A recommendation you make to customers to implement measurable activities (issuing purchase orders, arranging meetings, or conducting surveys) to prove a Measurable Phase Change occurred.
capital investment
Funding for a sale that occurs outside of customers’ operating budgets. It usually requires multilevel approvals and special allocations.
clarifying
Questioning process by which you seek to gather details about customers’ goals, measurable benefits, filters, and systems of evaluation.
clearer
The second tier of a customer’s response pattern that provides more details to the salesperson, usually in response to a clarifying question.
closure rate
One of the five variables of the productivity equation. The percentage of orders you obtain as compared with the number of proposals or quotes you make. Divide the number of orders by the number of proposals to calculate your percentage.
Column 1
The first of two columns that customers use to weigh out their purchasing decisions. Both of these columns have items with actual or perceived dollar figures assigned to them. Customers then add up the items and use the totals of the two columns to decide whether they will buy something and from whom. Column 1 contains four items that customers—on their own—assign dollar values to: (1) purchase prices, (2) delivery dates, (3) personal relationships, and (4) the costs of changing to new suppliers or products and services.
Column 2
The second of the two columns customers use to weigh out their purchasing decisions. It encompasses the measurable benefits in dollars that customers receive from achieving their goals. Salespeople must make sure this column gets filled out to outweigh the perceived dollar value of Column 1.
commodity
Products that customers consider the same except for price and delivery differences. Lowest price or fastest delivery wins the sale.
compensated value
The ability to provide more measurable benefits than competitors and receive your expected profit margins for doing so.
competitor’s product profile
Sales tool that evaluates the unique strengths of competitive offerings.
conditional commitment
Customers’ acknowledgment they want to achieve their goals within their attainment measurements. It is not a trial close; you do not ask for a commitment to a specific product.
conditions met
The sixth step of MP 3: Cement Solution. Salespeople demonstrate how features connect to customers’ measurable benefits.
connect the dots
The fifth step of MP 3: Cement Solution. You explain how the features of your products achieve the customers’ measurable benefits and conditional commitments.
connecting value sheet
The sales tool you use to select the features that connect to the measurable benefits of the customers’ goals.
contact level
Decision-making level at which you make initial contact with customers.
costs of doing nothing
The system of evaluation that helps customers assign a cost on a per day basis for not pursuing specific goals.
countercyclical
The economic condition where the market segment goes in the opposite direction to the general economy. If the economy is booming, the market segment slows down. If the economy slows down, the market segments grow.
courtship selling
Selling mode you use with new customers to find out whether they will become long-term customers or occasional ones.
create-and-wait
Strategy you use when customers express satisfaction with their existing suppliers. It focuses on communicating to customers’ over a period of one year or less how your strengths connect to their goals.
current situation
One of the five influencer filters. It involves what customers currently do to achieve their goals.
customer
Anyone with goals that your products or services fulfill within their conditional commitment.
customer expert
Knowing customers’ goals, measurable benefits, and systems of evaluation used in their industry. Salespeople who build products from customers’ goals down, not from their features up.
customer goal categories
Broad grouping of objectives that an organization goals fall within.
customer-generated proposals
Motivated customers seek proposals to find out how your solutions achieve their goals.
customer-oriented
Sales approach that focuses first on customers’ goals, measurable benefits, filters, and systems of evaluation, not products.
cyclical
The economic condition where the market segment follows the general economy. If the economy is booming, so is the market segment. If the economy slows down, so does the market segment.
D-F
Dlevel
This level refers to the second tier of decision makers such as department level heads and directors of operations, engineering, accounting, finance, and so forth.
damage report
First of the four steps in handling hinges. Salespeople evaluate the impact of the hinge before attempting to address it.
deal
The first step of MP 4: Implement Agreement. Salespeople verify that customers are ready to implement their proposals.
decision maker
Individual involved with deciding whether a supplier’s products and services will be purchased, and from whom.
See also gatekeeper.
See also advocate.
See also final decision maker.
decommoditizing the sale
Making the value of your products more than a function of price and delivery.
defining value
The process salespeople use to make their products and services produce perceived or measurable value using product profile sheets.
dialoguing
The questioning process you use to create an initial comfort level between you and customers unrelated to anyone’s business objectives.
diluting feature
The features that do not connect to customers’ goals and diminish value instead of creating it.
direct savings
Immediate financial benefits with measurable results.
don’t shoot yourself
One of the six active questioning tactics. It involves making sure that you do not agree with a negative comment when you rephrase a question.
downplay
The last step in handling hinges. It involves verifying the removal of the hinge before returning to the appropriate Measurable Phase by using explaining, outweighing, or revising strategies.
economic sensitivity
A measure of how a market segment (and the customers within it) will react to changing economic conditions.
See also cyclical.
See also countercyclical.
See also noncyclical.
eliminate unknowns
The third step in MP 2: Measure Potential. It involves making the customers’ goals, benefits, filters, and systems of evaluation measurable.
explaining
Conveying factual details about how your proposed products and services achieve customers’ goals within their conditional commitments. One of the three steps in the downplay step to handle hinges.
external focus
Benefits customers of your customers receive from your products.
feature
A characteristic of a product or service that defines its traits or image, which produces either perceived or measurable benefits.
feature value rating
Numerical value given to a feature to calculate its competitiveness. A unique strength receives a 5 while a regular feature receives a 1 rating.
features creatures
Salespeople who believe the most features win.
filters
The nine purchasing considerations (5 influencers, 4 prerequisites) that influence and determine whether customers can achieve their goals via your products and services.
final decision maker
Individual who approves the attainment measurements, systems of evaluation, and allocates or releases funds for achieving goals.
following the customer’s lead
One of the six active questioning tactics. It involves using questions to bridge customers’ response to your next question to better understand their goals, filters, measurable benefits, or and systems of evaluation.
funding
One of the four prerequisite filters. It determines how much in financial resources customers can allocate to achieve their goals and its source.
See also capital investment.
See also operating budget.
G-K
gatekeeper
Customer contact who cannot give a final yes but can give an initial no to any proposed solution. Gatekeeper initially approves any proposed products if they fall within their operational, technical, or financial expertise.
go for measurable specific
Mnemonics to help you remember the purpose of goals, filters, measurable benefits, and systems of evaluation.
goal motivation
One of the five influencer filters. It conveys whether the driving forces behind customers’ goals are to avoid negative results or achieve positive ones.
goals
Prioritized objectives customers want to achieve because of the benefits they could derive from them.
gross margin percentage
One of the five variables of the productivity equation. Gross margin dollars divided by the total dollars sold provides this percentage.
gross margin dollars
The sell price of the product or service minus its direct labor and material costs.
gutter ball hinge
Customers perceive your proposed solution as not achieving their conditional commitments. This hinge prevents salespeople from attaining MPC 3: Solution Confirmed.
harvesting crops
The selling stage associated with the number of in-person sales calls invested in MP 4: Implement Agreement to close orders.
hidden costs
Costs or expenses that customers do not normally associate with the manufacturing of your products or services.
hidden hinge
Either natural or leveraged hinges that customers do not want to disclose to you. They feel it creates a negative impression of them or their company, or your products or company.
hinges
The actions or comments of customers that prevent you from continuing the Measurable Phases in the prescribed sequence; an inability to obtain Measurable Phase Changes via your call for action.
How’s Zat?
The two most powerful words used to handle hinges. Different versions of “how does that” affect the customers’ ability to achieve their goals. One of the four basic steps in handling hinges by asking a clarifying question concerning the hinge’s impact on the customers’ goals.