentage) then your side of the scale will always weigh more (which is a bad thing). That would look something like this:
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To make it easier for the prospect to agree to your recommendation, however, you would want that scale to have your $5k on the one side and their $100,000 in lost sales on the other side. If you expand this to include all variables (emotions, at risk, etc.) you would have something more like this:
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The key is to make sure that you have something tangible on both sides of the equation, and then make sure that your side weighs a lot less. The mistake most consultants make (and sales people in general) is that they assume the prospect will fill in their side of the scale themselves. Again, letting the prospect control the sale is never a good idea. If you havent defined the problem specifically enough to arrive at a real dollar and emotional amount, the prospect isnt likely to either. In the end, all their emotional mind sees is some unde-
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fined value on the one side of the scale, and FIVETHOUSAND DOLLARS! on the other. And thats just a small $5k proposal. Imagine how much more important this balancing act is when you deliver a $50$100k proposal.
The Option of Multiple Yeses

Another valuable lesson Ive learned from those consultants who do very well growing their practices is to always give the prospect multiple options. Not giving options usually means you just increased your chances of not getting their business. Know any stores that sell one thing and one thing only? Even specialty shops sell multiple varieties of the same thing. Giving people options allows them to be in control and empowers them. As you put your proposal together, give some thought to how you could create at least three different options. Research has shown that most people like to choose the middle option of three, by the way. So make one lower-cost, one medium and one high-priced option for anything you offer. You can do that by starting with
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the highest-priced offering and working backward and, as you move to the next level of price down, make sure to remove value. Do this again one more time and you have three yeses the prospect can choose to give you as opposed to just one. If youre offering coaching, the variables you could play with to create multiple options to choose from could be: Number of calls Length of calls Length of engagement Number of tools you bring (e.g., use just a DISC Index or an ADVanced Insights profile) Even number of people being coached (e.g., group coaching versus one-on-one) If youre offering training, the variables could be: Length Numbers of people Individual attention Tools
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Get it? Almost anything you offer could be adapted to multiple options, but doing this is extremely helpful in getting more business. Just make sure that, as you create these levels, you dont create one that doesnt deliver real value to the client or pay you enough. While more often than not people will choose the middle option, you dont want to deliver loss-leader programs all month long. Lastly, when it comes to creating multiple offerings, be sure that if you reduce price you always reduce value. Never ever reduce cost in any negotiation or program without taking value off the table as you take price down. Read the article Maximizing Value to Maximize Profits in Appendix E in the back of this book to learn more on this topic. Remember, people object to price, not value. Conversely, people love to try and reduce price, but dont like to reduce value. Tying price directly to value is a strong way to make sure they dont try to reduce price.
Chapter Five
Putting it All to Work for You
The Diagnostic Sales ProcessA Review

Now that you understand the five steps of this process much better, lets give you another scenario (like the physician), but this time lets make it germane to your profession. Lets see what happens when you apply this process in the scenario of an independent business consultant. Step #1. (Induce the customer to come to you). A business owner has read your article on The Ten Most Common Causes of Poor Sales Performance (or seen your YouTube video on the same subject, or heard your speech, etc.). Being the smart marketer you are, he
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was able to follow the link to your contact information, which you always put on everything. He emails you (replies to your website link, phones you, texts you, attends your next free teleconference call on the topic, etc.) stating that he has a sales person who is really struggling. You do the work to qualify the prospect (more on this in the next chapter) and, having decided he is a qualified lead, you offer to meet with this business owner (for free) to explore the problem more completely. Step #2. (Establish a concrete power source). You meet with the business owner and start trying to identify the real pain/problem. The simplest way Ive found to do this is to ask the following kinds of questions, Mr. Smith, what is your most critical issue right now? What is keeping you up at 2:00am? If you could change anything, what would it be? Let him tell you what his biggest concern in his life is right now. A common mistake many consultants make at this point is to get that one pain and jump straight to a solution (e.g., We offer sales training, Mr. Smith, and heres why its effective, who has benefited from it in the past, bla bla bla yup you just became guilty of showing up and throwing up). Dont skip any steps in this process,
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unless you are happy with mediocrity, that is. And just because the prospect tells you what his greatest desire is, you cant stop there. Just as your doctor would seek to qualify that pain, narrow it down, isolate it and establish just how debilitating it is, you must do the same. To do so you ask the business owner to quantify more precisely how poorly this sales person is doing (e.g., 1-10 compared to others). Ascertain from him in which specific ways he is underperforming (e.g., farming but not hunting, losing established market share, failing to vertically integrate, etc.). Make sure you quantify how debilitating this problem is by understanding both the emotional and financial impact he is having on the company (e.g., what percentage of your companys sales does this person control, how much is he down specifically, actual dollar amounts, etc.). Again, make sure to get a very specific financial amount at this point because, as you will see, it is vital when it comes to winning the business in the final step (Negotiating the appropriate solution). Step #3. (Advise them of possible causative metrics). Responding to the critical issue (power source) that Mr. Smith shared, you advise him of some of the most
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common causes you have seen in your experience that drive such problems. Heres the short version of the example above: Well, Mr. Smith, in my experience with hundreds of sales companies, some of the most common causes of poor sales performance have been: call reluctance, lack of emotional intelligence or a lack of aggressive closing. Of course, I couldnt be sure any of these were or were not the real cause behind Johns poor sales performance without measuring them. Id like to give John a diagnostic profile that is specifically designed to measure these kinds of sales traits then well know for sure. As I always say, why guess when you can know. Besides, its free, because until I know what the cause of the problem is, I dont know if I have any solutions to offer. Step #4. (Recommend diagnostic profiling). You need to give the key person in the problem some diagnostic profile that will measure a broad enough spectrum of traits so as to identify what is causing the problem.
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In this scenario, heres a typical statement: Thanks for agreeing, Mr. Smith. Id recommend we give John a profile specifically designed to measure sales traits. Its the one profile Ive found to be more helpful in identifying the underlying causes of poor sales performance than any other, and Ive come to trust that it will help us understand what it is about John thats not supporting his sales success. Its 100% online and only takes 5-10 minutes to complete; would you like me to send it to him directly? Or, if you give me the email of your admin I will email a link over later this afternoon. Once I get the results back, Im even willing to schedule some time to go over the results if youd like. Step #5. (Negotiate the appropriate solution). Remember, youre not going to give as thorough a debrief as you might were you in a live coaching relationship. You simply need to highlight the salient points in the profile that relate to the specific problem. Its also okay, preferable actually, if you generate more questions in the prospects mind, because thats all the more reason they will want to continue the relationship (e.g., theres so much more I could learn about this, or there are a lot of other people Id like to know this about).
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Heres a typical flow in this step: Well, Mr. Smith. The profile we used is called the DISC Index. It is specifically designed to measure behavioral traits and, in our case were interested in just those that relate to Johns ability to sell. This profile has a lot of information in it, Mr. Smith, and often serves as the center of weeks of coaching work, so while I wont go into every single aspect of this report, the reason we had John take it was to see if we could identify the cause of his lack of sales. Along those lines, heres what I see. John is a very low D. That means he is a pretty indecisive guy. When it comes to rolling with the punches or thinking on his feet he will struggle. This will also make him less aggressive and competitive in some respects. See this dimension called Cautiousness? Hes a very high C, which simply means that everything I just said will be further amplified. Have you noticed him being overly perfectionistic, asking far more questions about the product than the other sales people? Has he taken much longer to even get started, seeming to want to get to a 99% level of understanding before he makes his first call? All of this happens naturally given the way John thinks. He doesnt do it intentionally, per se. Therefore, without a structured program designed specifically to effect change in these areas, this isnt something that will just go away. John can, however,
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learn what his tendencies are and through awareness and coaching we can help him avoid these pitfalls. Ninety percent of the time, when you get to this point, Mr. Smith will ask you more about the program you are recommending. Simply give him the specifics of the program, reconnect to the power source one last time, and make a recommendation that Mr. Smith sign John up for your program right then and there. Just dont forget. You cant push them into the sale; you have to earn it. You must earn their respect as a trusted advisor. You have to earn their belief in your expertise. When done correctly I like to say, I EARNed their business, as opposed to I sold them an engagement. I EARNed: Induce the customer to come to you Establish a concrete power source Advise them of possible causative metrics Recommend diagnostic profiling Negotiate the appropriate solution
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Effective Communication = Effective Persuasion

