CapABILITY Archives - The Five Abilities

Personal motivations for buying – found in customer history

May 8, 2025

Last weekend, my wife and I had a great time seeing Harry Connick Jr. in concert at Chateau Ste Michelle Winery – a wonderful outdoor venue. We couldn’t get side-by-side seating so we had seats one in front of the other. The couple to my right, without being asked, offered to move their chairs so we could sit together. There are wonderful people everywhere you go.

The people to my left arrived after most had been seated. A father, mother and twenty-something daughter worked their way across the row with the daughter ending up next to me. Before sitting she glanced at me with a look of fear and frantically asked her father to, “Switch with me.” The father said, “You’ll be fine.” The mother responded, “You know she’s afraid of Asian guys. Don’t make her sit there.” The father switched. Obviously the young woman had experience that made her afraid of Asian males. Her face displayed real fear when she looked at me.

Because their conversation was far from a whisper I heard everything. I could have had a negative response. But having been in similar situations, I know we all have experiences that are the foundation of our perceptions so I chose to say nothing. Throughout the concert, the father and I had friendly exchanges, so much so that when they went to get food he asked if I could please watch their things. We continued to talk throughout the evening, even though the mother and daughter were visibly uneasy. However, by the end of the evening, the daughter seemed more relaxed and the frown that started the evening changed to a smile as they were leaving.

I don’t know what her experience was but I hope she ended that evening having lost a bit of her fear of Asian males. I’ll never know but I will know that I was respectful to and that’s really all I could do.

In business, we sell to people who have many experiences that serve as the foundation of their perceptions – their personal motivations for buying. My services were recommended to a start-up CEO who agreed to meet with me. 45 minutes into the meeting he said, “I’m having a hard time believing you were at Microsoft for 18 years and a VP no less.” I asked why and he said, “I thought you guys were all overly aggressive jerks. I may have to rethink that.”

Since people make business decisions for personal reasons it’s important that we understand their personal motivations for buying so that we can sell to them effectively. Have they had bad experiences with our company before? Have they had bad experiences from implementing innovative products? Have they had salespeople who misrepresented the facts, making them untrusting of salespeople? Is their company culture highly political causing them to assume that everyone is that way?

There’s no better way to understand the customer’s personal motivation for buying than to understand their history. It wasn’t appropriate for me to ask that young woman why she feared Asian men, especially during the concert, but it’s always appropriate to learn how decision-makers earned their position of leadership. Knowing the experiences that got them to where they are is the only way to understand the foundation of their perceptions – their personal motivation for buying.

If they got to their leadership post by catalyzing paradigm shifts, they will be attracted to innovative change. If, on the other hand, they’ve arrived at their position by avoiding risk, they will be motivated by safe choices. The permutations are endless but the lesson is the same – we must understand our customers’ personal motivations for buying by understanding their history.

People make business decisions for personal reasons. Understanding the customer’s personal motivations for buying is an important part of what you learn from The Five Abilities® sales framework. My article “Five things people buy that aren’t on the invoice” tells you more if you’re interested.

Logical Problem Solving

May 8, 2025

When you’re fortunate enough to find a problem that needs solving for your customers and/or your market, do you find people who have the knack for coming up with lots of creative solutions? Are you surprised when a lot of those seemingly creative, smart ideas, don’t get the promised results your customer needs? Did you waste your time and even more important, the time of your customer? I have a simple discipline that will help you avoid this pitfall.

Three questions that earn you trusted advisor status

May 8, 2025

Advancing from seller to trusted advisor wins you lifelong customers resulting in years of repeat business and referrals. As an advisor you become part of the value that customers pay for. Advisors solve problems in a logical fashion that coalesces stakeholders and promotes collaboration. This helps decision-makers select and implement the right solution.

This simple problem solving approach keeps you focused on what the customer needs most – lasting solutions to problems. Three questions that earn you trusted advisor status:

WHAT do you see, hear and/or know that is problematic?

