As i warned you at the start of this book, the main threats to being One-Up are hubris and arrogance. Consider, for example, the tone in this paragraph:

Were I to decide which one of us should determine what steps to take to improve your results, I would humbly insist that I should lead the process, given that I am One-Up and you are One-Down. You might believe that you should be able to have a say in this process, since you desire better results, a position I fully appreciate and support. Any conflict around the process would result from your attempt to circumvent some important conversation or commitment, in which case, I should decide for you, and you should defer to my judgment.

Now, I hope you never use this specific language when talking to your clients. Despite its thin veneer of humility, bordering on servile obsequiousness, every word in the paragraph is about making your audience feel One-Down, so they never forget your superior abilities and certainly never see you as a partner. That's why one rule for being One-Up is never make the other person feel One-Down. But as cringy as the paragraph is, you must believe every word of it and allow every idea to drive your actions.

You must lead your client through the conversations they need to reach the outcomes they want, and you can't stop leading just because there's conflict or even a challenge to your authority. But the best leaders are often the best diplomats. In this situation, for instance, you could execute the same move by asking a simple question: “Can I share with you what my concern is and help you ensure you can move forward, without having to worry about some of the challenges that will prevent you from generating the better results you need?” No arrogance, no hubris, no conflict. Instead, counsel, advice, and suggestions.

You cannot guide your clients without leading them, but you cannot truly lead them if every conversation is about your own superiority. As we explore how to utilize your One-Up vantage point to facilitate a needs-based buyer's journey, please don't forget that your language and your attitude matter just as much as your insights.

Your Sales Problem Is a Buying Problem

You've probably heard that to succeed in sales, you need only “sell good products and solve your client's problems.” While those things help, that general strategy—the legacy solution approach—actually prevents salespeople and sales organizations from producing better results because it underserves their clients. The “sell the problem, solve the problem” approach limits your ability to occupy the One-Up position because it doesn't allow you to see what actually stops you from winning deals: your client's buying problem.

To be One-Up, you must distinguish between two kinds of problems. On one hand, there are the presenting problems your contacts are experiencing that you are well-prepared to solve—things like labor shortages, inefficient logistics, poor communication, or low employee morale. But on the other hand, there are deep-seated, strategic challenges that prevent them from successfully changing and improving their outcomes. One-Down salespeople often pick up on the first kind of problem but aren't even aware of the second kind. But if you can't help your clients improve their problem-solving in the first place, it won't matter how many solutions you have for their presenting problems.

No matter how you were taught and trained to sell, chances are that your sales processes and sales methodologies are concerned with your own success, not with meeting your client's needs. In fact, all the hype about “the sales process” was that it would provide a repeatable, paint-by-numbers way to win deals, helping every salesperson reach their goals. Thus, sales enablement became about improving the salesperson's ability to follow directions and (somehow) improve their effectiveness. Neither process helps your contacts and stakeholders buy in a way that ensured they succeeded. In fact, for decades, few sales organizations paid serious attention to the challenges their client companies have with buying.

Without ever having seen the slide deck that outlines your sales process, I can tell you what it includes: “target,” “qualify,” “discovery,” “presentation,” “negotiation,” and “won/lost.” If you use Salesforce.com, you have eleven stages that include “market-qualified lead,” “sales-qualified lead,” and a number of stages that are even more unnecessary, except to give marketing their props. Tell me if these steps sound all too familiar: “awareness of a problem,” “exploration,” “evaluation,” “purchase,” and if your marketing team has optimistic cheerleaders or is located somewhere close to Silicon Valley, the last stage is “evangelist.”

Those models aren't all bad; they at least give you a way to know where you are in space and provide some direction about where to go. I have always been dubious about linear sales processes, believing that a dynamic conversation doesn't lend itself to simplified models. While there is nothing inherently wrong with outlining the sales process and the buyer's journey, the view of sales enablement is not the view of buyer enablement and has proven inadequate to helping companies change and improve their results. I am even more convinced now that One-Up agility beats a slide deck any day.

