Monthly Archives: July 2013

Third leg of the stool

Your solution can be the logical choice with its features, functions, and technical architecture lined up perfectly with your customer’s needs.

Your solution can be the financial sound choice with reasonable prices, a solid implementation plan, and a bullet-proof return-on-investment business case behind it.

But the third leg of the stool calls for a passionate, emotional reason for doing the project in the first place.  It might be solving a pain, it might be enabling a vision, it might be some kind of political win for one of the players;  if your customer can’t express and you can’t mine the reason they’ve gotta do it, then it won’t happen.

People don’t buy into a timeshare because it’s a good investment; they envision themselves with with a week or two reserved in Aspen and Miami every year.

When qualifying the deal, determine the passion and satisfy it.  The customer will move mountains to make the functional and financial justifications fall into place.

Tagged

Earn a firmer handshake

One way to judge the value of your meeting is through the quality of the handshake you get on the way out the door.

If you’ve inspired someone, made them think, or incited some action, you’ll probably get a firmer and more sincere handshake on the way out the door.  If you get the dreaded “we’ll be in touch,” you can bet they won’t.

Earn a firmer handshake.