03 - Up-Front Contracts - Learner Guide

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.

You can use this one tomorrow whatever seat you are in, because everybody here books meetings. A technician schedules a remote session with a user. Intake books a triage call. Account management runs a business technology review, which is the recurring meeting with a client about their environment. Two people run first meetings with prospects. Every one of those can be agreed in advance, and the thirty seconds it takes is the difference between a meeting that ends in a decision and one that ends in "let me get back to you".

Two things carry over from the sessions before this one. From session 01: an opportunity is worked through seven steps, and the second of them is this one. From session 02: people tell you the truth in proportion to how comfortable they are with you, and this agreement is one of the things that makes them comfortable, because it removes the question of what you are about to do to them.

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 an up-front contract is

An up-front contract is an agreement reached before a meeting about exactly what will happen in it, so that neither side leaves with a different idea of what took place. Nothing is signed and nothing is filed. It is thirty seconds spoken at the start of a call, or two sentences in the email that confirms the meeting.

The word contract sounds heavy for a half-hour call, and it is worth saying why it is the right word. An agenda is announced. A contract is agreed. The difference is one sentence at the end where you stop, ask whether that works or whether they want to add anything, and wait for the answer. Without that sentence you have told somebody what you intend to do, which is not the same as both of you knowing what is going to happen.

Here is one, in full, for a scheduled remote session:

Worked example

"I have got you down for two thirty and I have set aside thirty minutes, so we finish at three. What we are fixing is the Outlook profile that keeps asking for your password. You are probably going to want to know why it started and whether it comes back, and I will tell you both at the end. What I need from you is to be at the machine with it unlocked, and about ten minutes in the middle where you cannot type. By three you will have either a working profile, or a straight answer on what is causing it and a time booked to fix it. If it is going to take longer than thirty minutes I will tell you at the twenty-minute mark rather than running over on you. Does that work, or is there something else you wanted to get to while I am in there?"

Every part of the method is in that paragraph. The sections below take it apart, and show where else it goes.

3The five elements

Five things get agreed. The example above has all five in it.

The five elements, and what each one prevents
#	Element	What you say	What it prevents
1	Purpose	Why the meeting is happening, in one sentence, and what it moves forward	A meeting nobody in it can say the reason for, and a meeting that quietly becomes about something else
2	Their agenda and expectations	What they want out of it, and what they are expecting you to bring	The question at the end you were not ready for, and the presentation nobody built
3	Our agenda and expectations	What you will be doing in it, and what you need from them to do it	Getting to the end and finding you still cannot act, because the information or the person was never there
4	Time	Date, time, length, and where, with enough time to actually cover it	The thirty-minute session that takes ninety, and the meeting cut off with the important part still unsaid
5	Outcome	The two or three ways this meeting can end, said out loud, including the one where we stop	Everybody leaving without a decision, and the follow-up that goes nowhere

The third element is the one most people leave out and it is the expensive one. Saying what you will be doing is easy. Saying what you need from them, by name, before the meeting starts, is what stops you arriving at an onsite visit to find the network closet locked and the one person with the keys out until Thursday.

The rule is that both sides have to agree to the outcome, not only to the fact that the meeting is happening.

4Where they are used, and when

The name is the most misread part of this. Up front does not mean before the first meeting. It means before every meeting and every contact, including the twelfth one with a client we have had for six years. A meeting with somebody you know well still has five elements, and familiarity is exactly when people stop agreeing them.

Make one:

On the phone, before a first meeting. The call that books the meeting is where the meeting gets agreed, not where you only find a time.
Before any meeting at all. Internal, external, thirty minutes, four hours.
At the start of each step of the system. Asking a client what a problem is costing them is a different conversation from asking who signs, and each gets its own agreement.
At the end of a sale. Additional work, future work and referrals get their own agreement rather than being tacked onto a signing.
At the end of every meeting. The last ninety seconds are where the next meeting is set up, while both people are still in the room.

That last one is the habit worth building first, because it costs nothing and removes the most work. If the next meeting is agreed before anyone stands up, with a purpose, a length and a decision attached to it, nobody has to chase anybody for a date.

Going deeper

This is step two of the seven for a reason. Each of the later steps asks the client for something they would not hand to a stranger: what a problem is really costing them, what they can spend, who actually decides. A person answers those when they know what the answers get used for and when the conversation ends, which is exactly what this agreement tells them.

5What goes wrong without one

Three failures, in order of what they cost.