The Worst Advice for Salespeople

A friend wrote a LinkedIn post that included the statement “Salespeople need to sell the way buyers want to buy.” I was admittedly triggered and fired off a comment, condemning his idea as incredibly dangerous and largely responsible for poor B2B results. What clients say they want on surveys by insight-based groups doesn't match their behaviors, especially with big companies. Your clients don't know that they are skipping conversations and making it less likely they will succeed. Following that advice cements the salesperson in a One-Down position: compliant, reactive, servile, and ready to take orders like a fast-food cashier. If all you do is take (or follow!) your client's orders, you can't create value for them.

It's time to raise the bar on how you engage with your clients. Think of it this way. You spend every working day guiding companies to the better results they need. Your client changes only occasionally, giving them very little expertise about how best to decide, what factors they need to consider, what steps are necessary, and what choice will serve them the best. Because you have more experience, you should lead a facilitated, needs-based, buyer's journey.

The word “facilitated” means you will lead your contacts and the other stakeholders who are part of the conversation. “Needs-based” means that you will recognize what your prospect needs to do to successfully decide and improve their results. Like my Sherpa at Basecamp One, you have guided many people to the summit, helping them arrive there safely. Your client rarely even visits the mountain, so allowing them to lead the climb is almost certain to end badly. Your contacts are bright people with a lot of experience, but you are One-Up because you have much greater experience making the decision you will ask them to make, the one that will move their business forward.

Before we describe the facilitated, needs-based buyer's journey in more detail, let's look at why buyers can't—or don't—buy.

Why Buyers Can't Buy

An enormous number of challenges prevent buyers from changing, even when the change is necessary. Whatever problem your product or service solves, you must first deal with the complications that prevent your decision-makers and shapers from acting. Being One-Up, you are perfectly positioned to identify and resolve these complications, allowing your prospect to move forward in the sales conversation and, eventually, improve their position. Here's what to look for.

• Uncertainty. By default, your clients will struggle to choose change when they're experiencing uncertainty. The fact that your “solution” might solve the presenting problem does nothing to solve the problem of uncertainty. In later chapters you'll learn how to create the certainty of negative consequences, then eventually create the certainty of better results and transformation.
• A Limited Understanding. Many of your clients understand little about their problem and even less about how they should address it. They may feel ill-equipped to propose or decide on a change. When they don't know enough about the situation, the easiest decision is to do nothing and wait for better information. If that's the case, you educate your client, giving them at least a working understanding of their problem. I know something you don't know; may I share it?
• Misalignment. One challenge of strategic decision-making is misalignment. When a group of leaders can't agree on how to move forward—or worse, when their priorities conflict—they often end in a stalemate, one that leaves problems and challenges unaddressed far longer than they should have. There is no sales process or buyer's journey that recognizes or addresses these or similar conflicts. Your vantage point allows you to lead your client in resolving them.
• Lack of Consensus. Even when a group will pursue change, they can struggle to acquire consensus, a second path to a stalemate that allows both their results and their team members to suffer. Let me be as direct as I can: When you are working toward being One-Up, it is your responsibility to lead your client in building the consensus they need.
• Limited Emotional Energy. We underestimate how much emotional energy our clients must invest in change. Much of that energy is spent on conflict-heavy conversations that we are neither part of nor privy to, even though our initiative prompted the conflict. You need to provide a different level of support that bolsters them psychologically when they run headlong into discord. Your absence is felt, but so is your presence.
• Limited Time. It's essential to recognize that your client's main responsibility is running their business. They are almost sure to be time-starved and already saddled with more work and more demands for communication than they can handle in the course of a day, a week, or a year. Too little time dooms many an initiative, so you must command more time by effectively addressing your contact's needs, always helping them take one step forward.
• Position and Blame. It is not uncommon for people to avoid change, especially in political environments. Any failure might cause a contact to lose status or have others exploit their weakness. A tough start on a new initiative is enough to cause anyone to think twice before committing to future change. After all, you are up against a history of salespeople who failed to provide a buyer's journey that ended in success.