While everything Ive said so far in this book is very powerful and holds incredible potential to help you grow your practice, there is one final piece that, if not done, will undo everything. If, in following the five steps of the Diagnostic Sales Process, you fail to actually communicate effectively with your prospect (i.e., the words coming out of your mouth conflict with their preferred means of communicating), those words will fall on deaf ears. In fact, its possible that your way of communicating may actually repel your prospect. Heres a basic fact. Everyone has his or her own unique communication style. Based on their natural behavioral style, they prefer to receive information in a fairly specific way. The most significant body of research on these different styles states that there are four core dimensions, or types. Failing to understand what that style is and how you need to communicate with it effectively will make all the difference in the world. In addition to a unique communication style, everyone also has his or her own unique buying motivation.
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Here, the research conducted over the past 80 years states that there are seven core dimensions of motivation. Depending on an individuals mix of these motivations, what excites one will not excite another; what creates passion and desire in one person will not have any significant effect on another. Trying to compel a prospect to buy for your reasons (what excites and drives you) doesnt work. Both of these factors, buying style and buying motive, are at play in every single person you meet and will try to sell to. The great news is that by using the profiles up front with a prospect, for a totally different reason (i.e., identifying the cause of their pain), you get to enjoy the significant side effect of learning what their buying motives and communication preferences are. By knowing these things, and incorporating them into your approach, you will drastically increase your ability to EARN more business. Hoping you can accurately read a prospect in the opening minutes of your interaction is a recipe for failure. Its simply a matter of odds. Lets do the math. Each human has four possible dominant communication styles and seven possible primary buying motives.
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With eleven variables in play, guessing which combination is the right one is nearly impossible. There are over 39,000,000 possible combinations here, and I for one dont want my success to depend on 1 in 39MM odds that I get it right. The good news is that I dont have to guess anything. I dont have to assume anything, and I dont have to hope I get luckier than the last lotto winner to get my business. And you dont have to guess, either, because you have their profile in your handso you can know.
As I like to say, Why guess when I can know?
The Seven Buying Motives (WHY people buy)

Over eighty years of research into what motivates and drives people, what creates passion in them and what doesnt has revealed seven core categories of motivation. Our buying motives are formed through repeated experiences and exposure to our world. Our experi-
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ences help determine our attitude or beliefs about what is valuable or good and what is not. The more positive the encounters associated with any dimension, the more reinforced that dimension becomes as being valuable and good. Conversely, the more negative the encounters the less reinforced the dimension becomes. The seven buying motives are: The Aesthetic Motive A desire to buy things that promote life or world balance, harmony and peace. Also, a desire to buy things that are aesthetically pleasing, comfortable (emotionally and physically) and that provide comfort or reduce effort, tension or stress. The Altruistic Motive A drive to buy things that make life better for others (e.g., the way they were manufactured, the value to aid others, the product or services ability to improve others lives). The Economic MotiveA motivation to buy something based on its practical value, the return on investment it can generate, its overall value relative to price and based on comparative value to other similar things available in the market place.
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The Individualistic Motive A desire to buy things that are unique, that promise to make the buyer different or to stand apart from the rest, things that are tailored to their specific needs (customized) or that are rare or not available to the masses. The Political Motive A motivation to buy things that will increase the buyers stature/expertise, help make them an authority figure, increase their power, influence, reputation or give them a competitive edge over others. The Regulatory Motive A drive to buy things that are traditional, follow a well-established process or procedure, help maintain order or bring order out of chaos, or create a routine and provide structure. Also, anything that provides security, predictability and certainty. The Theoretical Motive -- A desire to buy things that deliver new knowledge, educate, teach, instruct, or provide mastery of some subject. Also, a desire to learn something unknown and to elevate their expertise in a given subject.
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Here is a brief overview of these seven buying motives. Take note of the kinds of words or concepts you will want to connect with when describing the value of your service or offering.
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If you already have a Values Index profile on your prospect you benefit greatly by knowing exactly which of these buying motives is their strongest, which one you need to resonate with in order to generate the greatest passion for your services. Before you meet with the prospect in Step five, review their Values Index profile and make sure you understand what it is about your proposal that connects directly with their strongest dimension. While two
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people may share a very similar problem (critical issue/power source), how you connect your proposal to them may vary greatly depending on their individual buying motives. For example, lets take the same problem and see how your proposal may differ depending on various buying motives.
Take note that even though the problem above is the same (i.e., lack of sales), the key reason your prospect would get excited changes dramatically depending on their buying motive. Of course, this is just a small example designed to show you how much they change, not give you the only set of words you need to use with each dimension. To help you do that, find the strongest dimension in your prospects Values Index and review the first three categories for that dimension (i.e., General Traits, Key Strengths and Motivational Insights). The two remaining categories (i.e., Learning
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Insights and Continual Improvements) are not as applicable to motivating them to buy. Knowing why they like to buy is only the first half of the equation, though. WHY they buy marries with HOW they prefer to buy (i.e., their preferred behavioral and communications style). You may know why your solution connects with their motivations, but if you fail to communicate effectively, they will never get that message.
The Four Buying Styles (HOW people buy)

