1Why this session is company-wide
This is your copy to keep. The gold Going deeper boxes go past what the session covers, for anyone who wants the fuller picture.
Most people at Hermetic do not carry a sales number, and this session is still for everyone, because the seven steps in it are how any conversation with a client gets from a question to a decision. A technician asked whether a five-year-old firewall should be replaced is in that conversation. A coordinator asked on the phone what a project would cost is in it. The steps are the same, and knowing them is what turns "I will find out and get back to you" into a question that moves the thing forward.
The method here comes from the Sandler Foundations course. The examples, and everything about how it applies here, are ours. The chapter PDFs are in the reference folder of this program if you want the source.
2What a selling system is
A selling system is the process by which an opportunity is taken from first contact to a finish, where the finish is either a signed agreement or a closed file. Both of those are finishes. An opportunity that is neither signed nor closed is not a result, and it is where most wasted effort sits.
A process is an ordered series of actions aimed at an end. It does not tell you the answer. It tells you what to do next, and in what order.
If you work tickets, you already run one. A bottom-up check on a network fault does not tell you what is broken. It tells you what to check first, what that rules out, and what to check after it, so two technicians working the same fault take the same path and can hand it to each other halfway through. A selling system does that for a conversation with a client.
Two properties make a system worth having:
| Property | What it means | What it looks like when it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| Effective | It reaches the outcome you were after | Conversations that are pleasant and end in nothing |
| Efficient | It reaches that outcome without spending time, effort and money it did not need to spend | An assessment and a proposal produced for a client who was never going to buy |
What you get for running one: you always know which step you are on, you know what the next question is instead of guessing, and you can hand the whole thing to somebody else in two minutes because you are both naming the same steps.
3What happens when nobody is running a process
A conversation without a process is not neutral. The buying side has habits of its own, and they are reasonable from where the buyer is sitting. Somebody comparing providers wants information, wants a number, and would rather not commit to anything before they have both.
Four moves, in this order, are the pattern:
- Take the meeting. It costs them an hour and commits them to nothing.
- Collect the advice. Ask the questions they have been sitting on. Twenty-two years of knowing how this goes wrong is worth having in the room, and it is free.
- Ask what it costs. Now there is a number to compare, and the comparison happens somewhere we are not.
- Go quiet. No decision has to be made, and no reason has to be given.
None of that is bad faith. It is what a reasonable person does when nobody has agreed what the meeting is for or what happens at the end of it. Every one of the four moves is answered by one of the seven steps, which is the reason to have them.
Sandler's name for one specific point: where you agree to produce a proposal, an assessment or a presentation before you know what the problem is costing the client, what they are able to invest, and how the decision actually gets made. Past that point you are working, and they are still deciding whether to have the conversation. It is worth having a name for, because it is the moment most opportunities are lost, and it always feels like progress at the time.
4The seven steps
Each step decides one thing. The name matters less than the decision.
| # | Step | What it decides | Covered in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bonding and rapport | Whether they are comfortable telling you the truth | Session 02 |
| 2 | Up-front contract | What this conversation is for, how long it runs, and what happens at the end of it | Session 03 |
| 3 | Pain | What the problem is actually costing them, and whether they want it solved | Sessions 04 and 05 |
| 4 | Budget | Whether they are willing and able to invest what solving it takes | Session 06 |
| 5 | Decision | Who decides, how, by when, and against what | Session 07 |
| 6 | Fulfillment | Whether what we propose solves the problem they described, for the money they named | Session 08 |
| 7 | Post-sell | Whether the decision holds after the meeting ends | Session 08 |
Steps three, four and five are the qualification steps. They answer whether there is a real problem, real money and a real decision. Steps six and seven happen only when all three are answered. A proposal written before then is priced on assumptions we made ourselves, and its accuracy is whatever we assumed.
The rule for placing an opportunity: you are on the earliest step that still has an unknown, not the latest step you have reached. A proposal sitting with a client who never told you their budget is on step four, whatever the pipeline says.
The steps are a sequence because each one depends on the one before it. You cannot get a truthful answer about money from somebody who is not comfortable with you, which is why rapport is first. You cannot tell whether a budget is realistic until you know what the problem is costing, which is why pain comes before budget. Running them out of order is not a shortcut, it just means answering later questions with worse information.