Failure	What it looks like here
Conflicting expectations	Both sides came for a different meeting. You came to scope a project, they came to talk about last month's tickets, and the hour goes on deciding which meeting it is
A presentation nobody prepared	They expected you to walk them through options, pricing or a plan. Nobody agreed that, so it does not exist, and now the meeting is about that instead of about the work
Free consulting	They ask the questions they have been saving, you answer them because answering is what we do, and at the end nothing has been agreed about what happens next

The third one shows up well outside sales, and it is caused by helpfulness rather than by a difficult client. A user on a thirty-minute remote session raises three other things while you are connected, and each answer is genuinely worth having. The fix is not to refuse them. The fix is to have said at the start what the thirty minutes covers, so that adding the other three is a decision the two of you make out loud, with the time named, instead of something that happens to the clock.

Session 01 named the point where an opportunity goes wrong: producing a proposal, an assessment or a presentation before you know what the problem is costing the client, what they can invest and how the decision gets made. The agreement that keeps you on the right side of that point is made before the meeting, not rescued during it. Without it, the person with the clearer idea of what the meeting is for ends up running it, and that is usually not us.

6The four-part opening

For a first meeting with a prospect, there is a form for saying the five elements out loud in an order that sounds like a person talking. Read the example first.

Worked example

"I appreciate you making the time. We have got Thursday at ten and we said forty-five minutes, so we are done by a quarter to eleven, and the reason for it is to work out whether the way we run IT is a fit for what you are dealing with. Naturally you are going to have questions for me: who we are, how long we have been at this, the kind of organizations we work with, and what we actually do day to day. Obviously I am going to have questions for you: how things are set up now, what is breaking, what it costs you when it breaks, and who else cares about the answer. Typically this ends one of two ways. Either you look at it and decide it is not a fit, and I would honestly rather hear that on Thursday than have you be polite about it, or you decide it is worth going further and we agree the next step before you leave. What I want to avoid is finishing and neither of us knowing where we stand. Does that work, or is there something you want to add?"

What that was, in four parts, in that order:

The four parts, and what each one carries
Part	What it does	What it carries
Appreciate	Thank them and confirm the meeting	The date, the time, the length, and the purpose
Naturally	Name the questions they will have for us	Our background, the kind of organizations we help, what we do, what clients get out of it
Obviously	Name the questions we will have for them	Their setup, how they work, and the main issues they are facing
Typically	Name the ways the meeting can end	Not a fit, said plainly and welcomed, or a fit, and then the next step

Those four are the same five elements in a different order, with purpose and time folded into the first part. Sandler's shorthand for the four, taken from the first letter of each word, is ANOT. The shorthand is only worth the one mention. What you use is the four words.

The fourth part is the one that gets softened, and softening it is what produces a maybe. Both endings have to be said out loud. If the only ending you offer is the good one, the client has no permission to give you the other one, so instead of a no they give you the thing that sounds kinder and costs more: they will think about it and get back to you.

Going deeper

Naming the bad ending yourself removes the thing the other person is quietly braced for, which is being talked into something. That is why a meeting opened this way gets straighter answers later in it: a no has already been shown to be allowed, so the smaller truths on the way there cost less to say.

7Four settings that are not a sales call

Same five elements. Different lengths, different words. Read the one that matches a meeting you have this week.

The start of a business technology review

"Thanks for the hour, we have got you from nine to ten. What I want out of it is agreement on what we are doing with your environment for the next quarter. I know you will want to go through the tickets from the last three months and the renewal that is coming up. What I am going to walk you through is the roadmap and the two risks I have flagged, and what I need from you is a straight answer on whether the budget for the server replacement is real for this fiscal year. By ten I want a yes or a no on each of the three roadmap items, and whatever we land on, we put the next review on the calendar before we leave. Anything you want added to that?"

The start of a scheduled remote session with a user

The full version is in section 2 above. The line worth stealing from it is the checkpoint inside the time: if the session is going to run past thirty minutes, you say so at the twenty-minute mark rather than at thirty-five.

Before an onsite project visit

"We are on site Tuesday from eight to noon, so four hours, and the job is cutting the office over to the new switch. What I need from you: someone with keys at a quarter to eight, the network closet cleared out, and everybody off the shared drive between eight and nine. What you get from me: the cutover done and tested by eleven, and the last hour to walk it with you. At noon we either sign the job off, or we write down what is left and book when we come back for it. Does that fit with what your people are expecting?"

On the phone at intake, booking a triage call

"Before I book this, let me make sure we are agreeing to the same thing. I will call you back at one thirty and I have got fifteen minutes, so we are done by one forty-five. In that time I am going to ask what changed, when it started and who else has it, and I need you sat at the machine. What you get at the end of the fifteen minutes is one of three things: it is fixed, it goes to a technician with a time on the calendar, or it goes on site. What I will not be able to do on that call is price the new workstation for you, because that is a different conversation and I would rather book it properly. Does one thirty still work?"

Notice what the intake one does that the others do not: it says what the call will not cover. That sentence is the free consulting problem, handled before the call starts rather than during it.