It is in the buying style that you will find the information you need to effectively communicate your value to the prospect. Miss the mark here and you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage. According to over ninety years of research into how people behave, there has been tremendous progress made in our ability to actually map or quantify someones natural behavioral styles. Dr. William Marston (Harvard, 1923) gave us perhaps the most prolific behavioral profile used in business to date. His theory
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is called the DISC Behavioral Model, which stands for the first letter in one of four core categories of behavior. We all have a level of preference in each of these categories, but it is our own unique mix that makes us different. These four categories drive our actions, the way we communicate and prefer to be communicated with. They play a significant role in our ability to effectively interact with others (from friends to prospects). Understanding how your prospect behaves and prefers to communicate will allow you to take the right approach (words, actions, timeline, etc.) to ensure that your message is best received. Behaviors are a unique part of who we are, and they are: Observable: Behaviors are something you see or observe on the surface actions of another. Silent: Behaviors are not communicated through words directly, rather through how we speak, whom we speak to, or what we speak about.
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Universal: Behavioral theory is universal in that it can be applied to all people in all locations around the world. The four dimensions of behavior are: Decisivenessyour preference for making decisions and taking actions. Interactivenessyour preference for interacting with others, being outgoing, sharing thoughts and emotions. Stabilityyour preference for the pace with which you move, live, act. Cautiousnessyour preference for accuracy, precision and attention to detail. For example, people with high Decisiveness tendencies have a clear picture in their mind of what results they want. They are often seen as Type-A people, preferring to make buying decisions very quickly. They are more often interested in winning or promoting their own agenda so they like to buy when they feel they have gotten their way, so to speak. They are attentive to actions or communication that will speed up those results. Discussions about details and minu-
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tiae are distracting to these individuals. They prefer to discuss top-line, big-picture concepts when considering the value of any offering. People with high Interactive tendencies also want to shape and mold events and enjoy getting their way when it comes to negotiations or buying something. Unlike the High D, however, High Is tend to go about this by working with or through people much more collaboratively. They are interested in people and like to interact with others, understand others and to be understood by others. They are most receptive to making a buying decision when they feel a sense of connection with the person, are in a more social environment and have had the opportunity to express their emotions, thoughts, fears or excitement about the offering first. Like the High D, this person is also particularly inattentive to details, preferring to stick to the big-picture and emotional benefits of the solution. Persons with high Stabilizing tendencies are more passive and introverted and interested in the how and why of a solution (i.e., the details and minutiae that the I and D couldnt care less about). Their primary
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interests are in maintaining stability within themselves and whatever situation they find themselves in. Messages that dont address the specifics, or that champion radical change, are likely to alienate rather than resonate. They prefer to buy things that will increase the stability in their lives, provide more security, and are well known and well proven. They prefer to take their time more than any other dimension so any offering should give them plenty of time to decide. Those individuals with high Cautiousness tendencies are also more passive and introverted. Like the High S, they too take a much more detailed (the most) and accuracy-based approach to their buying habits. Their buying decisions are very much driven by questions of accuracy, detail, reliability, level of proof, etc. Without sufficient data to prove any statements made to a High C, you will fail to achieve their buy in. Why is a favorite question for a high C buyer. Prove it is the second most common one. They are very concerned with doing things accurately. They are receptive to offerings that provide proof that the solution works, proposals that are meticulously detailed and absent of ANY grammatical mistakes or typos.
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The Four Buying Styles
The illustration below is designed to highlight the core differences in the four dimensions. All of us have a score in all four, but for our purposes here you will be most interested in the highest scores. This chart will help you understand what happens to ones buying style as their score goes up or down in each dimension.
While there is a great deal more you could learn about these theories (we have certified over 1,200 professional consultants in advanced ways of interpreting this information at much greater depths), this guide
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will stick to the specifics as they relate exclusively to effecting a prospects buying habits/style. Heres another view of all four buying styles, albeit a comical treatment. Regardless of some good-natured fun, though, these over-exaggerations should help you better understand how the styles differ.
Bill Bottomline = The High D who is very serious, always thinking business, professional and in a rush. Joe Bagadonuts = The High I who is always looking for the next social event,
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very personal, disorganized and just interested in having fun. Steady Eddie = The High S who is all about being laid back, an anchor for others, not rocking the boat, support, service and not being rushed. Tom Technical = The High C who is very strict, orderly, accurate, methodical and serious. With these caricatures in mind, ask yourself how compatible some of these styles are with each other. If only someones buying style really was this obvious.
Buying Style Communication Tips

Selling to High Ds (looking for results and efficiency): Be practical and efficient (avoid theory) Highlight opportunities for change and adventure Avoid overly emotional discussions or opinion-based arguments
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Accentuate independence and competition Challenge their idea, perhaps, but not them personally Stick to the big-picture, bottom-line business at hand Be quick and to the point (do not waste their time) Likes new, innovative things Let them be in control Selling to High Is (looking for interaction and an experience): Avoid challenging them or personal conflict Dont aggressively close or push Be enthusiastic and express emotions Let them talk! Highlight potential improved appearance, social standing, approval by others Have fun!
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Accentuate the newness factor Name dropping is not a bad thing here (if done tastefully, of course) Selling to High Ss (looking for security and stability): Avoid conflict (with them or trashing anyone else, even those not present) Reassure and reduce risk as much as possible Provide structure, step-by-step details and security Give them ample time to decide (as in days or weeks in some extreme cases) Accentuate your support and commitment long-term (think family) Be sincere, modest and unassuming Dont get too personal too fast Selling to High Cs (looking for accuracy and information): Provide high levels of high quality evidence and proof (data, facts, statistics, etc.) Connect to solving problems
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Make sure zero typos, grammatical mistakes or forgotten deliverables never happen Ensure accuracy, reliability and dependability Avoid pointing out any mistakes they may make Be organized and logical Be unemotional Establish trust, through proof Here are some key preferences for each buying style:
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Here are some key communication insights for each buying style:
Whos on First?
The prospects buying style also greatly affects how quickly they will adopt change or take a new course. Some styles love buying something new, innovative, cutting edge. Other styles fear such things and would
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be pushed away from them if you tried to sell those aspects as features or a benefit. Innovators = High Ds (they will buy unproven, brand new, cutting-edge solutions that have not been proven by anyone else in the market. They revel in the chance to be the first to try things) Early Adopters = High Ds & High Is (The high Is are almost as brazen as the high Ds, but unlike the Ds they appreciate social proof, so be sure to point out how your solution allows them to join others who are leading the way, pushing the boundaries, blazing new trails) Early Majority = High Is and High Ss (the Ss come in once they know a majority exists. Not wanting to be on the front lines like the high Ds and Is, the Ss prefer to wait until they can be certain that the risk has been minimized, others have tried it first and they are joining the majority) Late Majority = High Ss and High Cs (High Cs, if they buy in, will want to wait even longer. They will want to be even
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more certain, be even more assured that the solution is accurate. Allowing plenty of time for others to work the kinks out before them ensures this certainty) Non-Adopters = High Cs (if there is one style that may never adopt it is the High Cs. They require the most proof, the most evidence and the most selling to to decide to buy. They require plenty of facts, data and...proof.) And just in case you were wondering what the odds were of running into any one of these types out there in your marketing activities, here are the percentiles from over 20 years of record (variance based on multiple research): High D =10-15% High I = 25-35% High S = 45-50% High C = 20-30% The lesson here: your odds are greatest to be sitting across from a High S as youre out there marketing
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and prospectingso plan accordingly. The good news is that if you follow the steps of the Diagnostic Sales Process, you wont have to guess which style they are. You will know!
Connection Versus Speed

