8

He Who Identifies the Cause of the Problem Gets to Fix It

Becoming the Business Diagnostician

Business diagnostician is the term I use to remind me of my primary value in the sales process. It helps me remember that the most effective way to sell services to potential clients is to not try to sell to them at all. While every other consultant out there is trying to sell to that prospect, imagine how different and unique you will be when you seek first to help them identify the actual cause of their problem—and for free.

Many consultants create an artificial barrier to their success by placing the objective of selling in front of helping the client to improve their organization's overall condition. In reality, the primary objective with any prospect shouldn't be to “sell them”; rather, it should be to “solve them.” Instead of focusing on selling solutions, seek first to identify the problem and its cause. When you do this, you will create an environment where that prospect sees you as the expert, has already received significant benefit from you, and you've avoided having to become a great salesperson; instead, you made your ability to acquire new business dependent on your expertise as a consultant, not a sales professional. Help the prospect understand the cause of their problem, and they will ask you for help.

At the very core of this chapter lies one of my most concrete personal mantras. I know of no other single statement that holds more potential to increase the profitability of your practice...period!

“He Who Identifies the Cause of the Problem Gets to Fix It”

Once you change your legacy thinking from “I need to sell” to one of “I need to diagnose,” I guarantee you will be 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 seek out helping prospects (yes, prospects, not paying clients) and 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 remind you of your true value proposition, 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.

It's vital that you understand that there is a cause and effect relationship between identifying the problem and being the one to fix it. In this relationship, the goal you are after is being paid to solve the problem. The cause of that effect, however, is that you identify what is actually creating that problem in the first place—before they become your client.

There are many reasons why a salesperson can hope they get the sale. Here are some of the most common reasons why consultants hope a prospect will hire them:

Best price.

Better marketing collateral.

They related better with the prospect.

Best credentials.

Best references.

They showed them the actual cause of their problem.

While all the causes above can be good, it is the last one that has the greatest effect on the prospect, and will deliver the most business. In addition, it is this last reason that is least likely to be replicated by your competition. There is no more powerful a reason to hire a consultant than for the simple fact that they have already identified what's causing the problem. Do that and they will ask you to help them fix it. Trust me!

I call this methodology the “diagnostic sales process.” This process has been carefully learned and practiced by thousands of consultants over many years, and is the distillation of all the best practices I've seen those seven-figure consultants use to grow their businesses to such heights. It is so effective because it takes into consideration your role as the authority in the mind of your prospect.

It also takes into account the underlying psychology of the buyer, something most sales techniques do not do very well, if at all. Therefore, it's important that you understand a few basic truths about the underlying psychology of purchasing behavior that drives its effectiveness.

The Psychology of Sales

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.

The specific type of sale we're concerned with, however, is very well defined and deals specifically with selling consultative services. And when it comes to doing that, there are three basic truths about the psychology of sales that you must know.

Truth #1. The ABCs of Traditional Sales Must Be Rewritten

The old sales adage, “Always be closing” has existed for years, and if you are a professional salesperson, it's still a very good one because it keeps you centered on the core of your value proposition. This old-school approach only works, however, when what is expected of you in the eyes of your prospect is to sell. They know you are a salesperson so it's okay, and appropriate, to be seen this way. It's not okay to be seen in this way as a consultant since your primary value proposition better be to help them. They don't want you to sell to them; they want you to help fix them.

Instead of “closing,” think “consulting” so that you will “Always be consulting” when you are in front of your prospect. Remember to also demonstrate your true value. Any time you interact with a prospect, remember not to sell them, just consult to them, because that's what they want from you and that's what they must experience.

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 and your ability to successfully offer them a solution they will accept. In short, the more you know about them, the more accurately you can identify the cause of their problem and therefore the more effectively you will turn them into clients.

Many consultants 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. Remember, an individual can only focus on one thing at a time and it's one of these four things:

Failing to keep the focus on #4 above (i.e., the prospect themselves) 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, we've learned that the focus must stay on the prospect as much as possible.

