What is Client Builder Selling?

The Client Builder Selling process is a selling system tailor-made for businesses that sell solutions to problems, regardless of whether those solutions come in the form of products or services.  It’s also a selling system that recognizes the realities of doing business in today’s highly competitive, hyperactive economy.

In developing this system we drew on the insight and knowledge of some of the best selling minds in the world – people like Neil Rackham, Jeff Thule, Bill Brooks, Art Sobczak, and the Miller-Heiman organization among others – and we have incorporated the most effective selling strategies and tactics known today into our process.  Our proven, principled approach to selling is honest and straightforward and equally beneficial to parties on both sides of a transaction.  In short, it’s a selling system that works.

At the core of the Client Builder Selling process is a series of seven steps held together by something we call Advance Agreements.

Step 1 – Preparation: The objective of the preparation step is to gather sufficient information about your market and the individual prospects within it to begin to qualify a particular prospect and make the very best possible impression on your initial sales call.

Step 2 – Diagnosis: The diagnosis step is where you determine whether your prospect has “pain” – a compelling, personal, emotional reason to acquire your product or service. You not only need to ascertain whether your prospect has a problem that you can help solve or an opportunity that you can help them capture, but also whether they acknowledge these problems and opportunities and feel that they are compelling enough to take action.

Step 3 – Investment: The goal of the investment step is to reach an agreement with your prospect that they are not only able, but willing to make the necessary investment to fix the problems that you uncovered in the diagnosis.

Step 4 – Decision Process: Although the questions asked in this step are extraordinarily simple they are often overlooked.  As a result, salespeople frequently find themselves presenting to people who do not have the authority to make decisions.  In the decision process step our objective is to uncover the who, how, when, why and what of the prospect’s decision process.

Step 5 – Commitment: We frequently invest lots of time, energy and money in the preparation of proposals or presentations they give to prospects. Before investing this time and effort, you want to make certain that your prospect is committed – committed to solving the problems you helped them uncover in the diagnosis step, committed to investing the time, money and effort needed to gain your solution, and committed to making a decision in timely manner.

Step 6 – Presentation: The presentation step is where you bring a deal to outcome by delivering the proof your prospect needs to make a decision and asking for that decision.  Believe it or not, the presentation step is often the shortest step in the entire process.   The decision to buy is typically made long before you get to this step and many times a presentation isn’t even necessary.

Step 7 – Confirmation: In the confirmation step you strengthen your agreement with the buyer and eliminate any lingering “buyer’s remorse”.  It is also where you should establish the expectations you have for one another and how any failure to meet those expectations will be handled.

Advance Agreements: Advance Agreements are the mortar that holds the selling process together.  They are specific understandings between buyer and seller as to what will take place at each and every step along the way from initial contact to closing.

There are three simple rules for following our sales process:

  1. Never skip a step to get to any other step.
  2. Make sure you and your prospect are in the same step at the same time.
  3. Don’t leave a step until you are sure that you have completed that step.

Without a process, you are at the prospect’s mercy.  Without a process, whatever sales you do close will be random collisions of the prospect’s pain and blind luck.  Without a process, you won’t know how to allocate your time and energy.  Without a process, you simply cannot be effective today.

You probably have a system or a process for running every other aspect of your business.  Businesses operate according to processes in order to save time, reduce mistakes and maximize effectiveness.  The sales department shouldn’t be any different.  To save time, reduce mistakes and maximize effectiveness, you and your salespeople should use a sales process as well.

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