closing time for the average sale.
Improve client reorder size and frequency.
Reduce stress levels and resultant absenteeism.
Note that objectives can be both professional and personal, and can be tangible or nontangible. You derive objectives from the buyer by asking intelligent questions, and not stopping until you have plumbed all available responses. Here are 10 examples of questions:
1 What is the ideal outcome you'd like to experience?
2 What results are you trying to accomplish?
3 What better product/service/customer condition are you seeking?
4 Why are you seeking to do this work/project/engagement?
5 How would the operation be different as a result of this work?
6 What would be the return on investment (sales, assets, equity, etc.)?
7 How would image/reputation/credibility be improved?
8 What harm (stress, dysfunction, turf wars, etc.) would be alleviated?
9 How much would you gain on the competition as a result?
10 How would your value proposition be improved?
Hint: If a buyer does give you an arbitrary input or deliverable, simply ask why it's important and what it's supposed to produce. Asking “Why?” raises the level of decision to the real outcomes desired. (Asking “How?” lowers the level of decision to implementation, which is premature here.)
Note: Behind every corporate objective is a personal objective. If the business objective is to reduce attrition, the personal objective might be to focus on strategy and stop interviewing so many candidates. Better teamwork might be desired because the buyer is weary of playing “referee” among the teams.
Measures of Success
The second aspect of conceptual agreement is metrics, that is, the indicators or measures of progress and/or completion. This is important so that both you and the buyer can judge relative success at any given time, and the success that occurs is attributable to your contributions in the project. This is vital to demonstrate ROI and justify fees.
Examples of metrics might include:
Sales reports showing rapidity of sales closing after first contact.
Quarterly sales totals of client reorders and rapidity.
Anecdotal reporting of stress levels at meetings and absentee reports submitted weekly.
Note that these can be both objective (based on empirical evidence) and subjective (based on perceptions and observed behavior). That's fine, as long as you and the buyer both agree on who will do the anecdotal reporting.
Questions to develop metrics may include the following 10 inquiries:
1 How will you know we've accomplished your intent?
2 How, specifically, will the operation be different when we're done?
3 How will you measure this?
4 What indicators will you use to assess our progress?
5 Who or what will report on our results (against the objectives)?
6 Do you already have measures in place you intend to apply?
7 What is the rate of return (on sales, investment, etc.) that you seek?
8 How will we know that the public, employees, and/or customers perceive it?
9 Each time we talk, what standard will tell us we're progressing?
10 How would you know it if you tripped over it?
Hint: If the buyer isn't sure of a measure, ask, “How do you know the quality or performance is not present now, and how would you know when it does occur?” or: “What is the condition causing you pain now that you would like to remove and how would you know it's gone?”
It's vital to establish effective measures with your objectives. Too many buyers claim they want to go “from good to great” based on a popular book, or to reach “world‐class standards” based on someone's inflated mission statement. These mean nothing if you can't identify them. The legendary training expert, Bob Mager, has written in several of his books, “How would you know it if you tripped over it?”
Not bad advice.
The Gospel
Never skip or give short shrift to conceptual agreement. If you're so eager or anxious that you neglect it, you'll either miss the sale, obtain a smaller sale than you should have, or engage in an implementation likely to produce zero pragmatic results (and an unhappy buyer).
Value
This is the most overlooked aspect of conceptual agreement, but a crucial nuance, because here the buyer is actually stipulating the worth of the project, so you can demonstrate a dramatic ROI with your fee. For this reason, you must question about value relentlessly, until you've arrived at both business and personal impact of a successful project.
Examples of value might be:
Improved margins for the average new sale.
Improved profit per client annually.
More focus on strategy and less on tactics and failure work by senior management.
Value can sometimes be the same as objectives; for example, profit is both an objective and of high value. But profit has significant and varied impact: more investment in research and development, larger investor dividends, more favorable repute with Wall Street, building a reserve fund, and so forth.
Never accept the surface or obvious, but help the buyer to articulate the full range of value possible.
Questions for this include the following 10 inquiries:
1 What will these results mean for your organization?
2 How would you assess the actual return (on investment, assets, sales, equity, etc.)?
3 What would be the extent of the improvement (or correction)?
4 How will these results impact the bottom line?
5 What are the annualized savings (first year might be deceptive)?
6 What is the intangible impact (on repute, safety, comfort, etc.)?
7 How would you, personally, be better off or better supported?
8 What is the scope of the impact (on customers, employees, vendors)?
9 How
