Friday, May 17, 2013

Getting to 'Yes', Part 3

Getting to 'yes' in a proposal requires more than clarifying the client’s situation and objectives, 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' is a conversational art which uses the principles of leverage to facilitate a path toward a positive outcome for the pitch.

This is the third in a three part series.


3. Never Bundle, Always Unbundle

An opportunity to present capabilities to a client is not a request to learn about every practice in the firm. Nonetheless, many attorneys sneak additional practice areas into the materials or presentation ‘just in case they have needs’. But pitching to win a bundled set of services complicates the decision process unnecessarily. A focused proposal offering a viable solution to a specific problem is much more powerful than a broad statement of capabilities, no matter how strong those capabilities are. For one, multiple practice presentations require the buyer to make multiple decisions. In this case, it is much easier to decline all than agree to only one. Conversely, a strong pitch focusing on one practice area makes the decision simpler and lowers the risk to the client should only one practice area not work out.

As always, if I can help you get to 'yes', don't hesitate to call Eric at 502-693-4731. You'll find that I am an eager resource and that it costs nothing to talk.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Getting to 'Yes', Part 2

Getting to 'yes' in a proposal requires more than clarifying the client’s situation and objectives, 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' is a conversational art which uses the principles of leverage to facilitate a path toward a positive outcome for the pitch.

This is the second in a two part series.
2. Offer a Series of ‘Yeses’.

Clients who get in the habit of saying yes find it easier to say yes. So, leverage in making it easier for clients to say yes can lay a great foundation for the big yes you are looking for the client to make. When offering next steps, always give the client a series of options in which to say yes. For instance, when setting up a follow up meeting which you want to include the primary decision maker, offer to set up the meeting yourself directly with the decision maker, send your contact a note which they can forward to the decision maker or offer to conference the decision maker in on the call. More than likely, your contact will take the option of you writing the note to invite the decision maker to a follow up meeting. Had you not made a series of yeses offer your contact would likely have simply stated that he would get with boss and get back to you- a position that leaves you helpless to influence the situation.

As always, if I can help you get to 'yes', please call Eric at 502.693.4731. You'll find that I am an eager resource and that it costs nothing to talk.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Getting to "Yes", Part 1

Getting to 'yes' in a proposal requires more than clarifying the client’s situation and objectives, 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' is a conversational art which uses the principles of leverage to facilitate a path toward a positive outcome for the pitch.

Before we begin, let’s quickly qualify what is meant by ‘leverage’.Leverage in this instance means the principle of gaining power and effectiveness in negotiations. Gaining leverage is simply a matter of leading the dialogue and lowering the barriers for the client to be able to say yes.

Here are several examples of ways to lower the barriers to 'yes'. This is the first in a three part series.

1. ‘Good, Better, Best’ Options:

There’s a concept in marketing called ‘Good, Better, Best’that is proven quite effective in a number of different marketing uses. Offering three viable options enables the buyer to engage the firm at different levels of commitment, depending upon their tolerance for risk and their comfort level with the attorney. Structured well, the technique can steer the client to the best value and comfortably suspend what the client feels are the riskier decisions until the client has more experience and comfort with the attorney. Very often, in well-structured proposals, clients will opt for the ‘better’ scope of services, leaving the ‘best’ scope of services as an option for later on.

Clients rarely abruptly stop using the services of an attorney. Instead, they more frequently ease out of the relationship slowly. The same is true of how clients prefer to get into a relationship. Pitching too much too quickly demands too much trust too early in the relationship. It is better to offer a way to become familiar with the attorney’s work and grow the relationship from there into more practice areas as trust and comfort builds.

Each of these three principles of leverage, as well as numerous others, can help facilitate a positive decision by lowering the risk associated with the decision and making it easier for the client to say yes. Try these in your next pitch and let me know how it works for you.
As always, if I can help you get to 'yes', call Eric at 502.693.4731. You'll find that I am an eager resource and that it costs nothing to talk. 
As