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.
Everyone here has been surprised by a decision they were not part of. A technician three weeks into a project learns that the change window needs a compliance officer's approval, or that a practice partner has to agree to any downtime, or that the board meets once a quarter and the next meeting is in seven weeks. A coordinator schedules work with the person who asked for it and finds out the person who pays for it was never told. A salesperson sends a proposal and never hears back, because it went into a room nobody from here was in. That is one gap with one fix, and this session is the fix.
This session assumes sessions 01 to 06: the seven steps of the system, how people decide whether to trust you, the agreement made at the start of a conversation about what it is for and what happens at the end, the questions that establish what a problem is costing a client, and the conversation about whether they are willing and able to fund it. This is step five, the last of the three qualification steps, and nothing after it happens until it is finished.
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 this step establishes
Ask a prospect "are you the decision maker" and you will get a yes. Almost always, and almost always sincerely. The question can only be answered yes or no, and nobody describes themselves as one step in somebody else's sequence.
Here is what that yes can be hiding. An office manager at a medical practice tells you she handles IT. She does. She asked for the proposal, she wants the problem fixed, and she is the most useful person you have spoken to. The owner signs anything above a few thousand dollars, the two of them talk most Friday afternoons, and the last provider left with no notice, which is why he now asks to see other numbers. She has never said any of that out loud because nobody has ever asked her to describe the process, only to confirm her authority.
The person's name is one answer inside the process, and the process is what this step establishes. The decision step sets out how a decision gets made in that organization: who takes part, in what order, against what rule, in which room, by when, and for what reason.
The obvious objection is that this is a lot of asking for something people will tell you anyway. They will not. A process is invisible to the people inside it, because to them it is just how things are done. It becomes visible when somebody asks them to walk through it.
3The six questions
A news story is complete when it answers who, what, where, why, when and how. Miss one and there is a hole in the account. A decision process works the same way, and the same six questions describe it.
| Question | What you are after | What an answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Who is involved | Every person who touches the decision, not only the one who signs | "The practice manager writes it up, the two physician partners vote, and the billing company gets asked about anything that touches the practice management system" |
| What the process is | The sequence of events, end to end, in order | "We get two other numbers, she writes a one page comparison, it goes to the partners meeting, then accounting raises a purchase order" |
| How the decision is made | The rule they use to choose between options | "Both partners have to agree." "Lowest of the three." "Whichever provider our cyber insurance carrier will accept" |
| Where in the organization it happens | Which level and which room, and whether we will be in it | "At the monthly partners meeting." "Our parent company's IT director in another state signs anything above a threshold" |
| When it will happen | Real dates, and what sets them | "The partners meet the second Tuesday." "Our budget year ends in June." "The insurance renewal is in March, so it has to be before that" |
| Why it is done that way | What the process is protecting against | "A provider walked out on us mid contract three years ago." "Our accountant requires three quotes above a threshold" |
Two of those get dropped most often, and they are the two that change what you do.
How is the rule, and the rule decides what a good proposal looks like. If both partners have to agree, the quiet partner who has said nothing is the one to plan for. If the rule is the lowest of three numbers, a proposal that is better and higher loses, and you either change what is being compared or you decline.
Why tells you what the process is for. A practice that takes three quotes because a provider abandoned them is protecting against abandonment, and what wins is evidence that we will still be here: twenty-two years, a local team, named references. A practice that takes three quotes because their accountant requires it above a threshold is protecting a control, and what wins is a clean, comparable number that is easy to put next to two others. Same visible process, two completely different jobs to do.
The six also work backwards as a review. When something has gone quiet, take the six and mark each one known or unknown from what is actually in the Nutshell lead record, which is where we keep lead and contact history. Nutshell is our customer relationship management system, the CRM. Each unknown is a question you can still ask, and a question you can ask is more use than another follow-up message that asks the client to do the work.
4The shape of the step
Five parts, in order. It runs as a conversation, and the order is what keeps it one instead of turning into a list of questions read out.
| # | Part | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Review what pain and budget established | Puts them back in a conversation they have already agreed to, and confirms you have it right |
| 2 | Open with one open-ended question | Gets them describing the process instead of confirming their authority |
| 3 | Keep the client talking | Fills in the six, mostly through short prompts and silence |
| 4 | Qualify, disqualify, or find that another meeting is needed | Decides what this opportunity is, today, out loud |
| 5 | Agree the next meeting | Names who is in it, when, how long, and what comes out of it |
Part one is two sentences and a check. What the problem is costing them, in their words, the figure they named, and "have I got that right". Pain, in this method, is the specific thing a problem is costing a client and their reason to act on it.
Part two is one question, and it has to be open-ended, meaning it cannot be answered with a yes or a no. "Walk me through how a decision like this gets made here." Compare that with "are you the decision maker", which has two possible answers and neither of them tells you anything.
Part three is mostly not talking. Short prompts: what happens then, who sees it at that point, how did the last one of these go, what happened the last time you changed providers. Then stop. The silence after a short question is what produces the detail, and filling it with your own guess about how they probably decide ends the answer you were about to get.