The list of complications above isn't anywhere close to complete, but it should put you on the trail of whatever your buyers do that keeps them from successfully changing. You can't solve what you can't see. My thesis is that 70 percent of change initiatives fail because the company treated what is a complex buying decision as something merely transactional. Trying to sell like buyers want to buy leaves you in the One-Down position, taking orders—and failing your client by allowing them to fail.

A Facilitated, Needs-Based Buyer's Journey

Let us turn the spotlight on the buyer's journey, since that is the context in which your vantage point is most valuable. Your sales conversation is your best vehicle for enabling this journey, but you must actively facilitate it by identifying what your client needs to move forward. Let's look at a practical, tactical, non-marketing-department-designed buyer's journey.

The first stage of the buyer's journey is not awareness. You must reject the One-Down belief that your client has to suffer negative consequences before you can offer help. Instead, demonstrate your proactive ability to compel change before your client experiences the harm that might otherwise cause them to change. Your approach will differ depending on where you find your client.

• Not Compelled. The largest percentage of companies you call on will be those who are not yet compelled to change, even though they probably should be. Since none of us knows what we don't know, your contacts need you to help them recognize the storm clouds gathering, while they still have time to act. Even when a company and their decision-makers are obstinate, continue to call on them and capture mindshare by helping them see the negative future that awaits them. Later, you will be the prescient person who predicted their future.
• Compelled and Confused. When you show up late for your clients and prospects, you may find they are already experiencing the residual poor results of their inactivity, leaving them unable to keep pace with the demands of their environment. They either didn't change soon enough or something in their world changed so fast they didn't have time to respond effectively. Here, you need to facilitate a conversation that provides your buyers with a deeper understanding of the nature of their challenge and offer them a chance to explore change. The value system that underpins this approach is that you are obligated to proactively help your client change.
• Compelled and Experienced. That these stakeholders are both compelled and experienced is an indication that something has changed. When your contacts are already compelled, you don't have to work to compel them to change, although you do want to help them understand what's changed outside their windows, and the nature of their challenge.

No matter what your clients are experiencing, there are certain things that will benefit them. When you're One-Up, you will be able to give you buyers the things they need, including the following:

• Exploring Change. Your client generally benefits from help exploring what choices they might make to improve their results: the factors they need to consider, what they will need to do to improve their results, and how best to achieve their objectives. Facilitating this conversation means being truly consultative, suggesting what they need to consider and why it will be important to their future success. This a powerful use of your vantage point and your experience.
• Self-Discovery. While it is important to understand what your contacts need during discovery, they must also discover something about their business and how best to build better results. Your business acumen, experience, and insights will help your clients work toward a solution. They will also need your help facilitating the design of the initiative you undertake together, ensuring they can execute it and produce the results they need.
• Executing an Effective Buyer's Journey. Many contacts have gaps in their knowledge when it comes to the conversations and commitments they need to have to make a good decision. As you discovered earlier, some of the most important insights you possess are “buying insights,” the conversations that are necessary for your client to effectively decide.
• Investing Wisely. Until you help your buyers recognize the investment necessary to improve their results, they will only see your price. Your buyers should be able to understand both why they need to invest and what consequences they face for underinvesting in their solution—preventing the concessions that come with an investment inadequate for the results they require.
• Moving Forward. Your buyers need to see a solution that they agree will work for them. But even more important, they need the certainty they will succeed—and that you are prepared to ensure that they do not fail. Like Scrooge's ghosts, you aid them when you remind them of their current state, show their future state, help them understand what challenges they should expect, and explain how you will help them overcome any obstacles. The One-Up position requires that you create certainty of outcome for your clients.

Maps of the Sales Conversation

Maps are valuable because they let you recognize where you are and plot a path to where you need to go. The traditional sales process functions the same way. It doesn't provide your prospective clients with a tremendous amount of value, especially if you perceive a sale as a straight line, but it does remind you of some things you need to do to enable your clients to succeed.