Early in my career I worked for an SVP who asked, “Does the patient have a fever?” She wanted to know that we were seeing, hearing or knowing things that ensured the customer had relevant problems that were acknowledged by their decision-makers. Sometimes sales and marketing people see problems and answers that may not be real resulting in chasing false leads. My SVP forced us to prove it was real by clearly identifying what we saw, heard or knew that was problematic.

WHY are these things causing problems?

Successful problem solving requires that everyone sees and attacks the same problem. The lack of collaborative thought and action, by all stakeholders, leads to failure even with the right solution. The process of discovering and deciding WHY the problem exists versus just reacting to WHAT you see, hear and/or know, constructs a collaborative foundation. Acting without that collaborative foundation relies on luck to find success. My dad would say, “It’s great to be lucky but it’s hard to repeat.”

Continuing with the medical metaphor is relevant because your doctor wouldn’t treat you without first knowing what’s causing the fever. If you had an infection you wouldn’t want to be treated for flu. The diagnosis must be right as it must for business problems.

Companies selling intellectual property offer a useful example. Product piracy allows customers to get products almost free. In emerging markets it was assumed that price was the issue but reductions had temporary or no effect. Research determined that people wouldn’t pay for something they could get for free because they’d be considered stupid. The WHY wasn’t about high price but instead about ego especially given the pirated product was perceived equal to the genuine product.

WHAT best next things you can do to address WHY the problem is happening?

With a proper diagnosis the doctor can choose the right treatment because WHY the fever happened is known. Industry is continually working on the intellectual property issue but the focus is more on delivering unique value to customers and resellers because they now know that simple price reductions don’t address the ego problem.

WHAT-WHY-WHAT is a simple problem solving discipline that focuses your creativity on WHY the problem exists. You’ll create lasting solutions and you’ll earn trusted advisor status, resulting in lifelong customers.

The best sales people have the best habits

May 8, 2025

Practice helps us develop routines. Routines help us master skills and create beneficial habits. Being able to repeat those routines turns successful behaviors into habits. Where successful behavior is a habit, is where we find incredibly successful sales people.

Habit implies repetition and, as it regards sales, that is absolutely true. At the most fundamental level, every sales process addresses the same things for the same result, which is to win the sale. The ability to know what to repeat by habit is why great sales people can sell anything. You see this in other professions, as well, such as music.

Have you ever heard the same musician multiple times and even though they’re playing the same song it sounds different? Early in my life, I made a living playing guitar. We played the same songs every performance but we had to make it sound new, every night. The last thing we could do was to look and sound bored, as that is a letdown for the audience. It was also a letdown for us when we didn’t get rehired.

As fortune would have it, I was taking music classes at UCLA and one of our guest speakers was Kenny Loggins. His friend was teaching the class so he agreed to speak. During Q&A I asked how he kept from getting bored with playing the same songs. He said, “Even though we play the same songs doesn’t mean we play them the same way.” He went on to explain that they were heavily influenced by the energy in the audience. If the fans were having fun they might make silly changes to the music. If the fans were low key they might add something mellow. The point was that they never played any song the same way. They always improvised with whatever was best for the moment.

After getting that advice, we started to improvise more on stage. It didn’t sound good. We soon learned that we couldn’t improvise well unless we knew the songs well enough that playing the right chords was a habit. Once the playing became a habit we were much better able to improvise in a way that improved the performance. Often, nobody in the audience knew we were making changes, but the band members knew it which kept it fresh. Most importantly, we learned to improvise with whatever was best for the moment.

As with musicians, when a sales person has great habits, which is what The Five Abilities® represent, they can start to improvise in winning ways that make their actions best for a particular moment.

VISABILITY – Being seen in the right way by the right people at the right time
CREDABILITY – Having superior knowledge and success
VIABILITY – Offering a solution that fits both needs and readiness
CAPABILITY – Delivering what the customer bought
RELIABILITY – Being accountable if the unexpected happens

The best sales people have the best habits just like the best musicians. Develop these habits so that you can improvise anytime, anywhere to address the challenges of the moment. Learn to consistently play to your audience (e.g. customers and clients), and winning will become your best habit.