Part five is an up-front contract, which is an agreement made before a conversation about what it is for, who is in it, how long it runs and what happens at the end. Every version of this step ends in one, including the version where you have decided to close the file, because that gets agreed out loud too.
5The three outcomes
There are three ways this step ends and no fourth. Naming which one you are in is the point of part four.
| Outcome | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Disqualified | There is no decision process here we can take part in, or none anybody will describe | Say so, close the file with the reason, ask for a referral, set one trigger to revisit |
| Other people are involved that you have not met | The ordinary outcome. The decision happens partly in a room you have not been in | Find out what those people care about, then book the meeting with them in it |
| Qualified | Problem, money and a decision process you are willing to join are all established | Ask "what should happen next?" and let them say it, then set up the presentation |
Disqualified is the one people avoid, so it needs a procedure. Reasons it happens: the prospect belongs to a parent company that buys only from an approved vendor list we are not on; the decision is already made and we are the third number a policy requires; nobody will describe the process at all. What to do, in this order. Tell the client plainly and thank them. Close the file in Nutshell with the actual reason written in the record, not "no response". Ask whether they know anybody else worth talking to, since a referral is one of the four outcomes that count as a result, along with a yes, a no, and a clear and well understood future where both sides know what happens next and by when. Then set one trigger to come back on, tied to an event such as the incumbent's agreement ending, rather than a date picked at random.
The reason to be strict about this is time. An opportunity that stays in the pipeline as "nurturing" with no process behind it costs a follow-up every few weeks forever and never produces an answer. Closing it returns that time to opportunities that can end in something.
The middle outcome is not a failure. Most deals worth having involve somebody you have not met. The mistake is handing your proposal to the person in front of you and hoping they present it accurately to people whose objections you have never heard. Ask what each of those people cares about, what they are likely to push back on, and what this person's own part in the decision is. Then get the meeting.
6When the person you are talking to does not decide
The most common version of this at an MSP, a managed services provider, which is what we are: the person who contacted us, described the problem, sat through the assessment and asked for the proposal turns out not to own the budget. They are an office manager, an operations lead, or the person who has been holding IT together as half of their job. They are not misleading anybody. They asked for the proposal because they want it, and they said they would take it to the owner because that is what they are going to do.
Look at what the six questions would have produced in that conversation. Who names the owner. How shows that she recommends and he approves. Where shows the decision happens in a Friday afternoon conversation we are not in. When gives the timing. All four answers exist before the proposal is written instead of after it goes quiet.
The fix is not to go around her. She is the only advocate you have, she knows what the owner will object to, and she is the person who can get you in the room. What you ask is: what will he want to know, what has he pushed back on before, what part do you play in the decision yourself, and can the three of us sit down together.
The same thing happens inside project work, which is why this session is for everyone. A technician scoping a firewall replacement agrees the change window with the operations lead. Three weeks later, at the cutover, a compliance officer has to sign off and is not available for ten days. The six questions asked at kickoff would have found that: who else has to approve this, when do they meet, what do they look at, and why does it work that way. Ask them at the project kickoff and at the business technology review, or BTR, which is the recurring account meeting we hold with a client. Then write the answers in the Syncro ticket and the client's Hudu record. Syncro is our ticketing system, Hudu is where client documentation lives. The next person to schedule a change on that network then finds the answer instead of discovering it.
Notice that this is the same failure in both cases, which is why it is worth learning once. The work was agreed with the person who wanted it, by somebody who assumed that wanting it and being able to authorize it were the same thing. In a sale that costs a proposal. In a project it costs a change window, an evening of somebody's time, and a client's confidence in the schedule we gave them. The question that prevents both is the same question.
7The three conditions before a proposal
An opportunity is ready for a proposal when all three of these are true. Not two.
| Condition | What it means | Established in |
|---|---|---|
| A problem we can solve | A specific cost they described, and one our services actually remove | Sessions 04 and 05 |
| Money that covers it | A figure or a range they said out loud that the work fits inside, and where it comes from | Session 06 |
| A decision process we are willing to take part in | The six questions answered, and a process we are prepared to join | This session |
The word that carries weight in the third one is willing. A process where we submit a number, never meet anybody, and find out the result by email is a process we are allowed to decline. So is one where the rule is lowest price and we already know what our number is. Declining puts the proposal hours on an opportunity that can end in an answer.
When all three hold, ask one question and then stop: "What should happen next?" Let the client name the next step. A client who says "send me the proposal and let's get the owner in for a walkthrough" has just made your case for you inside their own organization, which is worth more than the same sentence coming from us.
8The agreement before a presentation
This is the part of the session to get right. Before a presentation, a proposal walkthrough or a demonstration goes in anybody's calendar, four things get agreed.
- What form it takes. A walkthrough of the proposal in PandaDoc, which is where our proposals and agreements live. A live demonstration. A document sent in advance and discussed. Agreeing this stops you preparing the wrong thing.
- Who attends and what part each of them plays. Names and roles. Who recommends, who approves, who can stop it, who is there because they will have to live with it.
- How long there is. An hour is a different presentation from twenty minutes, and finding that out in the room means cutting the part that mattered.