Truth #3. People Buy for Their Reasons, Not Yours

It's common sense that people are different. They each have their own buying motives, drivers, and interests. But, while it's not hard to remember this fact, it is really easy to forget it. Realizing that your prospect will only buy for their reasons, not your own, will drastically improve your results when it comes to converting prospects into paying clients.

To effectively garner trust and commitment from your prospects, you must replace what you think is important and how you like to communicate with what they think is important and how they prefer to communicate. 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 prospect's strongest buying motives and communication style are so you aren't left assuming, guessing, or using your own as a basis.

The Diagnostic Sales Process

Before we dive into the process I need to let you know up front that in order to use this process, just like any good physician, you will need to use some sort of diagnostic profile. There are a ton of them on the market. I will give you a list of the top seven I know and have used in Step #4 below. I don't know a single consultant who has developed a significantly profitable practice without using at least one form of measurement tool.

The Diagnostic Sales Process consists of five simple steps. They are:

Each of these steps feeds directly into the next. By “walking this process” (i.e., taking your client through it step-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 client's own energy 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 can't appreciate at this stage—don't!

The Physician Analogy

Before we walk through the steps of the diagnostic sales process, let me show you how it actually works in a way I know you've already experienced first hand. This approach isn't new to you; you've actually been on the receiving end of it before. To show you what I mean let's use the analogy of a trip to your physician's office.

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 you're about to learn it.

The real key to the diagnostic sales process is this: Whereas old sales techniques seek to get the prospect to take something from you, this technique gets them to ask you to give them something.

Don't be deceived by the similarity in these statements. The former is push marketing and sales and doesn't work very well. The latter is perfect pull marketing and consulting. When you turn the process around and create a situation where your prospect asks for your advice or recommendation, the odds of them accepting it skyrocket! Go back to your visit to the doctor and view it in a sales perspective. You weren't being sold a solution, you were asking for one.

Now that you have a better appreciation for the psychological underpinnings that make this process work, let's dive in.

Induce the Customer to Come to You

As we've discussed, traditional sales-based marketing just doesn't work well anymore. It is especially poor in your profession as a consultant. It alienates the prospect, positions you as a salesperson, attempts to push on the rope and, in the end, takes you farther away from where you want to be, not closer.

However, everything you've learned prior to this point about how to market using education-based principles in all 16 marketing vehicles is designed to induce prospects to come to you. As long as you practice everything I've already taught you about your marketing, you will successfully achieve Step #1 in this process and prospects will come to you. Everything from here on out is what you need to do once they arrive.

Establish a Concrete Power Source

The power source is the critical issue in the mind of your prospect that drives everything. It is what keeps them up at night and it will be the source of power needed to fuel any call to action you decide to give them.

The reason I call this the power source, by the way, is two-fold. First, it's 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 should always be the end objective. Actions mean nothing—only results matter—so don't start focusing on the actions you hope to sell 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 eventually you will be giving them a call to action, and action requires energy. The thing that will drive their actions is their pain or desire, 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 should have two key things well fleshed out—a quantity and a quality:

A financial impact (the quantity)—It's vital that you establish an actual monetary impact of the core problem. Doing so helps you better understand the scope of the issue and it will be instrumental when you move to your proposal phase. Also, there is one pretty cool little side effect of getting this information. It actually helps to further position you as the expert. If the prospect has a concrete answer for this question, great. However, believe it or not, more often than not my prospects don't 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, I've found that by helping them answer this question before we go any further, I've shown them something that they didn't really know and the impression on the prospect is, “Hmm, if he is already helping us understand the problem much better here and now, how much more value can he provide once we start to actually pay him?”

An emotional impact (the quality)—It is equally as important to make sure you get some emotional costs qualified as well. Many times it's not the financial ramifications that will drive the sale, it's the emotional toll. For example, in addition to the big money being lost on this one salesperson, the business owner you are talking with is equally as concerned for the security of his business, paying for his kid's college, or what happens to his family if revenue doesn't increase. It is these emotions that will drive more action than anything else.

Once you establish this power source you have something to plug into when you request action in your proposal stage later on. It's incumbent on you to know where that power will come from, not the prospect. Also, make sure you have their biggest issue. 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, you're ready to move to the next step in the process.

Advance a Hypothetical Cause

This is the number one most neglected step by most consultants, and the number one reason a sale never materializes.