The three keys to a great sales methodology

May 8, 2025

Great sales execution requires complex problem solving and focused actions. The purpose of a sales methodology is to reduce the complexity in problem solving and to sharpen our focus so that we choose the best next actions that most quickly, get us to the close. The three keys to a sales methodology are as follows:

Common Language – We are more efficient when we have a common way to talk about things. That’s a general statement as well as a statement about selling. (For more on the importance of having a common way to discuss things, refer to How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey) A good sales methodology gives us that common way to talk about the sales process which helps us understand and communicate customer needs to stakeholders who are helping us win the business.

Categorizing Challenges – Pattern recognition is a problem solving tool used in business, sports, music, etc. Objections that we address during a sales process tend to fall in patterns that we can categorize in ways that make it simpler and quicker to find our best next action. For instance, if a customer is saying we’re too expensive or that the payback period is too long, we likely have a viability issue. We can now draw on knowledge and experiences focused on earning viability. We condense the total universe of potential next actions into things that specifically address viability. We shorten the steps of awareness, assessment and action.

Course Corrections – In any sales process, it’s easy to get off track. We often get mired in non-critical details or lose our focus due to internal operational requirements or other distractions. Very seldom do we have the luxury of being solely focused on a single sales opportunity so diversions are always around the corner. A sales methodology maps the path to a close. Mapping the path allows us to get back on track much quicker after we’ve been diverted. We’re more efficient and better able to manage multiple deliverables which make us more productive sellers.

It’s instructive to illustrate how The Five Abilities™ helped with one of our largest resellers. They had divided their sales into specialty groups focused on product categories. (e.g. personal computing, servers, productivity tools, etc.) They decided to change from product focus to customer focus by allowing each of their sales divisions (Enterprise, Small & Medium Business (SMB) and Consumer) to sell all products rather than forcing customers to navigate through product specialty teams. No longer would teams need to transfer calls to a product specialist. Instead they implemented the tools and incentives to motivate the sales people to learn and sell everything customers needed. The problem: They were working with our competition but not with us.

Their VP in charge told us our billing model made the new process hard to implement and they assumed we wouldn’t change it. Also sales incentives were considered critical to their plan and we had shared concern about incentive models in the past. They had done analysis based on our current practices and decided they couldn’t measure success by business group which made it impossible to motivate sales teams to focus on our products.

Of note, they weren’t asking for a price reduction and the incentives were funded by them but without group level billing they couldn’t attach incentives to how each team did. They didn’t lack confidence in our product offerings and they still considered us a reliable supplier. They simply didn’t think it was viable with our current billing system and they didn’t think we were capable of changing.

We now had the common language around VIABILITY and CAPABILITY, which were the categories we had to address to maintain the reseller’s focus on our products. We knew the course correction that would keep us on the optimal path of helping the customer buy from us. The result: The reseller’s sales increased as did ours.

Common language, categorizing challenges and a map to guide our course corrections, are what we get from a good sales methodology.

Five personal wins that drive win-win negotiations

May 8, 2025

B2B negotiations typically end with a win-win result because both parties benefit from repeat business. Sellers need loyal customers. Buyers need consistent suppliers. Even when all business requirements are met negotiations can stall if one or both parties have not achieved their personal wins.

Fundamental to win-win negotiation is having strong personal relationships built before talks start.

By establishing personal relationships, we start the conversation knowing how to read people. We understand their tastes, body language, voice inflections, etc. Most importantly, we understand what motivates them. Business benefits are calculated and confirmed with spreadsheets and calculators on today’s smartphones. However, people’s motivations are not so simple. No phone will ever be smart enough to calculate motivations. So how do people win and why do we need to know before talks begin?