One last thought on buying styles. Below is an illustration designed to help you better understand how to adjust your level of connection and the speed of your sales cycle, depending on the prospects dominant style.
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Connection
When dealing with Is and Ss, you can connect more. Actually, doing so will improve your chances of signing their business. Not doing so with High Is and Ss will hurt those chances. Just connect slowly with the High S and feel free to go a little faster with the High I. When dealing with high Ds and Cs, however, dont try to connect as much. Both styles prefer more professional relationships, may distrust you if you start asking all kinds of questions about their family and seek to become their new best friend. Coming on too personally is to be avoided with these styles.
Speed
When dealing with Ds and Is you can move more quickly and have a shorter sales cycle. Neither require as much evidence; both are prone to making rash decisions with less rational thought and more instinct, or gut intuition. Be aware that if you take too long in your sales cycle, you will hurt your chances of closing the sale. High Ds and Is dont
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like to take too long to make a decision, and hate getting caught up in the details. When dealing with Ss and Is however, the exact opposite is true. You should plan on a longer sales cycle (much longer depending on the height of the score in these two dimensions). Move too quickly and you will make these styles feel nervous, as though they are being pushed, and heighten their anxiety about change (which is already somewhat high to begin with). High Ss react this way due to their need for certainty and stability. Your offer, as good as it might be, is still new to them; therefore, they will need time to think about it. Suppress any sales training you have to get the close before you leave. Youre not selling used cars! When dealing with a high S, I actually have a two or three-call approach where I am the one who, after debriefing the report, recommends they take some time, become familiar with the report, gather their thoughts and then we can talk again in a few days (or next week) to discuss whatever questions they have. If you have to get some commitment before you walk away (you high Ds and Is reading this) make that commitment the next date you set
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to talk more. My favorite high S quote, when faced with a recommendation, was, Let me set with this a while and get my arms around it. High Cs arent driven by becoming familiar with it. They just need more time to investigate, study the data (which you gave them because you read their profile) and, well, basically decide if you are telling the truth or not. As for the 1st easiest, 2nd easiest... notes in the illustration above, the term easiest may be up for some interpretation. I meant it to mean a combination of: time to close, effort on your part, data and supporting documentation you have to come up with, resistance from the prospect and number of hoops to jump through. While Cs may be the latest adopters, and most pessimistic, I put the high S as the hardest/longest simply because they will require more time than any other style before the newness of your proposal becomes familiar enough to no longer be new.
Buying Style Fit & Compatibility