- What decision gets made at the end of it. A yes or a no.
The fourth is the one that gets skipped, and it is the one this session is for. Here is how it gets agreed, in words you can use as they are:
"If we walk through this, and every question you have is answered, and you are happy with what we are proposing, what happens then?"
Then be quiet and listen to the answer. If it is "we would move ahead", you have a meeting that produces a decision. If it is "we would think about it", that is the thing to settle now, in this conversation, rather than discovering it after the presentation. What you say next is that you would much rather hear a no on the day than a maybe, and that either answer is a good use of everybody's hour. Then ask whether the people who will be in the room can give one, and if they cannot, who can, and get that person into it.
The obvious objection is that asking for a no invites one. It does the opposite. A client who agrees in advance to give you an answer will give you an answer, and a client who will not agree to that was never going to give you one afterwards either. The only thing that changes is whether you find out before you spend the preparation or after.
Compare the two endings by what they cost. A presentation that ends in a no costs the preparation and the hour, and you know today. A presentation that ends in "we will think about it" costs the preparation, the hour, and then a follow-up cycle that runs as long as you are willing to keep it running, ending most of the time at the same no. Both usually end at the same answer. What differs is how many weeks of somebody's attention are spent arriving at it, and what those weeks could have been spent on instead.
9Practice on a live opportunity
- Pick one opportunity, one project being scoped, or one client who has asked you about a replacement. If you do not carry a pipeline, use the project.
- Write the exact words of your opening question. Open-ended, so it cannot be answered yes or no. Write what you will say, not a description of it.
- Write the decision map: six lines, one for each question, with the real answer or the word unknown. Be honest about the unknowns, since they are the point of the exercise.
- Write the outcome in one word: disqualified, others involved, or qualified. Check it against the three conditions before you write qualified.
- If others are involved, write their names, what each one cares about, and what they are likely to push back on.
- If it is qualified, write the four things you will agree before the presentation, including the sentence that gets a yes or a no agreed in advance.
- If it is disqualified, write the sentence you will say to the client, the reason that goes in the record, and the one event that would make it worth revisiting.
- Put the answers where somebody else can find them: the Nutshell lead record for an opportunity, or the Syncro ticket and the client's Hudu record for a project.
10Check for understanding
You ask a prospect "are you the decision maker" and get a confident yes. Why is that yes not an answer to this step, and what question replaces it?
A prospect agrees to a presentation next Thursday. The owner, the office manager and the bookkeeper will be there and you have an hour. Is this opportunity ready to present to?
You learn that the prospect belongs to a parent company that buys only from an approved vendor list, and getting on that list is not possible this year. Which of the three outcomes is that, and what do you actually do?
Pain is established, the client named a figure that covers the work, and they will not describe how a decision gets made. Can you write the proposal?
An office manager asked for the proposal and says she will take it to the owner, whom you have never met. Which of the six questions would have surfaced that earlier, and what do you ask her now?
Three weeks into a firewall replacement, a technician learns that a compliance officer has to approve the change window. Which of the six questions was never asked, when should it have been, and where does the answer get written down?
11Before the next session
- Do the practice steps in section 9 and bring the decision map, the outcome in one word, and the sentence you would use to get a yes or a no agreed in advance.
- Write one decision answer where it lives, in a Nutshell lead record, a Syncro ticket or a Hudu record, so it is not only in your notebook.
- Optional. Chapter 7 of the Sandler Foundations workbook in the reference folder.
Next session. 08 - Fulfillment and Post-Sell. Presenting only what the client told you they needed, in the language they used, and the work that happens after a yes so the decision holds when somebody else gets a vote on it later.
12Glossary
- Decision step
- Step five of the seven. Establishing how a decision gets made in that organization: who takes part, in what order, against what rule, in which room, by when, and why.
- The six questions
- Who is involved, what the process is, how the decision is made, where in the organization it happens, when it will happen, and why it is done that way.
- Open-ended question
- A question that cannot be answered with a yes or a no, so the answer has to be a description.
- Qualified
- All three conditions true: a problem we can solve, money that covers it, and a decision process we are willing to take part in.
- Disqualified
- No decision process we can take part in, or none anybody will describe. The file is closed with the reason written in it.
- Up-front contract
- An agreement made before a conversation about what it is for, who is in it, how long it runs, and what happens at the end.
- Pain
- The specific thing a problem is costing a client and their reason to act on it. Covered in sessions 04 and 05.
- The four results
- A yes, a no, a referral, and a clear and well understood future where both sides know what happens next and by when.
- Presentation agreement
- The four things settled before a presentation is booked: its form, who attends and their roles, how long there is, and that it ends in a yes or a no.
- BTR
- Business technology review. The recurring account meeting we hold with a client.
- MSP
- Managed services provider. What we are.
13Sources
- Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations, chapter 7, Identifying the Prospect's Decision Making Process: chapter PDF.
- Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations: full workbook PDF.
The decision step, the six elements, the three outcomes, the three conditions for moving to fulfillment and the question asked before a presentation are Sandler's. The worked examples, the decision map, the project kickoff application and everything about how this applies at Hermetic are ours.