Safety – Some negotiators win with the low risk option. This can happen with the procurement team or the business owner, as well as with someone new or a veteran negotiator who is coming off a failed project. These people will continuously ask for assurances and guarantees. They will often default to a successful incumbent. Our job is to convince them that we are the low risk option whether incumbent or not.
Simplicity – Some negotiate to make things easier for their team and company. These people are looking for an agreement that will relieve their teams and company of work. Adding workload to their co-workers would be a personal loss. As with safety seekers, these people may lean towards the tried and true rather the new and innovative. Our job is to show them through credible experience and expertise that new is not synonymous with complexity.
Reward – Negotiators want to get ahead just like everyone else. Whether they are procurement officers, plant managers or CEOs, something good could happen for them if they get certain things from a negotiation. Promotions, bonuses, awards, etc., are things these people are looking for. People motivated by reward are keen to satisfy needs and wants of others who can give them their desired reward. Our job is to help them build the path to satisfy others needs and wants. I strive to have relationships with those influential people so I can help the negotiator. I have often found that I know the right people better than the negotiator.
Recognition – Many times negotiators are in the finance or procurement organization and not part of the organization for which they are negotiating. In many cases, winning the business results in the seller becoming more involved with the buying organization than the negotiator. In reality, good negotiators are an integral part of the business and what they get from us is highly impactful to the buying organization. Our job is to ensure we do not do anything to damage the relationship the negotiator has with their internal business partner.
Revolution – Some negotiators will want to leave their mark by getting something from the seller that predecessors never got. This could be as simple as pricing or terms or as complex as schedules and performance metrics. They want the fist-pump that comes with doing something never done before. Unfortunately, there is generally a good reason these things are untried and we often find that we cannot address the negotiators original request. It’s critical that we remember that their focus is on getting something new. Our job is to figure out how to get them that fist-pump even if it isn’t what they originally asked for.

Why do we need to know the negotiator’s motivations before talks start? Because once we start, their playbook is closed. It’s like athletes playing for opposing teams. They can be best of friends off the field but want nothing more than to beat the other while playing. Can you see Serena Williams telling Venus Williams what her game day strategy is when they are playing each other? Of course not and they are sisters.

I’ve outlined the ways people are personally motivated when negotiating. We know that learning those personal motivations has to happen before talks start. Understanding these two simple realities helps us create more win-win results.

In my next blog, I’ll discuss the one motivation that, if held by either party, ensures a win-win will never happen.

Five keys to new business development

May 8, 2025

The term “business development (BizDev)” has taken on varied meanings over the years. As it applies to sales, I see it as the process undertaken when introducing new products and/or when entering new markets. Selling in a BizDev environment requires different skills, the right personalities and the right company support.

In today’s fast innovating, global BizDev climate, sales people encounter many challenges but most fall in two areas. (1) Altered offerings – The customer wants the product or service altered for their specific situation or the overall market is demanding changes. (2) Helping customers recognize need – The customer has the need but doesn’t know it yet. Consumer examples of this are cloud storage and electric cars.

Five things have to be in place for a successful BizDev selling effort:

Product knowledge is a requirement for sales people; product expertise is not. In my experience, sales people need to know enough to be able to show CREDABILITY when articulating expected results. They also need enough knowledge to articulate the CAPABILITY necessary to deploy the offering. Product experts can be very good in these roles if they can maintain open mindedness and creativity about the offering such that they can truly acknowledge and consider customer feedback.

Connection and alignment with product developers is necessary. Sales people are more productive if they understand not only current products but also what product management is considering for the future. To be clear, this doesn’t mean we should ever divulge confidential plans. However, great sales people can more effectively draw the picture of beneficial results, without over promising, if they know what is coming. The connection with product teams minimizes the occasion when sales people sell what cannot be done.

Empower and expect sales people to be creative. Great BizDev sales people combine their product knowledge, customer knowledge and company knowledge to create sellable offerings that aren’t on the price list, but without requiring product changes. The sales team has to exercise competent creativity, but in very competitive industries where the competition is introducing new products and features every day, giving front line people parameters within which they are empowered to create solutions, is a means to enhance agility.