In this final chapter, I will talk about how likely two different styles are to get along naturally. Dont for-
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get, you have your own natural style as well. In some cases, depending on the prospects style, you may be completely yourself and the comfort between both of you will be high. In other cases, however, you might have very different styles and your natural tendencies may be off-putting to the prospect requiring you to adapt your behavior to meet their style. The illustration below demonstrates how two styles get along naturally. Some styles may be very comfortable with each other and others may be at odds. The closer together two circles are, the more comfortable those two styles will naturally be with each other. The farther apart the two circles are, the less comfortable the two styles will be.
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Here are all the possible combinations of all four styles:
High DHigh D
Two High Ds get each other. They share similar styles, so they share the same drive to move quickly, be decisive and compete. Therefore, they will appreciate each others need to move quickly, not ask a lot of questions and wont view the others actions as overly aggressive or competitive. There is, however, the potential that both may butt heads trying to control the discussion.
High DHigh I
The High D and the High I share many of the same tendencies, like urgency, risk-taking and a desire for
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change. They differ, however, in their approaches. Whereas the High D will likely seek to directly control a situation, the High I will seek to persuade rather than direct. Both will prefer high-level discussions; only the High I will prefer more discussion than the High D.
High DHigh S
The High D and High S have only a moderate level of natural comfort with each other. Whereas the High D will prefer to move quickly, decisively and directly, the High S will counter with a desire for a slower pace, more considerate action and to be less direct (aggressive). The High D is likely to overpower the High S, causing tension and reducing the comfort further. While the High D may view the High S as fearful or timid, the High S may view the High D as pushy and controlling.
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High DHigh C
Having a naturally low level of comfort, these two styles can easily get off on the wrong foot. The High D can quickly become aggravated by what is perceived to be the High Cs overly detailed, risk-averse, pedantic approach. Conversely, the High C can become equally as frustrated by what is perceived to be the High Ds high-risk, under-planned, irresponsible level of lack of thought. Significant discomfort can appear between these two styles and both will need to adapt their approach in order to communicate effectively.
High IHigh I
Sharing the same style, the two High Is will enjoy an immediate bond and high levels of comfort in their communications. Both will seek to socialize, get to
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know one another and share thoughts and emotions. Likewise, both will prefer to stick to high-level discussions, choosing to skim over the details. While sharing like styles will benefit their comfort with each other, two High Is can easily take each other off track with excessive socializing. Being fairly disorganized to begin with, two such people can exhaust what time they had available for business by talking about everything but the original objective.
High IHigh S
Whereas both styles enjoy a people-focused orientation, and seek to connect rather than control or analyze, they only enjoy a moderate level of comfort; with the High S perceiving the High I as being overly salesy, or pushy. The High I, on the other hand, can misinterpret the lack of emotion from the High S as being standoffish or disinterested. These risk aversion versus risk taking differences can cause further tension.
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High IHigh C
These two styles will enjoy a low level of comfort at best in most cases. While the High I wants to be open, have fun, move quickly, stick to the big picture and avoid the minutiae, the High C prefers to remain closed, stay professional, move slowly, dig deep into the specifics and thrives on the details. The natural actions of both styles will tend to be the opposite of the others preference. While not as distant as the High D to the High C, these two styles must adapt significantly to get along.
High SHigh S
Like all other identical styles, two High Ss will enjoy a high level of comfort and communicate effectively with each other. Sharing the same style, they will each pre-
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fer to take it slow, not rock the boat, resist change, and create order, structure and security. Both will, however reinforce the potential for inaction in the other. Both could enable the other in their resistance to change, thus promoting too low a sense of urgency.
High SHigh C
The High S and High C only enjoy a moderate level of comfort and compatibility. While they both share similar needs for structure, certainty and low-risk environments, the High S has a more open, people-orientated perspective whereas the High C is more closed and takes a task-oriented point of view. The High S prefers to respect others and is sincere in his support of people. The High C, however, is more focused on accuracy and the rules and can therefore run afoul of the High Ss respect for others when those others break the rules of fall short of expectations.
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High CHigh C
Two High Cs tend to enjoy favorable compatibility with each other due to their sharing the same preferences for order, correctness, details, accuracy and compliance with some procedure. Their needs to gather data and move slowly and cautiously only serve to improve their compatibility. Being very sensitive about their work, however, two High Cs could come into conflict if their beliefs differ . . . as neither is prone to admit mistakes or being wrong.
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Overview of all combinations
Conclusion
In the end, this entire book is about one thing...helping you grow your practice. While Ive poked some goodnatured fun at the professional sales people of the world (myself included), the underlying message should be deadly serious. If you intend to survive as an independent consultant or coach, you will always have to rely on yourself to bring new clients into your practice. That being the case, there is a world of hurt waiting out there for those independent consultants who decide to achieve that growth by paying a visit to the sales store to buy into the best practices of that community, then try to take them home and apply them in their own house. Its no more effective then trying to plug my US power cord into a UK wall outlet.
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The art of selling is actually very complicated and something that should be left to the professionals. Unless you are a sales professional, dont try this at home. For all the reasons Ive stated herein, the act of selling is simply NOT a good fit for what you do and who you are. Remember, its about growingnot selling. The good news is that there is plenty of opportunity to grow your practice to incredible heights without having to sell. The conventional wisdom or legacy beliefs of how we as business consultants or coaches should grow are simply dead wrong! And we can state this with certainty because those who are actually growing their practices faster and farther than anyone else practice none of that conventional wisdom when it comes to the act of selling. They have broken with any legacythinking that binds them to outdated ways, and look at the objective from a radical new perspective. It was my intent in this book to give you that same perspective and let you see what things look like from where the best stand. Of course, everyone is unique and should create their own best practices, and I hope you, too, modify these lessons to best fit your specific world. I simply hope Ive given you food for thought,
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caused you to take a look at things from a brand-new perspective and given you hope that there is more than one way to grow your practice and it doesnt involve you struggling with becoming the best sales person in the world. Look, in the end, just be you! If thats a natural born sales person, awesome. Be that sales person. If youre not a sales person at heart, however, and instead your you is a natural born coachrest easy knowing that you dont have to be anything else other than just that (a great coach). And...you can still be just as successful as you want to be. Happy consulting & coaching!
Appendices
Outline: A. Delivering superior Customer Service B. Proven Methods to Increase Profits C. Hourly Versus Project-Fee Approach D. How to Deal with Someone Who Always Wants a Deal E. Maximizing Value to Maximize Profit F. An EBM Guide G. Top 10 Mistakes Even Professional Sales People Make H. Just What Is a Qualified Prospect? I. Causative Metrics Library J. Diagnostic Sales Cheat Sheet
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Appendix A
On Delivering Superior Customer Service Alan Weiss, PhD.
What Actually Constitutes Superior Service?
Everyone wants to pride themselves on their service in the consulting profession, but that desire is often unsupported by definitions of exactly what constitutes outstanding service. How would you demonstrate that your service is, indeed, worth paying a premium for? After all, if your fees arent commensurate with such superb service, then whats the point? Lets put ourselves in the clients shoes. How would we know that service is top-drawer?
1. Response time.
I would receive return calls from you at a minimum the same day they were made (or first thing the next morning, if I called you late in the afternoon). At best, youd
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return my calls within a few hours. Email responses would always occur within 24 hours.
2. Deadlines honored.
Reports, suggestions, responses, and anything else requested would be delivered in worst case on deadline and, in best case, considerably before it. This includes last-minute requests and short-deadline requests. In other words, if youve agreed that you can do it, you do it as promised. I never have to follow-up with you to obtain an awaited document.
3. Im a priority.
You dont take my calls on a cell phone forwarded to you while youre in an airport or, heaven forbid, working with another client. I never feel rushed or taken for granted or patronized. I have your undivided attention. While I know you cant be available whenever I pick up the phone, I expect that when we do connect I will not be competing for your focus.
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4. Your support functions are professional.
If I talk to your assistant, answering service, or even voice mail, Im treated with respect and dont have to jump through hoops. I dont want to listen to the same 30-second commercial for your services every time I call simply to leave you a message. Your assistant never slaps me on hold and doesnt mispronounce my name. Your letters and email are error-free and, electronically, everything you do is compatible with my own platforms and applications.
5. I perceive trust and candor.
You dont add to my problems, and you candidly inform me when something has gone wrong, including my own behavior. I know Im going to hear undercurrents of discontent from some staff members who may feel threatened by you, but I dont expect to find any substance behind it (such as evidence you are taking sides in turf battles).
6. You respect our culture and operation.
Youve taken the time to learn about how we operate, so you dont make unreasonable demands and commit
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silly mistakes. You pay for your coffee, park in the correct area, observe office policies, and request expense reimbursement commensurate with the situation (e.g., if our own team flies coach and takes taxis, thats the level of reimbursement you request).
7. You are proactive.
I periodically receive articles, ideas, references, and other resources that are non-promotional and clearly helpful to my company, position, and/or life. You provide more than I anticipate and your intent is clearly to ensure that my needs are exceeded, not merely met. Superior service is a wonderful differentiator, because it requires no capital investment and is often easier for a smaller firm or solo practitioner to enforce than it is for a larger, more bureaucratic organization to maintain. Your service level may well exceed the sample seven Ive listed above. The key is to be able to articulate them and extend them to every prospect and client. High service levels always assist the perception of value, so they need to be manifest from the first point of introduction to a prospective client.
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Appendix B
Proven Methods to Increase and/or Protect Your Profits
Any two or three of these tips below will probably increase your profits immediately: 1. Work together with the client to let him establish value collaboratively 2. Always base your fees on value, never tasks or hours worked 3. Never itemize unless you absolutely have to (price for value, not materials/time) 4. Never use time as the basis of your value 5. Start with what they want, but then extend the engagement by determining what they need (sell them what they want, give them what they need) 6. Think long-term real revenue is cumulative, not situational 7. Never voluntarily offer options to reduce fees 8. Add a premium if you personally have to do it all