A hypothetical cause is your statement about what you feel the typical variables are that could be causing the prospect's problem. The key is that any cause you put forth needs to be—must be—measurable. You can't diagnose a cause with speculation, guesswork, or subjective opinion. That's the problem with too many consultants. They fail to get the buy-in that their solution will work because they haven't actually shown the prospect that they know what's causing the problem, and can show that cause tangibly. Go back to your visit to your physician. How much more likely are you to take her advice and schedule major surgery if she either never tested anything, or did but didn't bother to show you any results? I'm not talking about minor medication treatments like prescribing some antibiotic, nor am I talking about some minor consultative solution either. If you want to get big engagements, you need big action, which requires a big buy-in centered around solving a big power source. It's all about turning something intangible into something tangible and real for the prospect. Do this and they will believe in you and your recommendation.

Let's take a look at some examples of this step in action:

Example #1: Power source = poor sales. I advise the prospect that one of the most common causes for poor sales performance is a salesperson who doesn't possess the natural talents proven to exist in the very best salespeople. Specifically, they may not have natural talents for: self-starting ability, competitiveness, personal work ethic, decisiveness, and emotional intelligence. Now, while I do know that these are some of the hallmark traits of the very best salespeople, I do not in fact know whether or not these traits are absent in the underperforming salespeople. Being the “why guess when we can know” guy that I am, I recommend the prospect let me give a free sales profile to one of their worst salespeople and let's just see.

Example #2: Power source = poor leadership. I advise the prospect that one of the most common causes of poor leaders is a lack of key leadership traits like emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, problem solving, sense of authority, and humility. As in the last example, I let the prospect know that I'm confident that these traits drive superior leaders, but I do not know if their absence is what's causing her leaders to be so poor. I go back to the “why guess when we can know,” offer a free online leadership skills assessment, and we're off to the races.

It builds confidence in your prospect's mind when you are able to offer up likely causes of their pain. Better yet, your first recommendation isn't some expensive solution. You move the relationship deeper and further slowly, by asking for small steps. In this case, small free steps. I don't remember the last time a prospect turned down the opportunity to answer the burning question I just created in their head of, “I wonder if that's the cause of my pain”? For ten minutes to complete a free diagnostic profile that would give me an answer to that question, why wouldn't I do it?

Final thought on this step: Be sure to always ask the prospect what they think the cause is before you advance your own. I do this mostly because it's polite and good business etiquette, but sometimes they actually have some good ideas. In all but the rarest of cases the difficulty doesn't lie in accurately knowing the cause and not knowing how to fix it, but rather the problem normally lies in not understanding the true cause in the first place.

Here's a more complete example of what a conversation might look like at this stage in the process.

Well, Mr. Smith, do you have any ideas as to what's causing this problem. Hmm, that's definitely a possibility. I've coached hundreds of sales professionals and in my experience, in addition to what you just said, some of the even more common causes of poor sales are: call reluctance, lack of emotional intelligence, or a lack of aggressive closing. Of course, I couldn't be sure any of these were the real cause behind John's poor sales performance until I actually measure them. While I've got some strong suspicions that a couple of these are behind the problem, given what you've said about John, I'd like to give John a diagnostic profile that is specifically designed to measure these kinds of sales traits and then we'll know for sure. As I always say, “why guess when you can know.” I don't charge for these tests, by the way, because until I know what the cause of the problem is, I don't know if I have any solutions to offer, so it's just as much of a benefit for me to know as it is for you. It's a simple online profile that takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete and I'm the only one who would see the results (which I would share with you, of course). Being able to identify traits will allow me to help explain the real reason behind why sales are down $450,000.

Let's 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.

Now that you've adequately explored the problem and sufficiently understand what it is, you're ready to move to Step Four and actually conduct some diagnostic testing.

Recommend Diagnostic Profiling

This step involves selecting and recommending the specific diagnostic profile that you will use to actually quantify the variables and help you diagnose the cause of the critical issue.

This may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but in reality you are in the human element business. I say this because an organization is literally defined as “a group of people organized around a common objective.” While there are processes and equipment, everything in any organization revolves around the humans who set and follow those processes, and who design, buy, manufacture, or use that equipment. As such, understanding the human element is one of the most important things any consultant can do.