Risk taking personalities are needed with BizDev teams. This doesn’t mean we want an entire sales force of risk takers. However, especially if we’re getting into a new business area, we want business development people who are competent, thoughtful risk takers. The competent, thoughtful risk taker can combine product knowledge, company capabilities and customer need to propose offerings that have a high probability of success. (Note: This doesn’t omit the need for operational disciplines but the level of rigidity needs to be lessened in a BizDev setting.)

Build a culture of commitment. If we want sales people to be agile, creative problem solvers, they need to know that the company is going to stand behind them. It’s equally as critical for customers to have confidence in what the sales person represents. This is where we need competent, thoughtful risk takers versus just risk takers. We want to stretch the company’s capabilities in order to remain competitive but we don’t want over-commitment to be the norm.

Example: At HP, we were bidding on a manufacturing solution at a Fortune 500 company. Technologies around “fault tolerance” and “disaster recovery” were hot. Our competitors were selling computers that knew when they were failing so they could invoke an automated switch-over to another computer. Data replication and synchronization were also being heavily touted.

The likes of Tandem, Microsoft and Oracle had the agility to co-create new solutions for customers. HP was behind. Through close contact with our product managers we knew they were close to having solutions and we had learned through customer sources that these solutions would be requirements going forward. With the combined internal and external knowledge, we committed the features on behalf of the company.

Some product managers weren’t happy that the sales team committed before they actually completed development, but in the HP culture, led by Lew Platt, it was required that we look at all options to fulfill customer commitments. This was work the product teams did in concert with the sales teams. Everyone knew that building the solution was inevitable to remain competitive so the product team accelerated their development. We won that project with a product called SwitchOver-UX, which set us up for future wins that would have otherwise been lost.

In the end, we had all five areas covered:

We had enough product knowledge to build the proposal.
We were connected with the product team and knew what our parameters were.
We were empowered to come up with creative solutions.
We were comfortable taking the risk.
We had the backing of HP from Lew Platt on down.

The pace of business and innovation is much faster today and equipping sales people to be agile brings more success.

How to Win Over Any Decision-Maker and Make the Sale

May 8, 2025

A true decision-maker makes critical business decisions for very personal reasons. You know this to be true because didn’t you buy a blue jacket instead of black because you feel you look better in blue? Did you buy your iPhone because it’s cool and has all your music? Or did you get it because your analysis showed it to be the most secure phone?

In B2B, the bigger the decision, the more likely personal motivations come into play. Decision-makers will still need to justify a transaction with data but ultimately, they still turn to people with whom they want to work.

Providing these things to a decision-maker will improve our chances of winning the sale:

SAFETY. Customers who worry that things will go wrong often seek out the safest decisions. Guarantees are a common ask from people who hate mistakes more than anything. Company cultures that prompt risk-averse behaviour can sway decision-makers to follow suit. Or, perhaps the decision-maker is a more cautious person, fretting over decisions. In either scenario, you’ve got to present your product or service as the safest bet, bar none.
SIMPLICITY. Where you find harried, stressed employees, you’re also going to find leaders who want to help. Good leaders will buy solutions that will simplify everyone’s life. Buying from you means rejuvenating employees and improving work/life balance. When your customer wants simplicity you’ve got to take charge. Asking for guidance creates more work for the customer who is trying to cut back. The customer buys from you because you just get the job done.
REWARDS. Some customers measure their success by the number of rewards they garner. These customers will buy from you if they believe it’s going to help them get a reward. They are looking for things like promotions, a bonus, or some other kind of prize. An easy way to spot this kind of customer is to listen: They will describe “wins” as personal ROI they get.
RECOGNITION. These are the mentors, coaches or experts who don’t need or even want public rewards – they want to help the team win. Other employees will mention them when talking about who they turn to for help. Offer help and support so that they can be better experts, mentors, and coaches.
REVOLUTION. These are change agents that often fill turnaround roles. They jump in when things break and thrive on cleaning up messes. They’ll want to buy from you when they know you will help them make important, legacy creating change.

