“I spent a lot of time with a prospective client. It seemed that we had solid rapport, and yet, after I sent them a proposal, they ghosted me. Not a word, even though I followed up nicely.
Susan, I think it’s time I learned more about the why and the how of your Choice Framework.”
This lawyer is not alone in being ghosted or ignored by prospects and clients considering new projects.
The Power of choice
We humans are funny. We vacillate between tons of confidence and lack of confidence, many times about the same question!
When it comes to deciding to get professional or business services, this confidence phobia often rears its ugly head.
When a provider proposes one way forward—a take-it-or-leave-it offer—the confidence demon has a field day.
The prospect actually has two offers; yours and the option of continuing to do what they’ve been doing.
Here’s where the devil they know feels like zero risk. Your offer feels highly risky. The safe way, the confident way, is to just decline your offer.
However, when you give them 3 options, their confidence soars.
They can assess and compare the offers in their own mind. and make a list of pros and cons for each one if they like. They can determine the value both in terms of the IMPACTs you’ll deliver and the fee to do so. Continuing to do what they’re currently doing isn’t such an easy choice.
Gather input for the choices
People come to you for some reason. When you use my 6 Getting to Know You Questions, you’ll find out what that reason is.
Don’t stop there though.
Gather more input in order to effectively design your 3 offers.
Use the quad chart
This very simple quad chart is all you need to do this.
My IBP 4-Pack, which you can download from my website, includes a more detailed version of this.
But this simple version is all you need to know to immediately start gathering input for your offers.
Once they’ve told you what is going on that made them call you, use the Quad Chart.
For example, the lawyer who was ghosted learned that the prospect was considering acquiring another company. The lawyer proposed representing him when he found a business he was interested in. This was his one offer.
If the lawyer had used the quad chart, he would have asked the business owner:
Is an acquisition something you’d like to do (or, is not having another company an inconvenience/annoyance) or is an acquisition on your Critical path?
The Owner would have said Critical path. Then the lawyer would have asked, “are you making progress on this, or do you feel stuck?”
The Owner may have said something like “I’ve found a couple of companies I was interested in, but the current owners have lawyers, and they won’t talk to me because I don’t have one. I couldn’t even find out the most basic things about the company. So yes, I’m stuck.”
There is a gold mine of information in just this short exchange. The lawyer would likely have encouraged the Owner to “tell me more” and the Owner would have.
Use their answers
You need all of this input directly from the prospective client to design your three offers.
Remember, the key to IMPACT Based Pricing is to describe the life changing differences you will deliver to the client.
For the IMPACT PLUS offer, the life changing difference could be having a very high level of confidence that the outcome of a buy/no-buy decision is the right one. Why is this a PLUS offer? Because the Owner would be better off walking away from a potential acquisition than buying one where there were any doubts.
Included in this offer is the commitment that the lawyer will compare several potential acquisitions within a specified time frame to find the best one.
For the IMPACT offer the lawyer would represent the owner for one potential acquisition in a specified time frame. The owner could have confidence in the buy/no buy decision for that one company.
For the IMPACT Light offer, the lawyer has options. He could help the Owner assess several acquisition targets which enables the Owner to target the best one. Or the lawyer could help the owner understand the whole scope of work that an acquisition entails. Many owners do not know this. The lawyer could offer to introduce the owner to trusted financial advisors, lenders, or estate planners.
Don’t be resigned to ghosting
Clients of Trivers Consulting Group enjoy a very high rate of acceptance of one of their offers when they use the Choice Framework and design their IMPACT PLUS, IMPACT, and IMPACT Light offers meaningfully.
If you need help using the quad chart, please don’t suffer in silence. I welcome all inquiries no matter what business growth area (revenue, profit, pricing, choice framework, exit preparation) you’re thinking about.
I practice what I advise. We’ll talk through the 6 Questions; the Issue Chart and Continuum of IMPACT and I will use the Choice Framework to demonstrate the life changing differences I will deliver to you.
Text TALK to 703-801-0345.