5The four results
Four outcomes count as a result. A yes is one of them.
| Result | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| A yes | The work, and a client |
| A no | Back the time you would have spent, plus the reason, which tells you something about the next one |
| A referral | Somebody else worth talking to, from a person who now knows what we do |
| A clear and well understood future | Both sides know exactly what happens next, who does it, and by when |
The no is the one people argue with, so work the arithmetic. A no in the first meeting costs one meeting. The same no reached after an assessment, a proposal and three follow-ups costs the meeting plus the assessment plus the proposal plus the follow-ups, and it arrives months later. The answer is identical. The difference is everything spent getting to it, and the other opportunities that time could have gone to.
The fourth result is the one that gets skipped. "I will follow up next week" is not a clear future. "You are taking this to your partner on Thursday, and you and I have fifteen minutes booked on Friday morning for your answer either way" is.
6Staying out of the way
The more you push a client toward a decision, the more they push back, and what they are pushing back against is the pushing rather than the offer. This is why a prospect who was warm in the meeting goes cold after the third follow-up email. The follow-ups did that.
What to do instead is the subject of session 05 in full. The short version: ask rather than tell, and let the client be the one who says they want to go ahead. You will meet the term negative reverse selling there, which is the name for deliberately taking the opposite side of what a salesperson is expected to push for, in order to get the truth on the table.
7Placing a live opportunity
Three questions place any opportunity. Write the real answer, or write that you do not know.
| Question | Step it answers | What counts as an answer |
|---|---|---|
| What is this costing them if nothing changes? | 3. Pain | Something specific: hours, outages, a missed deadline, a fine, staff turnover. Not "they want better IT" |
| What are they willing and able to invest? | 4. Budget | A number or a range they said out loud. Not a number we assumed they could afford |
| Who decides, how, and by when? | 5. Decision | Named people, the process, and a date. Not "the owner will decide" |
An opportunity with a proposal out and "do not know" against all three is on step three. That is where the work actually is, and the next action is a question rather than a follow-up.
8Practice on a live opportunity
- Pick one opportunity or client conversation you are in the middle of right now. If you do not carry a pipeline, use a project a client has asked you about.
- Write the three answers from section 7. Real answers or "do not know" for each.
- Place it on a step, using the earliest-unknown rule.
- Write one question, for one named person, that would fill the first gap. Not a follow-up message. A question that person can answer in a sentence.
- Write the seven steps out in order from memory and check them against section 4.
9Check for understanding
A prospect has had the assessment and the proposal and has gone quiet for three weeks. Which of the seven steps is this opportunity actually on, and what tells you?
A client says "send me a quote and I will look at it". What does agreeing to that immediately cost us, and what would you ask first?
Name the four outcomes that count as a result, and explain why a no in the first meeting is a better result than a maybe that runs four months.
A prospect is warm in the meeting and cools off after three follow-up emails. What is the most likely cause, and what is the obvious answer that is wrong?
A technician is asked by a client whether they should replace a five-year-old firewall. Where does that conversation sit in the seven steps, and what is the first thing to establish?
Why does a system make a conversation easier to review with somebody else afterwards?
10Before the next session
- Do the practice steps in section 8 and bring the opportunity you placed, the step you placed it on, and the one question you wrote.
- Know the seven steps in order from memory, and what each one decides.
- Optional. Chapter 1 of the Sandler Foundations workbook in the reference folder.
Next session. 02 - Bonding and Rapport. How people decide whether to trust the person in front of them, the four behavioral styles and how to spot each one in the first two minutes, and why our own vocabulary is the fastest way to make a client feel out of their depth.
11Glossary
- Selling system
- The process by which an opportunity is taken from first contact to a finish, where the finish is a signed agreement or a closed file.
- Effective
- Reaching the outcome you were after.
- Efficient
- Reaching it without spending time, effort and money it did not need.
- Qualification
- Steps three, four and five together: establishing that there is a real problem, real money, and a real decision.
- Wimp Junction
- The point where you agree to produce a proposal, assessment or presentation before pain, budget and decision are answered.
- Up-front contract
- An agreement made before a conversation about what it is for, how long it runs, and what happens at the end.
- Pain
- In this method, the compelling reason a client has to do something about a problem. Covered in session 04.
- Post-sell
- The step after a decision that keeps it from coming apart afterwards.
- Negative reverse selling
- Deliberately taking the opposite side of what a salesperson is expected to push for, to get the truth on the table. Covered in session 05.
- Clear and well understood future
- Both sides know what happens next, who does it, and by when.
12Sources
- Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations, chapter 1, Why Have a System: chapter PDF.
- Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations: full workbook PDF.
The seven steps, the four results and the term Wimp Junction are Sandler's. The worked examples, the four buying moves and everything about how this applies at Hermetic are ours.