In my book The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the Ten Commitments That Drive Sales, you will find a very different map of the sales conversation. The chapters follow a pattern you might recognize: not a linear set of instructions, but ten conversations your prospective client needs to make a good decision and execute an initiative that provides them with better outcomes. I've included a shortened version of the map below. Hopefully, it will help you recognize when your prospective clients are trying to skip critical conversations, avoid the decisions they need to make, and postpone the actions they need to take.

• Time. The first commitment a client needs to make is the commitment of time. During your first meeting, you provide your prospective client with insights that help them better understand their changing world and the potential implications. In a later chapter you will find another tactic designed to help you compel your clients to change before their results or their business is harmed. You can use these tactics to start your client on their buyer's journey, to prevent them from waiting until they are already challenged by problems and issues that harm them.
• Explore. Once your prospective client recognizes their challenges, they often want to explore the better results available to them, and what gaining those results might require of them. The fact that you are One-Up allows you to teach them how to explore the changes they may need to make. You facilitate this conversation and help them recognize their future potential.
• Change. One reason deals stall is because clients often avoid the commitment to change, the decision to move forward in their journey. This conversation may take time to develop, and it may mean you have to get a little further down the path before your client can commit to change. This is one challenge of a nonlinear conversation and deciding in a complex environment, and you help by recognizing which conversations may be helpful.
• Collaborate. Helping a client change always requires a collaborative conversation about what they might need to change, what is the right approach, and whether it will work for their company and their teams. One of the ways you can make it easy for your client and their team to buy from you is by including them in the design of the project or initiative that will improve their results.
• Build consensus. The larger, more complex, and more strategic the decision, the more your conversation will include the need to build consensus from the client's teams and stakeholders. The ability to lead this process requires that you are fully One-Up and leading; many of your clients will see this conversation as a threat to their authority, but the real danger is that they leave people out and cause them to withhold their support or actively work against their efforts.

  To remind you about nonlinearity, I want to remind you that at any time, starting with your first conversation, you may find your main contact asking their peers to join the conversation. More broadly, you don't always get to control when your clients pursue some of the outcomes they believe they need. They may also hit you with a barrage of concerns about the path you are leading them down or about the change they need to make. Overall, you may have to facilitate the consensus conversation when it occurs, not when you believe it makes the most sense.

• Invest. At some point, you have to talk to your client about the investment you're asking them to make in the better results they need. Like consensus, you may need to discuss investment relatively earlier or later in the sales conversation. I have always found that it is easier to share a higher price earlier in the conversation than surprising your client with it at the end. I prefer to use the entire sales conversation to prove the greater value of the outcomes my company can create when compared to a competitor (see Chapter 10 on triangulation).
• Review. At some point, you have to present a proposal that can garner the support necessary for you to win your prospective client's business. This is a relatively low-level commitment for your prospective clients, as they are not signing a contract. It's better to get a yes to the question “Will this work?” than to discover it won't when your client calls to tell you they “went another direction,” one that is 180 degrees from the path you'd suggested.
• Resolve Concerns. Much of the time, after hearing your presentation, your contacts will tell you they will let you know after they meet with their team. Now more than ever, the number of people and the perceived risks that come with a complex business environment generate deal-killing concerns. Without a conversation to identify and resolve those concerns, you risk your client doing nothing. Unresolved concerns kill deals.
• Decide. Asking the client to buy from you is among the easiest of these commitments if you have created value through the conversation. If you haven't, the Gods of Sales will mock your efforts and mark your deal Closed-Lost.

Now you have a One-Up map that presumes you are not going straight from point A to point B with no real challenges. Instead, it provides you with a way to recognize what conversations your client has completed and which ones are still necessary. Your clients may need additional conversations, and they'll probably happen in a different order. Recognizing those variations is part of what makes you One-Up, making your vantage point your client's advantage.

Being One-Up and possessing a useful set of maps allows you to recognize the conversations your clients need to complete their journey, always with your help, and always following your lead. When you recognize that a conversation was skipped or has not been successfully concluded, you must ensure it is completed. You will find that your contacts don't always know who they need to include in these conversations, and they often wait too long to begin the process of important outcomes like building organizational consensus. It is often necessary to explain why your client needs to have the conversations necessary to make the best decision for their business, and how they are critical to successfully conducting the change they need to make.