To learn more about selling the personal reasons people make important business decisions, go to thefiveabilities.com. You can also find these and many more nuggets in Winning Lifelong Customers with The Five Abilities® which you’ll find wherever you buy books online.

What big decisions have you made for personal reasons? Comment below.

©Rick Wong, The Five Abilities® LLC

Great Salespeople Are Your Bread and Butter

May 8, 2025

People make business decisions for personal reasons and until AI selling tools can empathize and personalize, great salespeople are your bread and butter.

In a January 2017 article titled Are Salespeople Still Relevant? Part One from #nzentrepreneuer, the author states that marketing “now” performs much of what great salespeople did back “then” largely referring to sales before digital and social media.

They show a funnel diagram, by Kevin Krason, with the different sales actions at each stage. They end the article saying that while the sales job has changed, great salespeople are still needed since people still want personal connection, especially when making large purchase decisions. I agree and there’s more.

Internal Selling

In big dollar, enterprise selling, seasoned sellers often say that the internal sale is the bigger challenge. Navigating your company’s political and process hurdles, is often harder than steering through customer influencers and decision makers.

All technology companies are dealing with IP piracy, with Microsoft incurring significant hits to revenue due to illegal software usage. In 2003 this was a top issue in China. Dell and other PC manufacturers were starting to ship PCs without Microsoft software at the request of Chinese retailers. I explained the issue to our product executives and to Steve Ballmer. The product teams said I was going native. Steve didn’t think Chinese citizens would refuse to pay.

We had a follow-up meeting with Bill Gates and some product executives, which included Jim Totton, then VP of Software, at Dell Computers. Jim explained Dell’s challenges including demand and financial risks from distributing products that Chinese retailers wouldn’t sell. He said cost of software was irrelevant because no price was better than free. He showed how easy it was to get free software in China, and elsewhere.

Bill started off angry, but he listened. At the end of the meeting, he walked around the table to shake Jim’s hand saying, “Thank you. You taught me something today.” Bill then turned to me and said he’d talk to the product teams.

Customized Counsel

Do something long enough and humans lose sight of other means to get the job done. Decision-makers find themselves in this quandary and they value education or advise on new ways to solve problems. You, one of the great salespeople, are an educator and advisor. Even with the speed of digital information, knowledgeable salespeople make it easier for the customer to expand their thinking.

In the “now” environment, yes, the customer does their own research. It’s up to the salesperson to help them look in all the right places. In the “then” period, the salesperson was often the main source of new information. “Now” rather than pitching features and benefits, the great salesperson applies knowledge and experience to guide the customer to the right information.

There’s no less requirement to be knowledgeable and experienced—just more emphasis on guidance and advice versus pitching.

Shepherding a Fix

Close cousin to internal selling. Repeat business is at the heart of any successful business and post-sale support from the person who made the initial sale, goes a long way. It helps to prove that you and your company are capable and reliable—two of the traits that buyers look for in people from whom they buy.

Today there are many one-touch sales models. What used to be a relational sale has become more of a transactional sale with the use of technology and automated selling. It’s all valid and the world continues advancing.

What hasn’t changed is that people still make business decisions for personal reasons. Whether you’re helping them save time or helping them be a hero, there’s a personal reason behind their decision to choose you. Don’t make them wrong. Don’t be the stereotype, focused only on the commission check. While technology has given us tools that make sales more impersonal, it’s also given us norms that allow us to be personable in more efficient ways.

Emailing personalized updates on enhancements that affect the customer. Texting a quick “How are we doing? Can I personally do anything to help you?” A LinkedIn message that doesn’t ask for anything but instead just says, “Hi Jane, the team seems happy with the progress. Checking to make sure you’re happy as well. Thanks again for choosing us. Call if I can help.” These are meaningful because they’re unusual. Be unusual to enhance your CAPABILITY and RELIABILITY. These are traits of the great salespeople.

