It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [79]
“Now we reached something really important. You see, the Current Reality Tree vividly shows how the printing company policies make the buyer’s life miserable. Do you know what was the result? The buyers realized that at last there was a salesperson who really understands them.”
“This is a real achievement,” I concur. “I can see how you broke the cloud. Rather than starting by presenting your product, you start by presenting to the buyer his own problems. And you do it in a way that he really appreciates. That’s the way to build rapport. Not based on riffraff but on real substance. You know, Don, to reach this level of rapport usually takes months, even years.”
“I guess so,” he says. “Anyhow, at this stage we found out that the salesperson should, once again, show the direct link between our policies and the buyer’s UDEs. It helps to summarize the page. The result is what you would expect,” and he reads from the Transition Tree, “ ‘The buyer responds with a sigh, a nasty remark, or something similar, but he does not attack the salesperson.’ ”
“Of course, at this stage the buyer knows that the salesperson is on his side,” I agree.
“Right. And now the salesperson explains that we have realized that as long as our policies create problems for the buyer, that by itself is a problem for us. We are simply blocking our own sales.”
“I’m sure that every buyer loved this confession.”
“Yes. Most responded by asking what we were planning to do about it, which opened the door, nice and wide, for the salesperson’s next step. He hands the buyer his Future Reality Tree, saying ‘here are our new policies.’ ”
“May I have a copy?”
“Certainly.”
At the bottom are the injections: Ordering in batches of two months and receiving it in shipments of two weeks; the right to cancel after the first shipment without any penalty or explanation. Don is right. These injections do represent changes to our existing policy.
Don continues to explain, “The salesperson reads to the buyer his Future Reality Tree. This gives the buyer a vivid understanding why these injections will unavoidably lead to the positive outcomes.”
“Interesting,” I say to Don. “You were careful to use only the if-then logic that the buyer already agreed to when you read his Current Reality Tree. That’s smart. It almost guarantees. that he cannot object to it.”
“None of them did, but don’t think that we got the sale at that stage. If you switch back to our Transition Tree, you’ll see the next obstacle: ‘A buyer facing what he perceives to be seller’s generosity becomes suspicious.’ ”
“Naturally. So how did you convince him that there aren’t any snakes in the grass?”
“We decided that the easiest way was to show him a snake. We told him that this was not the entire offer. You see what the next recommended action is? We give the buyer the negative branch.”
“Which negative branch? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, sorry.” He gives me another page.
I take the time to read it. It is the negative branch that I highlighted to Pete; the possibility of the buyer abusing the offer, by declaring a one-shot small order as a big order, getting a lower price-per-unit, and then canceling after the first shipment.
“What was their response to this?” I ask.
“All over the map. But in each case they found a way to trim it. A way that was acceptable to us.”
“I see,” I say. “That way you made the buyer part of constructing the offer. He must have known that at this stage he had actually bought in.”
“Yes,” he laughs. “At this stage it was apparent to me as an observer that the buyer was preparing himself to defend against our salesperson’s closing attack. To overcome it, we tried something unique. We instructed the salespeople to say to the buyer that he probably needs time to think about it, and to suggest scheduling another meeting. This is guaranteed to increase the buyer’s trust in the salesperson, and the offer. But, only in one case was a meeting scheduled.”
“And in the others?”
“In all the others,