I have a personal belief that states: “All organizational performance is generated between the ears.”

This means that any objective in the organization eventually comes back to one or more people and what is happening in their heads. This is why understanding the human element is so vital to improving any business result.

I've seen a great many consultants struggle to be successful because they chose to focus on the things those humans work with, or how they work with them (i.e., things or processes), yet failed to fully consider the human element that actually drives them. I'm not talking about Human Resource work mind you. Not at all! Not that I have anything against HR departments, per se, but all of my work is with top executives, whose primary concerns are for efficiency, revenue, performance, and profits. Understanding the people responsible for delivering such things is a means to an end. Knowing this, let's look at what options you have for understanding that human element better by using diagnostic tools. I recommend you consider using these broad categories of such tools:

Behavioral profiles: Tools that measure a person's natural behavioral style, which controls strengths and weaknesses for a wide array of tasks, duties, abilities, and preferences. Identifying that an individual doesn't have the ability or aptitude for lots of detailed work, empathy, being assertive or a self-starter, for example, can be vital in understanding why they aren't performing. Such profiles literally measure a person's ability to do the actual job.

Motivational profiles: Tools that measure a person's core motivations, their passions, and what will get them ultimately engaged in their work. Having key drivers that are not being satisfied is a common cause of lack of engagement, dissatisfaction at work, poor work ethic, and voluntary turnover issues. Such profiles actually measure how much someone likes or loves to do the work.

Organizational profiles: Tools that, instead of measuring individual traits, measure the actual organization's performance in a number of broad categories like sales and marketing, customer service, management, teams, and so on. For those of you not consulting on human issues, this category of diagnostic tool allows you to create your own criteria to be assessed, thus allowing you to still diagnose the health of your prospect's organization and effectively use this methodology.

All of these tools are very accurate nowadays. This wasn't as true only 10 or more years ago perhaps, but modern science and technology have improved their validity and reliability to degrees approaching 95 percent. They are all available online and are very easy to learn and use effectively. In this book I'm going to educate you on the profiles my own company has created because we've designed them specifically to fit this model, but so as not to be biased, here's a list of other publishers you can check out and consider using as well. Each of them provides highly accurate, very well proven, and user-friendly profiles, along with simple means of learning how to apply them:

Innermetrix Incorporated (www.innermetrix.com)—my own company

The Platinum Rule (www.platinumrule.com)

People Keys (www.peoplekeys.com)

Maximum Potential (www.maximumpotential.com)

Profiles International (www.profilesinternational.com)

Inscape Publishing (www.inscapepublishing.com)

Extended Disc (www.extendeddisc.com)

Whichever provider you choose, make sure you can get access to an unlimited license rather than paying per report. If you have to pay $25 to $30 per report (which is typical), you are restricted in using them effectively in both your marketing vehicles and in the diagnostic sales process. Even if you could get away with charging a nominal fee to cover expenses in the sales process, there is no way to do so in the marketing programs.

I learned this the hard way in my own company because we used to charge a per-report price. We switched to an unlimited, per-month flat rate, specifically because those consultants told us it was too cost prohibitive. Your ability and willingness to prolifically use them as I described in the marketing vehicles relies on you not having to worry about paying anything extra if 1,000 potential clients read your article and show up at your webinar.

Behavioral Profiles

When it comes to behavioral profiles I choose to follow the work of famed Harvard psychologist William Marston. His DISC theory of behavioral style is the most widely accepted and used theory in business today. Our version of the DISC behavioral profile is called the DISC Index. By using the DISC Index, you can measure the following 48 behavioral traits:

Figure 8.1 demonstrates the way the DISC Index visually displays these traits.

Figure 8.1 The DISC Index Traits

It's the ability to quantify these kinds of intangibles for your prospects that helps explain why any one individual is struggling with performance. Just read back through this list with the question, “How would this affect performance if it was not present, or in some cases was?” Imagine the sales person who lacks assertiveness, or another one who has too much forcefulness. How effective would an administrative assistant be without great attention to detail? Would a risk-averse employee deal with upheaval and change very well?