Obstacles and Pitfalls

The first obstacle you will encounter when trying to share your vantage point will come from clients who believe in—and are committed to—their legacy buying process, even when it harms their decision and their results. Imagine a client who releases an RFP and then meets with three companies, giving each one ninety minutes to make their case in a bake-off. Any process that treats a strategic decision as if it were transactional neutralizes your One-Upness by ensuring you are One-Down.

Because you are One-Up (or will be after practicing these strategies), you have the knowledge and skills to disrupt this arm's-length process in a meaningful and diplomatic way. You are not doing so out of some sort of malice—though I would understand your emotional response to a value-eliminating process—but to prevent your prospective client from making a mistake that would be easily avoided.

The One-Up strategy for disrupting the RFP process is to read the RFP from the end, searching for something you can use to complain about the way the questions and prompts are written. (This should not be difficult, since most RFPs are usually based on a template not updated since the Clinton administration.) Once you discover something to gripe about, call the person who sent you the RFP, and ask them a question they cannot answer. Here's a good one: “I am not sure how to respond to some of your questions. A number of them are written in a way that doesn't allow us to answer them. How do you want us to describe the way we do these things now to lower costs and provide a better result?” The game you are playing here is called “I know something you don't know.” Just like that, your contact is now in the One-Down position, especially if they feel like they are missing something they might have been expected to know.

If you are really One-Up you should call the person who is going to care most about the results the RFP is designed to deliver, instead of calling the purchasing department. When you call an executive, you tell them their RFP has problems and ask them to intervene with the purchasing function, to allow you to provide a newer, better approach that they will want to consider. At worst, you will get a second look. One reason executives prefer to work with people who are One-Up is that it allows them to outsource the expertise they lack. When you make sure your clients know what they need to know, you prevent them from having to worry about the area you have covered for them.

Another challenge comes from the intermediaries who stand between you and the people you intend to serve. Third parties, brokers, and professional buyers are paid to treat every purchase as if they were buying a bushel of apples. No matter how complex the purchase, no matter how important the results, it's just another transaction to them. There is only one way to get in front of third parties and that is a strategy called Year Zero. The Year Zero strategy starts the day your target client signs a three-year contract with your competitor. That very day, you start a campaign to create relationships with the people who made that decision. Your One-Down competitors will sit passively, waiting for the three years to end so they can fill out another RFP. Getting this right means creating more—and deeper—relationships than the third party, the broker, or their purchasing agent. You will find you have little trouble being One-Up over any third party, especially one that lacks your expertise.

Never let it be said that I believe that anything I write about is easy to execute. But all these strategies are necessary and especially important to being One-Up—and you can quote me on that. The key is explaining to your contacts what they need to do and the value it will bring them. Being One-Up means using your vantage point to explain the value of what you are asking your client to do, the potential negative consequences for avoiding that action, and the positive outcomes that come from following your instruction.

One sales organization I know found that helping their clients required sixteen different steps. They built a slide deck to show their clients all the things they would need to do together to transform the client's business and their results. They shared their map with their clients, who responded by asking for a copy of the roadmap they would need to follow together. For the first time, their clients recognized that the better results they needed would not be obtained by finding a supplier with a lower price. The adoption of the sales organization's map is proof positive of One-Upness.

Agility and Your (Ad)vantage Point

The complex environment that seems to provide a constant, disruptive, and accelerating change makes it more difficult for people to decide to change, primarily due to a lack of certainty and a reasonable fear of getting a decision wrong. Because this is true, the new competency is one we can call agility. Physically, agility is the ability to move quickly and easily, pivoting when necessary and changing direction on a dime. But it also means being able to think and understand quickly.

The sales process's nonlinear character means you need to recognize where you are, where your client is, and how to serve them. Your vantage point—your understanding of what your client needs from you—provides you and your client an advantage. It unlocks both of you from a static, linear process, opening up the possibility to work together to ensure you reach the summit.