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9. If youre forced to consider fee reduction, reduce value as you reduce fees 10. Provide options every time: the choice of yeses 11. As early as possible, ask the key scope question: What are your objectives? 12. Ensure that the client is aware of the full range of your services 13. If something is not on your playing field, subcontract. Never turn away business 14. Always ask yourself, Why me, why now, why in this manner? 15. Know how many options the buyer perceives other than you 16. Use proposals as confirmations, not explorations 17. When asked prematurely about fees, reply, I dont know...yet 18. Do not accept troublesome or unpleasant clients, no matter how hungry you are 19. Seek out new business opportunities laterally during your projects 20. It is better to do something pro bono and protect value than to do it for a low fee and erode value perception
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21. Fees have nothing to do with supply and demand, only with value 22. If you are unaware of current market fee ranges, youre undercharging 23. Psychologically, higher fees create higher value in the buyers mind 24. Value must include subjective as well as objective measures 25. Introduce new value to existing clients to raise fees in these accounts 26. At least every two years, consider jettisoning the bottom 15% of business 27. Start with payment terms maximally beneficial to you every time 28. Offer incentives for one-time, full payments 29. Its always easier to sell new services to old clients, than old services to new clients 30. Always be prepared to walk away from business
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Appendix C
Hourly versus project-fee approach?
Many of our consultants struggle with deciding whether to charge an hourly rate or a single project fee. We strongly recommend the project or value-based fee structure and heres why the client agrees. The following are points to make to the client as to why they want a project fee: 1. It always leaves the focus on results, not activity. 2. There is a cap on their investment. They know exactly what is to be spent and there are no surprises. 3. There is never a meter running. They do not have to worry each time your help is requested that you might be here for an hour, a day, or a week. 4. It is unfair to them to place them in the position of making an investment decision every time they may need help. Otherwise, theyre trying to determine the impossible: Is this an issue that justifies a $2,000 visit or a $500 phone call? No client should ever be in that position.
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5. They should feel free to use your assistance and to ask for your help without feeling they have to go to someone for budgetary approval. This only makes them more resistant to sharing their views, and at best delays the flow of important information. 6. If you find additional work that was unanticipated but must be performed, you can do it without having to go to them for additional funds. In those instances, legitimate, additional work would otherwise be viewed as self-aggrandizing and an attempt to generate additional hours or days. 7. The overall, set fee, in relation to the project outcomes to be delivered, is inevitably less of a proportional investment than hourly billing. 8. This is the most uncomplicated way to work together. There will never be a debate about what is billable time (e.g., travel, report writing) or what should be done on site or off site.
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A word on pricing
1. Being high is good! Perceived subconscious value of higher priced goods or services is always higher. It also weeds out those bargain hunters who will drive you crazy and focus only on price, not value. 2. When you are just starting out, or hungry, its easy to adopt a will-take-all-comers attitude. You wouldnt advise your clients to do this when hiring, so take your own advice and dont do it when you are hiring new clients. Many of our consultants tell me that they will take one bargain-hunting client in the hopes that they will refer them to more business. The truth is that those clients only refer you to other bargainhunting, difficult clients most of the time. Be selective in what clients you hire, based on your ability to help them build a reputation for success, and enjoy the work! 3. If price is their only objective, your outcome is doomed from the start! 4. Know when to walk away. Author Seth Godin wrote a great book on knowing when to quit titled The Dip. Its only 79 pages long, so you can
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read in on one flight. It talks about how the best know when to quit, and do so often. If you are hanging in with a difficult client, or trying to do what you can for one that needs much more than you can accomplish, know when to get out. Oftentimes, leaving the situation is a bigger benefit to you than sticking it out and not being the success you are charging them to be. It is hard to turn away business, but when you are selective, your success will be much greater. 5. Whenever a client comments on your price being high, heres something that one of our consultants taught us that really worked for him. He decided to quadruple his fees one year, mostly because he felt it would be easier than firing clients, and he wanted to scale back, anyway. The result was that his business revenue quadrupled that year. Yes, he lost a fair number of clients, but he kept the ones who really understood his value, worked much less, made more money and was much happier. The revenue were talking about here, by the way, was in the seven figures by the end of that year, so this can really work. Whenever someone says to him Wow, you are expensive, instead of trying to justify
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that as he used to, now he simply says (without being too cocky), I know. He stops right there. He refuses to say another word after I know. Ive done this myself and it actually works! You dont want to come across as cocky, but when you do it humbly and with confidence; you convey your value that much more.
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Appendix D
How to Deal with People Who Always Want a Deal
Many consultants fail to fully appreciate that once you make a single concession on price, youve enabled a behavior that will inevitably cost you money and probably drive you crazy. Requests for price concessions generally emanate from the owners of small companies who are accustomed to haggling with everyone from the coffee vendor to the hourly employees (and who, themselves, are constantly asked to lower price from their own customers); and from larger company purchasing departments and low-level feasibility buyers, whose ultimate job is to spend less (not deliver results, per se). There are several keys here: Never offer a concession without a quid pro quo. Once you lower fees (no matter how slightly) or delay the clients payment dates (no matter how little) you have opened Pandoras box. The client, like Archimedes, will stick a lever in that slightly open door
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and rip it off the hinges. Sometimes such concessions are the right thing to do, but never go into them lightly and always try to maintain a balance so if you take price down, you take something out of the deliverable of equal value. Be prepared to deny the request and walk away. Be confident in your value. Weve had buyers whom we have interviewed tell us, I always ask for a concession because I believe its good business. Im shocked at how often theyre granted without any resistance, despite the fact that Im seldom prepared to press the issue if Im told no. Focus on the value proposition and the ROI. When buyers are especially resistant to the price, but indicate they would go ahead with the proposal IF you reduced price, theyre really saying that they believe you can help them, but theyre not sure how much (so they want to hedge their bets). Demonstrate that even a conservative return will provide dramatic ROI. And, make sure that ROI is always seen in dollars. Whenever you are highlight-
178 Appendices
ing your value, it must be in hard financial terms. Telling a company that they will achieve improvement in their performance doesnt do much to offset the very tangible price youll charge them. Telling them they will achieve a 10% increase in performance is only somewhat better. Telling them that they will achieve a 10% increase in performance, and that represents $X amount is fantastic. In other words, they have to see a greater weight in hard cash to offset the weight of your fees. Offer non-monetary concessions. Some people just need the ego fulfillment of having received something for free or at a reduced price. Offer anything from a free book, to complimentary quarterly updates, to free newsletter subscriptions. Provide something to salve their ego so its not a win/lose proposition. Always provide options, even to small businesses. If the buyer says, I love option three, but the fee seems a bit high, reply with, Thats why we have an option two.
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Stop work if youre not paid on time. Deal-seekers are famous for delaying payments to squeeze out extra work. If youre not paid in advance, and a payment date has passed, allow ten days and then stop working. Otherwise, youll be in permanent debt to the company store. At the time of writing this I can name two close consulting friends who both kept working too long after payment was delayed and both ended up never getting paid in the end, each being owed over $8,000.000 USD!
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Appendix E
Maximizing Value to Maximize Profit
The key to maximizing profit is to give things away. Thats not an oxymoron. Whenever you are communicating with a prospectwhether in person, by fax, by e-mail, by phone, by correspondenceprovide something of value. And, no, your marketing brochure isnt of value to the prospect! You can give away only one of two classes of value: tangibles, such as books, tapes, articles, documented models, etc., and intangibles, such as advice, referrals, feedback, empathic listening, etc. The idea is to have the prospect think, If I received this much value in a casual contact, how much would I receive if I actually hired this person? The articles or advice dont have to be yours. Simply providing something that the prospect can use, no matter what the source (and assuming you use proper attribution) creates value in the eyes of the client. When I learned that one prospect was a wine aficionado, I sent along a list of an experts choice of the best domestic
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wines. The value doesnt have to be business-related, but it should stop short of gratuitous gifts (i.e., bribery). If youre seeing a prospect in person, either bring something along or provide it immediately after the meeting. Prospects must see something of value beyond your charming personality. You can manage this aspect of the sales process, whether your consulting work is as a generalist, in computers, in outplacement, in sales, or anything else. Just ask yourself: How will the prospect be better off after having communicated with me? Never allow the discussion with a prospect to focus exclusively on fees. Yes, fees are something that must be discussed, but they are best discussed after the value has been decided upon, and only then as a matter of detail. Once you let the primary focus become your fees, you will constantly be on the defensive, trying to explain your contribution. Most embattled consultants resort to a description of the tasks they plan to perform, thereby aggravating the issue by allowing the prospect to zero-in on such irrelevant matters as how many days are to be spent on site, how much time is required to tabulate a survey, and how many people are necessary to do the job.
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Always focus on value. Move the prospects attention to the outcomes of the engagement, and the impact of the results on the prospects business plans. This avoids the task and commodity concerns (how much time, how many people) and instead focuses on the results objectives near and dear to the prospects heart. If youre faced with the question, Cant we do this for less? reply simply, Of course. Which value (results) would you like to eliminate? Prospects always want to reduce fees, but they never want to eliminate value. You control that dynamic by managing the conversation in a given direction. And its never the prospects business to help determine how many focus groups, how many interviews, how much training, how much observation or how much of anything else you do in the course of gathering information and formulating recommendations. Thats why youre the consultant and the prospect has called you. Never surrender your expertise to a committee that will decide what you must do to deliver the desired result. Your physician wouldnt let you tell him how to operate on you, would she?
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Appendix F
The EBM Guide (How to Get Started on an EDM Campaign)
While starting an EBM program may sound a little intimidating at first, in reality its incredibly simple (and thats not hyperbole). Let me show you how simple it is. Take a minute to answer the following questions: 1. Would you consider yourself expert enough in one single topic to speak authoritatively to a group of friends at dinner? rYes rNo 2. What would that topic be? ________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 3. Would this topic be of compelling interest to a significant portion of your target market? rYes rNo 4. Could you fill three notebook pages with notesstraight out of your head, right nowon this topic (e.g., key points, causes, trends, common mistakes, tips and developmental ideas)? rYes rNo
184 Appendices
