Good, Better, Best: Getting to 'Yes' with Tiered Options.

Getting to 'yes' in a proposal sometimes requires more than clarifying the client’s needs, offering solutions and providing evidence of the value of your recommendations. While this basic structure for a presentation can be successful, often it is not enough to get the client to say 'yes'. Getting to 'yes' sometimes requires a little leverage to close the deal. Gaining leverage is simply a matter of leading the dialogue and lowering the barriers for the client to be able to say yes.

This is the first of three examples which will be posted on this technique over the next three days.

‘Good, Better, Best’ Options:

There’s a concept in marketing called ‘Good, Better, Best’. Offering three viable options enables the buyer to engage the firm at different levels of commitment. Often the level depends upon their tolerance for risk and their comfort level with the attorney. But how the offers are structured in terms of cost and commitment is key.

Competitors will often structure their proposals to place the greatest incentive on the highest and 'best' option with progressively better value but increasingly deeper organizational commitments. Psychologically, this requires clients to make the largest commitment possible to a relationship which has not yet been proven.

It's better to load the greatest value in the middle tier level, the 'better' choice. Structured in a bell curve of sorts, 'better' solutions offer more value without the longer term or deeper commitments. Proposals developed with the 'mid tier loaded value' are easier for clients to accept since they can legitimately rationalize that they were conservative in their selection without being overly frugal or short-sighted in their selection.