Certainty: How predictable are those returns?

Of course, we will be actively trying to determine the quantity, speed, and certainty of the potential payback so we can share our esti-mates with our client. This will become a crucial component of our overall value proposition. But to position ourselves and our solutions effectively, we should always begin by finding out what return or pay-back our customer expects or anticipates when they arrive at point “C.”

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We help to quantify payback or return in their mind by asking ques-tions that begin with “How much . . . ?” or “How many . . . ?”

• “How much time could you save if you decided to move forward with this initiative?”

• “How many people would that free up for other projects?”

• “How much extra warehouse space could you lease to someone else if you were able to reduce your inventories by 20 percent?

• “How many more customer orders could you handle each day using this new system?”

• “How many days could we drive out of your product development cycles if we could cut your product testing time in half?”

• “How much money could be freed up for reinvestment if we were able to help you reduce your average accounts receivable cycle from forty days to thirty-five days?”

• “How much do you think this problem is costing you each month?”

At the end of the day, any investment has to be worth making. And as I pointed out in Chapter 1, it has to be better than the other possi-ble uses of availapossi-ble resources. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter how we think our clients should invest their resources; what matters is how they think they should. Our job is to find out how they think and why they think that way.

4. Consequence

You may have read or heard that “motivation comes from within.” That might be true, but consequences come from without. How else can we explain certain behaviors? Do you suppose that every February 14, mil-lions of men all simply wake up with an uncontrollable urge to buy flow-ers? Is it sheer coincidence that millions of Americans, every April 15, simultaneously have the inspiration to file their personal income tax returns?

Psychologists have found that our desire to avoid loss is much stronger than our desire for potential gain. One famous study found

that most people would much sooner take $500 for sure, than take a fifty-fifty chance of winning $1,000. Likewise, far more people who had $1,000 would take a fifty-fifty chance of losing it all, as opposed to just handing over $500. In our minds, and the minds of customers, losses loom larger than gains.¹

Because of this fact, the potential consequence of inaction is often the most reliable Action Driver of all. If we can identify a consequence that matters enough, to enough of the people involved in the decision, the likelihood of that decision going our way is substantially increased.

We will look much more closely at consequence in Chapter 7 as we explore the “Anatomy of a Buying Decision.” As we converse with cus-tomers and learn about their goals and objectives, we can look for Con-sequence by asking questions beginning with “What if . . . ?”

• “What if you just put this project off until next year?”

• “What if you just kept doing it the same old way?”

• “What if you just did nothing? What would happen?”

• “What if you put this off another month? What would that cost you?”

• “What if you decided you wanted to move ahead with this but you couldn’t get it approved?”

• “What if your finance department didn’t release the funding for another ninety days?”

Occasionally, in a seminar, I get a little push back on this one. “Bill, you should never ask a customer something like that,” they say. “You don’t want to put the idea in their head that it’s OK to delay the pur-chase.” Let’s not be naïve. Companies don’t buy on impulse. In fact, that’s the main reason companies institute buying policies that require a documented evaluation plan, multiple bids, a cost justification, and an elaborate approval process. There are multiple checks and balances put in place specifically to reduce the likelihood of buying something with-out considering all of the potential consequences and risks.

In a complex buying decision involving many decision makers and influencers, the question of “Can we put this off for a while?” is one of the most basic questions they will ask. And if they still have to buy

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something but can wait until next quarter to do it, they probably will.

I’d rather find out early on that there is little or no consequence for them to just stay at point “A.” Then I can better prioritize my time, set expectations within my company, and go to work figuring out how to identify and leverage some other time-bound trigger that represents some sort of consequence to one or more of the people involved in the decision.