Motivational Profiles

To measure an individual's motivational preferences, their passions, and key drivers of engagement, we've built the Values Index around the research of Dr. Eduard Spranger, whose theories on motivation and engagement are among the most applied in the world. Using the Values Index you can measure for the following 38 motivators:

Figure 8.2 is a sample of the seven motivational categories measured in the Values Index.

Figure 8.2 The Values Index

Being able to accurately understand what motivates a person at this level of granularity helps determine if someone will be well satisfied in any given culture or role. Motivations and passions drive engagement, which is a significant driver of performance. Imagine someone motivated by an independent working structure reporting to a micromanaging supervisor. Conversely, what might be the odds of someone motivated by systems and structure being demotivated in a role where they've been given extreme freedom? And, how successful will an organization be when they decide to completely revamp their entire process to modernize for environmental reasons, yet 75 percent of the staff are motivated by tradition and stability? While for all the right reasons, the company unfortunately just alienated the majority of their workforce.

Organizational Profiles

While I still believe that all performance is generated between the ears, many times you need to view the aggregate of that human performance on an organizational level. The Organizational Health Checkup (OHC) allows leaders in the organization to evaluate the company's performance in these core areas:

Personal—How do the individuals in your organization feel in general?

Employee Alignment—Is everyone driving for results and profits?

Personnel—How effectively do you lead people?

Team Effectiveness—How strong are your teams?

Leadership—How trusted and inspiring is your leadership?

Strategy and Planning—How comprehensive and secure is your strategy?

Customer Service—How loyal are your customers?

Sales and Marketing—Does your pitch resonate and do your people sell?

Operations—Do you run efficient and quality operations?

Cultural—How cohesive and beneficial is your culture?

Management—How effectively do you manage things?

Figure 8.3 shows how these 11 dimensions are displayed in the OHC. Higher scores represent better performance.

Figure 8.3 The Eleven Dimensions of the Organizational Health Checkup

The OHC is very good at doing two things as far as the consultant is concerned. First, it expands my reach, meaning I may meet one executive, but since this is a tool designed to gauge performance as viewed by multiple executive viewpoints, it's a perfect reason to get involved with other leaders. Second, it engineers epiphanies. As surprising as it might seem to some, anyone with senior management or consulting experience will not be surprised to find that many leaders don't all share the same opinion concerning performance in key indicators like these. Aggregating a group of management's opinions and combining them like this often results in an “aha moment” when the leadership team realizes they have a problem. Of course it doesn't hurt to be the only outside consultant in the room when they have this epiphany.

To help any class of business consultant utilize this diagnostic sales process I've also created a customizable organizational profile. It is based on the OHC but instead of measuring the predetermined eleven categories I focus on, you can customize your own set of categories and diagnostic questions. Let's say you have a program in your consulting business that examines the “5 dimensions of financial health.” This tool allows you to customize the OHC profile to your specific categories (i.e., your 5 dimensions), title them what you want, and create a set of diagnostic questions for each category (e.g., “Every employee is familiar with all Federal regulations regarding fiscal reporting,” or “We consistently strive to reduce risk and secure our client's confidential information”). I've done this so even if it doesn't make sense in your consulting practice to diagnose human problems, or use behavioral or motivational diagnostic profiles, you can still benefit from this sales model simply by creating your own set of items to diagnose with your unique prospects. To check it out simply visit www.innermetrix.com and find the “Customizable OHC” under the resources tab.

The key thing to remember is that everything I just said about all three classes of profiles revolves around sales and marketing, not working with actual clients. Diagnostic metrics like these are incredibly powerful tools in helping you secure the actual business.

To learn more about any of these specific profiles visit www.innermetrix.com, and check out the “resources” tab.

Negotiate the Appropriate Solution

Here, in this final step, you will be debriefing the actual report you chose 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 solution (e.g., consulting, training, coaching).

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. This is because the prospect's 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 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, it's also very timely due to the simple fact that it is at this point (i.e., during the debrief of the profile results) 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 into sales mode your recommendation is simply in response to their request for assistance.