Thats it! If you answered yes to the questions above (and identified a topic) then you have everything you need to kick off an EBM program and start positioning yourself as the expert you are...today.
Action steps:
1. MarketSelect your market (who needs your expertisemake it niched): _____________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 2. MessageSelect your topic (what can you speak as an expert on, and what does your target market want to learn more about? HINT: make the topic relevant to a significant problem in the chosen market):_______________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 3. VehicleSelect your medium (where will your message be seen?the more the merrier): a. Newspaper article b. Write a book (full length or e-book) c. Your newsletter
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d. Case study/white paper e. Journal article f. Website (blog, videos, podcasts) g. Online article submission sites h. Social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) i. Teleseminar j. Webinar k. Live seminar/speaking (free or fee) 4. Choose your timeframe: a. Ready to roll: ____/____ b. Start marketing the event: ____/____ (live, virtual or written, you should build excitement for the event/publication in advance) c. Actual launch date: ____/____ 5. Advertise your program (how will they know to come/read/watch): a. Email invite (broadcast emails to your opt-in network) b. Partners: i. Marketing affiliates (others who can advertise in their networks): ___________________________ ___________________________
186 Appendices
___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ii. Chambers of Commerce (geographically close): ____________ __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ iii. Associations (who has members hungry for your content?): ______ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________
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___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ c. Website promotions d. Social media (twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) 6. Execute: you have to actually DO IT! 7. Repeat (go back to step one and pick a new topic, new market, new vehicle).
Remember, EBM is about EDUCATING...prolifically!
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Appendix G
Top 10 Sales Mistakes Even Professional Sales People Make
1. Talking too muchnot listening enough 2. Not asking enough questions, or the right questions 3. Using tie-down questions, or canned closing techniques 4. Inconsistent or insufficient prospecting activity (i.e., low EBM efforts) 5. Quoting price too soon 6. Presenting the solution you want, not the one the prospect wants 7. Failing to ask for the business (i.e., close) 8. Failing to provide social proof or testimonials 9. Under-delivering on promises 10. Not creating enough value
Partial Source: Bill Brooks, 21st Century Selling manuscript, 2003.
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Appendix H
Just What Is a Qualified Prospect?
What makes a qualified lead? As simple as it sounds, sometimes our passion (aka desperation) to close more business as consultants can easily lead us to find ourselves telling our story to anyone who will listen. I always start all my classes for consultants with a round of introductions. In addition to stating their name, where they are from and what they offer, I ask my students to share with the rest of the class who they provide consulting to. I cant tell you how many times Ive sat there listening to a fellow consultant answer this last part with what commonly amounts to, Anyone with a pulse. Outside of the humor, the sadness of this answer shouldnt be overlooked. So, as simple as it sounds, its vital that you make sure you arent wasting your time with an unqualified lead. This problem is even more prevalent in the consulting community because the majority of consultants havent ever lived life as a professional salesperson. They have
190 Appendices
never attended professional sales training programs, and they have never learned the very hard lesson that your first and most important actionif you are to succeed as a sales person, and put food on your familys table is to qualify the lead before you invest any time trying to sell to the lead. Even though I champion the spirit of removing the act of selling from your approach, even if youre not seeking to sell, even if all you want to do is help someone, seeking to help unqualified leads will not do you or the prospect any favors. In the end you will only waste two peoples time. Theres an old saying that goes, The best thing you can tell a sales person is yes. The second best thing you can tell a sales person is no but quickly. The focus of this saying is on the no you receive. One of the biggest dangers in sales is to invest (waste) a lot of time in a sale that will never happen. Prospects that are neither qualified, nor serious, can suck up tons of time and still lead to nothing in the end. The opportunity cost of that time wasted can really add up and cost you a lot of revenue in the end. Instead of giving your pitch to everyone with a pulse, always try to qualify whether this person is indeed a
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qualified prospect before investing too much business time. So what exactly is a qualified prospect? Qualified prospects are people who: 1. Have a need for what you do AND are aware of it 2. Are very interested in doing something about that need 3. Have the authority and ability to hire you to help fix that need 4. And . . . who believe (trust) in you as someone who can help As simple as it seems, you would be amazed at how easy it is to invest significant time with someone who fails to have all four of these qualities. The truly qualified prospect, however, has all four of these. Someone with only three is that much less qualified then someone with all four and someone with only two is half as qualified. You can turn that equation around as well and have a feeling for how likely they are to become a paying client. Someone with all four qualities is twice as likely to become a client than someone with only two of them, and so on.
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How tempted would you be to schedule an appointment with someone who called you to ask, I saw your article and I love what you do. Could we schedule some time to talk about how you could help our organization? Many of you would be very tempted. If, however, you fail to qualify this person, you could be wasting a lot of time. Before I schedule time to meet with this person I would want to find out: what their title or position was (addressing #3 in the list above), what the specific problem is or why they want to meet (addressing #1 above), and why they are calling me (addressing #4 above) first. Number 2 in the above list is somewhat taken care of, since they did reach out to me actively, but when I get together with them I would want to gauge their level of urgency more, of course. In doing this I havemany times unfortunatelyfind out I was talking with someone who had no authority or no real interest outside of finding someone to provide an invoice for training so her budget was kept up. Trust me, this is one of the hardest parts of selling, because we love to think that there isnt anyone out there who we couldnt benefit, and everyone can help a sale (even if they have no authority) or surely they will
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see why they need me once I get the chance to meet with them (i.e., I will create a need). Its exceptionally hard when youre hungry for business. Just be careful to not give too much of your time (personally) to too many people until you can qualify them very well. This one simple issue is more often than not one of the core driving factors in a failed sales persons career. So, be sure to qualify your prospects as much as possible because your time is valuable and wasting it on people who will never become a client helps no one.
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Appendix I
Causative Metrics Library
The list on the next three pages is a comprehensive list of all the 181 variables you could quantify by using the IMX family of profiles detailed on page 48 in this book (i.e., The DISC Index, the Values Index and the Attribute Index). Collectively, this combination of tools comprises one of the most comprehensive diagnostic kits in the world. The key is that with these tools there is almost no cause out there that you arent able to identify for your prospects! Using the DISC Index you could measure the following 48 behavioral traits:
Appendices
Ability to relate to others Ability to support others Acceptance to change Accuracy Adventuresomeness Aggressiveness Assertiveness Attention to detail Carefulness Cautiousness Charm Competitiveness Conscientiousness Consistency Cooperativeness Decisiveness Defiance Degree of optimism Degree of pessimism Dependability Determination Enthusiasm Extroversion Flexibility Forcefulness Generosity Impulsiveness Independence Inquisitiveness Introversion Modesty Organization Passivity Patience Perfectionism Persuasiveness Poise Practicality Precision Rebelliousness Reliability Restlessness Results orientation Risk aversion Spontaneity Stability Stubbornness Teamwork orientation
195
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Causative Metrics Library (continued)
Using the Values Index you could measure for the following 38 motivators or drivers, which drive people to be passionate for their work and fully engaged:
Acquisition of knowledge Aesthetically pleasing surroundings An improved society Artistic expression Authority Autonomy Balance and harmony Benefit to others Best value for money Caring Compassion Competitive edge Creativity Discovering the truth Efficiency Ethics/Principles Form over function Generating value/revenue Generosity Independence Influence Leadership Learning opportunities Logic Maximizing gains Monetary gains Mutual respect Power/Control Practical returns Regulation/Processes Rules/Order over chaos Self-fulfillment Selflessness Status and esteem Systems/Structure Traditional ways Uniqueness Utility/Functionality
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Causative Metrics Library (continued)
Using the Attribute Index you could measure the following 94 talents and decision-making traits:
Accountability for others Attention to detail Attitude toward honesty Attitude toward others Balanced decision- making External clarity Internal clarity Conceptual thinking Concrete organizing Conflict management Consistency and reliability Continuous learning Conveying role value Correcting others Creativity Customer focus Developing others Diplomacy and tact Emotional control Empathetic outlook Enjoyment of the job Evaluating others Evaluating what is said Flexibility External focus Internal focus Following directions Freedom from prejudices Gaining commitment Goal directedness Handling rejection Handling stress Human awareness Influencing others Initiative Integrative ability Interpersonal skills Intuitive decision-making Job ethic Leading others Long-range planning Material possessions Meeting standards Monitoring others Objective listening Persistence Personal accountability Personal commitment Personal drive Personal relationships Persuading others Planning and organizing Practical thinking Proactive thinking Problem and situation analysis Problem management Problem-solving ability Project and goal focus Project scheduling Quality orientation Realistic expectations Realistic goal-setting for others Realistic personal goal-setting Relating to others Resiliency Respect for policies Respect for property Results orientation Role awareness Role confidence Seeing potential problems Self-assessment Self-confidence Internal self-control Self-direction Self-discipline and sense of duty Self-esteem Self-improvement Self-management Self-starting ability Sense of belonging Sense of mission Sense of timing Sensitivity to others Status and recognition Surrendering control Systems judgment Taking responsibility Teamwork Theoretical problem solving Understanding attitude Understanding motivational needs Using common sense
198 Appendices
Appendix J
About the Author
Jay Niblick is the founder and CEO of Consultant Growth Systems, LLC Inc., a professional services and technology firm with offices in five countries specializing in helping professional business consultants and coaches grow their practices and support their clientele (www.consultantgrowth.com). He is also co-founder and Chief Science Advisor to the online coaching company InnerTalent (www.inner talent.com) As one of the worlds leading authorities on the application of Formal Axiology in a business environment, Jay is ideally suited to help you understand your own natural talents and how to maximize them to grow your professional practice.
200 About the Author
He holds multiple technology patents, trademarks and copyrights on psychometric instruments and methodologies relating to identifying and maximizing human talent, and is the author of the Attribute Index psychometric instrument (over 400,000 copies sold worldwide). He has been a paid keynote speaker and lecturer around the world in the areas of strategic management, peak performance, executive coaching, leadership development and organizational development. Jay was among only 14 renowned business thoughtleaders and practitioners commissioned to provide essays for Blueprint for Success, the landmark reference on individual performance and success. He is also the author of, Whats Your GeniusHow the Best THINK for Success (foreword by Anthony Robbins), an Amazon.com award-winning bestseller in the Business/ Leadership category multiple times. Jay also sits on the Board of Directors at the Robert S. Hartman Institute (a scholarly project at the University of Tennessee in the United States dedicated to the study of human nature, value and decision-making).