8Thirty seconds spoken, two sentences by email

The five elements do not need a paragraph each. They fit in thirty seconds of speech, and they fit in two sentences of email. Both versions below are the same meeting: a short call with a client about a phone system project that has been sitting.

Spoken, about thirty seconds

"We have got twenty minutes at two. What I want to come out of it with is whether the phone system project is still on for this year. You are going to want to know what the numbers look like now, and I have those. What I need from you is who signs it and by when. At the end of the twenty minutes it is either on, and we book the scoping visit, or it is off, and I will stop bringing it up. Does that work?"

Written, two sentences

"Confirming Tuesday at 2:00 for twenty minutes, to settle whether the phone system project goes ahead this year: I will bring current pricing, and I will need to know who signs and by when. By 2:20 we will have either agreed it is on, and booked the scoping visit, or agreed it is off for this year, which is a fine answer and saves us both the chasing."

Count the elements in either one: purpose, their agenda, our agenda and what we need, time, and two outcomes including the one where we stop. Use the written version when the meeting was booked by email and you will not speak to them before it starts, which for most of us is most meetings.

9Practice on a real meeting

One rule decides what you write in the outcome line. Every intermediate meeting ends in a decision, and the decision is whether to go on or stop. Not whether to buy, unless this is the meeting where that gets decided. Session 01 named four outcomes that count as a result: a yes, a no, a referral, and a clear and well understood future where both sides know what happens next, who does it and by when. A maybe is not one of them, and a meeting with no agreed outcome produces one almost every time. In a technical seat the same rule reads: a remote session ends with the issue fixed, or with a named cause and a time booked. It does not end with "I will keep an eye on it".

Pick one real meeting on your calendar in the next seven days. Any kind. If you have none, use the next ticket you will schedule time on.
Write the five elements for it in full sentences: purpose, their agenda and what they expect from you, your agenda and what you need from them, the time including when it ends, and the two ways it can end.
Compress it to a thirty-second spoken version and write that out word for word, in the words you would actually use. Not bullet points, which are hard to speak from once the call is live.
Say it out loud to somebody. Have them push back on one thing: the time, the agenda or the outcome. Put their change in and then say the whole contract again with the change in it.
Use it on the real meeting. Write down in one line what the other person said back when you asked whether it worked.
Write the two-sentence email version for a different meeting, and send it.

10Check for understanding

A business technology review ends and the client says "send me some options and I will take a look". What was missing from the agreement at the start of that meeting, and what do you say before they leave the room?
Somebody says up-front contracts are a sales technique and have nothing to do with a scheduled thirty-minute remote session to fix a user's Outlook profile. Answer them by filling in all five elements for that session.
At the end of a first meeting a prospect says "this looks good, let me think it over and I will get back to you". Is that an acceptable outcome? Say what the obvious answer is and why it is wrong.
A remote session booked for thirty minutes runs to ninety because the user raised three other problems while the technician was connected. Which element was missing, and which one would have stopped it first?
In the four-part opening, the second and third parts both list questions. Whose questions are which, and what happens if only one of the two is delivered?
Why does the contract have to be agreed rather than announced, and what do you do when the other side adds something you were not planning to cover?

11Before the next session

Do the practice steps in section 9 and bring the meeting you wrote it for, the thirty-second version word for word, and the one line of what the other person said back.
Write one two-sentence email version and send it on a real meeting.
Know the five elements in order and the four parts of the opening: appreciate, naturally, obviously, typically.
Optional. Chapter 3 of the Sandler Foundations workbook in the reference folder.

Next session. 04 - Identifying Pain. How to find out what a problem is actually costing a client rather than what they say about it, why an opportunity where the client has no real problem does not close and the time spent on it is gone, and the questions that get from a stated complaint to the reason somebody would spend money on it.

12Glossary

Up-front contract: An agreement reached before a meeting about exactly what will happen in it, so neither side leaves with a different idea of what took place.
The five elements: Purpose, their agenda and expectations, our agenda and expectations, time, and outcome. Set out in full in section 3.
Outcome: The fifth element, and the one most often left out. The ways the meeting can end, said out loud in advance, including the one where we stop.
ANOT: Shorthand for the four-part opening: appreciate, naturally, obviously, typically.
Intermediate meeting: Any meeting before the one where the final decision is made. It still ends in a decision, which is whether to go on or stop.
Free consulting: Answering the questions somebody has been saving up, with nothing agreed about what happens next.
Business technology review: The recurring meeting with a client about their environment, their tickets, the roadmap and the risks.
Clear and well understood future: Both sides know what happens next, who does it, and by when.

13Sources

Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations, chapter 3, Making Up-Front Contracts: chapter PDF.
Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations: full workbook PDF.

The term up-front contract, the five elements and the four-part opening of appreciate, naturally, obviously and typically are Sandler's. The worked scripts, the four Hermetic settings, and the thirty-second and two-sentence versions are ours.