These are things that great salespeople still must do to earn trust and loyalty. I’d love to hear your examples of how you’ve built trust and loyalty with your customers.

Leave a comment or learn more at thefiveabilities.com. Hope to hear from you soon.

How to Ensure Your Sales Pipeline Keeps Flowing

May 8, 2025

A sales pipeline is made up of segments that align with The Five Abilities®, each of which must be flowing for business to thrive. As with a water pipe, if any segment is plugged, the whole pipe ceases to flow. The question you must always tackle is how to ensure your sales pipeline keeps flowing, which requires solving the varied problems that can block each stage of the pipe. Let’s review the five segments and the role they play in closing a sale.

VISABILITY – Being seen in the right way, at the right time, by the right people. (10%)

Being visible means you’ve created a suspicion of value in the mind of the customer, such that they ask to learn more from you. They’re curious. This is accomplished with marketing along with sales activity targeted at the needs of each customer in the pipe. This is where most sellers are most adept meaning it doesn’t greatly differentiate you from you competitors. This only clears 10 percent of your pipeline.

CREDABILITY – Showing superior expertise and experience. (10%)

To earn credibility, you demonstrate expertise as it applies to the customer’s problems. You educate customers on ways to advance their business thus earning the opportunity to advise them. Web content and in-person sales exchanges are meant to clear this part of the pipe and all your competitors do this. This also clears 10 percent of your pipeline.

VIABILITY – Solutions that fit the needs and readiness of both buyer and seller. (20%)

You have a product or service that solves problems that your customer has. You present your offering with clear logic and you convince the customer that success is achievable. You offer a viable offering for the customer and the customer is ready to succeed with your offering. This is where you begin to separate from every other offer out there therefore clearing another 20 percent of the pipeline.

Can you close now? Yes. If one or more of these things are true, you can close the sale with just 40 percent of the pipeline cleared.

• First to market – If you’re selling an innovative solution nobody else has yet, you can close at this point. (e.g. iPod)
• Monopoly – If you’re the only solution in a mature market, you can close now. (e.g. early Windows for the PC)
• Don’t care about repeat business – If your success doesn’t rely on loyal customers who will refer you to others—you can close now.

In the world of ultra-competitive, high-value, enterprise selling, these three things rarely exist and yet many sellers get stuck here rather than clearing the critical final two segments that earn lifelong customers.

No matter how good your offering, first to market and monopoly are short-lived, at best, and not welcomed, at worst. These rare situations often lead to complacency and they always bring strong competition making it hard to clear the way for ultra-profitable repeat business.

CAPABILITY – Deliver on the personal reasons people make business decisions. (30%)

Companies don’t make decisions, people do, and people make business decisions for personal reasons. The bigger the decision, the more personal it will be. The right decision is one that benefits the company and gives a personal win to the decision-maker. Increased profit leads to rewards for the decision-maker and key influencers. Smoother operations lead to greater simplicity for the customer’s team. New market share makes the decision-maker a change-agent. Help the customer earn that personal win and you’re on your way to winning a lifelong customer.

RELIABILITY – Be accountable especially when the unexpected happens. (30%)

Always expect the unexpected because this is when you shine. When your customer learns to rely on you no matter what, you’ve earned a lifelong customer. You’ve earned lifelong referrals and a friend no matter where their career takes them.

Being visible, credible, and viable gets you invited to play. Delivering personal wins for your customer and getting them to rely on you in all circumstances earns you lifelong customers.

VISABILITY – Being seen in the right way, at the right time, by the right people. (10%)

CREDABILITY – Showing superior expertise and experience. (10%)

VIABILITY – Solutions that fit the needs and readiness of both buyer and seller. (20%)

CAPABILITY – Deliver on the personal reasons people make business decisions. (30%)

RELIABILITY – Be accountable especially when the unexpected happens. (30%)

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