Why Selling Sucks

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Why Selling Sucks

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Why Selling Sucks

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The CGS Sales Formula

Who is This Book For?

xvi Who is This Book For?

Jay Niblick, FounderConsultant Growth Systems www.consultantgrowth.com www.whatsyourgenius.com

The Problem with Consulting

To Sell or Not to Sell

Cause #1: Selling is a full-time job.

The Problem with Consulting

Cause #2: Selling isnt right for what you do.

The Problem with Consulting

The Problem with Consulting

Cause #3: Selling isnt right for who you are.

The Problem with Consulting

Cause #4: The myth of strengths and weaknesses.

The Problem with Consulting

The Problem with Consulting

The Problem with Consulting

The Problem with Consulting

Cause #5. The Die-chotomy of being an independent consultant.

The Problem with Consulting

Cause #6. The old way is dead.

Old sales-based methods of marketing are, simply put, DEAD!

The Problem with Consulting

Stop Pushing and Start Pulling

The Psychology of Sales

Three Basic Truths of Sales Psychology

Truth #1. The ABCs of traditional sales must be re-written!

The Psychology of Sales

The Psychology of Sales

Truth #3. People buy for their reasons, not yours.

The Psychology of Sales

He who identifies the cause of the problem gets to fix it.

The Psychology of Sales

The Diagnostic Sales Process

Five Simple Steps (an Overview)

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Physician Analogy

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

Step #1Induce the customer to come to you.

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

Jays Golden Rules of EBM

SEEK TO EDUCATENOT TO SELL

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

Step #2Establish a concrete power source.

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

The Diagnostic Sales Process

Step #3Advise them of possible causative metrics

The Diagnostic Sales Process