In all the work I've done with consultants I've certified, literally 90 percent of the time when they debrief a report with a prospect in this process, that person ends up asking a “buy-sign” question. This is what I was talking about in the beginning of this chapter when I said the key to the success of this model is moving away from the old-school sales mentality of asking a prospect to take something from you, and turning it around where they ask you to give them something instead.

Let's 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 coaching client. 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 to 20 minutes maximum. The reason for this is that when dealing with a prospect, I'm not going to do all the education I would with an actual client.

The reason behind why I'm going over the profile is vastly different between a prospect and an actual client. In the case of an actual client, I'm using the profile information as part of the coaching or developmental work I've already been hired to provide. It's a much more involved relationship and they've already paid me to provide it. With a prospect, however, I'm using the profile for one simple reason—to identify the cause of their problem, and elicit one of those “buy-sign” questions.

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. It's actually a good thing if they say they want more understanding of the results, because my response at that point is, “That's understandable, Mr. Smith, and while my main objective here was to show you that I've identified these traits as a cause of the problem, once we get into the program I recommend we will definitely go deeper into the profile's results.” Psychologically, this starts to create the assumption and perspective that working together is a bit of a foregone conclusion, and starts them thinking “when” not “if.”

Here's 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 let's just look at what I see with regard to John's 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 in the DISC profile) tells me that John is likely to be a perfectionist and overly detailed. Another thing I noticed is that John has a very low drive for financial compensation (economics on the Values Index is in last place). In my experience, this can cause a lot of problems for salespeople because their passion has less to do with making commissions and more to do with, in John's case, helping others (he had a high Altruistic drive). 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. So, in summary, I think we see in John someone whose natural talents and motivations are not supporting his success in sales right now. I can clearly see why he is struggling!

Stop here for a minute. If you were on the receiving end of the statements above, what odds would you place on the very next question you would want to ask being something along the lines of, “Okay, so how do we fix this?” or “So how do we develop these traits in John, and what would motivate him more completely?” My guess is that this is exactly the kind of question you already found yourself asking, and now you can see how even in a written example like this I was able to move from asking you to take something from me, to getting you to want to ask me to give you something (e.g., a recommendation for how to fix John in this case).

Once I get to the point where you have that burning question in your mind, as the prospect, I've achieved my goals. Now I simply answer your question. That answer will be whatever service or program I sell that will best address your question (e.g., sales training, leadership development, coaching, etc.).

Connecting the Dots

Regardless of the length of your debrief, there is one thing you must always make sure to do. 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 trait or item that I point to in the profile needs to be clearly connected to the problem in your prospect's mind. For example:

An unconnected example: “Johnny has a low score in emotional intelligence, which means he isn't good with understanding others.”

A connected example: “Johnny has a low score in emotional intelligence, which means he probably struggles to truly understand his prospect's emotional state, or know when to go for the close or not, which would likely hurt his ability to sell.”

An unconnected example: “Jenny isn't great at strategic planning, so she probably struggles with conceptual thinking.”

A connected example: “Jenny isn't great at strategic planning, which would get in her way when it comes to leading and effectively planning and organizing her department's objectives.”

The difference in a connected statement is I always tie the profile results directly to the power source for the prospect, not leave it up to them to do by themselves. And I don't want to leave the prospect in charge of the sale, ever. I want to make sure they see the connection between cause and effect.

If you're not sure how the results in the profile connect to the problem at hand, partner with the prospect right then and there to find out. You describe what the low score means in general, and ask them to help you understand how important that is for the role. Here are some examples of how that would work:

When used this way all you have to do is learn what the profile measures, which is very straightforward, and the profile will actually tell you what their score means. Then play the role of facilitator and ask the prospect to help connect that ability (or lack thereof) to the role for you. The end effect is every bit the same as if you knew the role very well yourself. We see 90 percent buy-sign questions either way.

And when those buy signs come, the only thing left to do is make your recommendation and ask for the close.

Don't Forget to Close

Having thoroughly given the act of selling the boot, there is actually one aspect of selling that you just can't get rid of—the actual close. Not that I'm advocating the use of some canned closing technique, but, if you never ask for the business, it won't come.

Even if you elicit the buy-sign questions 90 percent of the time, and make your recommendation for training or coaching, if all you do is say “I recommend sales training for Johnny,” then thank the prospect for their time, hand them your card, and tell them to give you a call if they ever need sales training, you've wasted both their time and yours.

The key, however, is that you make a literal call to action with your recommendation, not just some ethereal suggestion. Sounds silly? You'd be surprised how many times a month I hear someone tell me, “I don't 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 asked these consultants what recommendation they made, they said “none.” And the prospect didn't call you back? Shocker! I bet that when you go fishing the fish don't jump into your boat for you either.

In effect, the prospect did exactly what these consultants asked for—nothing! They recommended nothing; the prospect did nothing.

Look, at this point in the game you've developed something of a super power. You may not be aware of it, but if you've 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 aren't the droids you are looking for”). Whatever suggestion you make, they are more than likely to comply. I know this sounds crazy and you're probably thinking of examples in your life where you made a suggestion to a prospect and they completely didn't do it. My guess, though, is that you are thinking of an example where you were selling, weren't you? Selling is like kryptonite to your super powers. If you have stayed true to the lessons of this process, however, they will listen.

Here's 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, but with a real call to action, not just theory. Don't forget, everything you've done so far in this process has been carefully crafted to get you to the point where they ask you for the business. So give it to them!

Here are some great examples of “You Asked” closes. It is the last sentence that is the true “close” or call to action:

Please take note of how I connect the recommendation to the power source again. You must always connect any request for action to the power source!

It's in this recommendation that the work you did in Step #1 comes back to support you greatly. By making sure you did a great job of quantifying and qualifying the power source, you have a gauge as to what price to charge for this recommendation. Whatever solution you recommend, there will be a price tag on it. The funny thing about buying psychology, however, is that our simple reptilian brains are very much driven by our emotions. In fact, according to Professor Zaltman's research at Harvard University, as much as 90 percent of our purchasing decisions are controlled exclusively by our emotions, not by rational decision-making.

So, if your proposal has a tangible price and their problem doesn't—you're 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 the client $5,000 a month. If you imagine an old-fashioned scale and all you do is load your $5,000 price on one side, and all that exists on the opposite side is some ethereal, nondescript, intangible problem (e.g., “poor leadership”), then you have a problem. If you imagine that money has a weight to it, and the problem side of the scale is undefined and has not been qualified to a specific monetary value, your side of the scale will always weigh more (which is a bad thing). That would look something like Figure 8.4.

Figure 8.4 The Cost/Cure Scale

To make it easier for the prospect to agree to your recommendation, you would want your side of the scale to weigh nothing compared to the problem side. You want your side to have $5,000 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 Figure 8.5.

Figure 8.5 The Completed Cost/Cure Scale

You need to have something tangible on both sides of the equation, and then make sure that your side weighs a hell of a lot less. This is just another version of the old saying, “It will cost a lot more not to fix it.”

In general, the mistake most salespeople, let alone consultants, make is to 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 haven't defined the problem specifically enough to arrive at a real dollar and emotional amount, the prospect isn't likely to either. In the end, all their emotional mind sees is “some undefined value” on the one side of the scale, and “five thousand dollars” on the other. And that's just a small proposal. Imagine how much more important this balancing act is when you deliver a $50,000 to $100,000 proposal.

“In the absence of any recommendation, one finds the absence of any action.”

Just don't forget. You can't push clients 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.”

How I EARNed the business:

Induce the customer to come to you.

Establish a concrete power source.

Advance a hypothetical cause.

Recommend diagnostic profiling.

Negotiate the appropriate solution.

This is the diagnostic sales process. Once you learn it I think you'll be surprised how naturally it comes to you. The trick is forgetting all the bad sales techniques you've learned over the years and just focus on being the consultant. When you do this, sales will follow naturally. Figure out the cause of their problem and I guarantee they will ask you how to fix it!

The only thing you need to get started on using this process is to go get yourself some form of diagnostic profile. Check out the resources I gave you in section four of this chapter. It's absolutely critical that you have something here, so go figure that out now.

To help you put all of this together I've included a complete dialogue in the appendix that represents a sample conversation with a prospect, from beginning to end.