Step 9: Option Presentation

Written by on December 11, 2015 / 60 Second Sale

The next step in the process is step 9: Option Presentation.

Step Nine: Option Presentation

This step will change your life. Most of the time when I work with sales people, they have a very straight-forward, yes or no proposition for their clients. Well you never want to offer your client just a yes or a no, because you’re giving your client a change to walk away from a possibly great deal. What you want to do, is you want to offer your client, always, always offer your client three sets of options. Three sets of options.

The first set of options is going to be exactly what the client needs. Remember in our previous step, we discussed how you’d get to the bottom of the client’s needs. How you’d uncover specifically what they needed and you’d help them understand their needs and want your solution. Well that’s always going to be option one and you’re going to give them option one exactly in their budget range. You’ll also remember in our previous steps, we qualified the client to determine that they had the money to be able to afford your services. So you’re going to want to give them option one right in their budget range.

Now option two is going to be a little bit more than they wanted, but definitely something that will fill a need that’s coming down the road. If you’ve done a really good job in the WANABE Step you’ve uncovered all the needs that your client has and in option two you’re going to help them head off a future need, they may not have even of seen. You’re going to need to introduce this contingency, this future need, and help them understand the value in working with you to head that off. So in option two, the investment the client will make, is going to be about twenty-five to thirty percent more than the investment in option one.

Then in option three, you’re going to give them an enormous amount of value. More value than they ever dreamed possible. You are going to give them value for an extended period of time and you’re going to help them not only head off the need that you identified, but also many other future needs. Option three should always be the home-run option for you. That’s the home-run, knock it out of the park option. Option three is going to be at least a hundred percent more, one hundred percent more than option number one.

Let me give you some examples to make this concrete for you. In my world, in the world of consulting, we would uncover the needs that client the client has and we would make a proposal for a service that exactly meets their needs and their expectations. Provides them with a tremendous amount of value, but exactly meets their needs and their expectations and that would be for exactly the budget amount we agreed to in advance.

Option two would be meeting the need and let’s say it was for developing a consultative interview that would help them hire sales people, option two would be for us to consult on the hiring of the first fifteen sales people, so we can walk them through using the interview. Not only are we developing the interview, but we’re also testing it and walking them through using it. That’s added value. So if option one was ten dollars, option two would be thirteen, fifteen, twenty-five dollars even. It would me more, but not overwhelmingly more.

Then option three would be the home-run option. Option three would be at least a hundred percent more, so if option one was developing a consultative interview to hire sales people. Option two was helping them with the first ten, fifteen people they interviewed and diagnosing how they were using it. Training them on the use of it. Option three would be, we would do all the interviews and make recommendations. We would do the interviews. We would outsource the whole process. If option one was ten dollars, option two was thirteen dollars, fifteen dollars, then option three would be forty-five dollars, fifty dollars per interview.

You see how this can help you make more money quickly, but you also see the value this is providing to the client. Enormous amount of value. Option one-exactly what they want and need. Option two- what they want, what they need, and meeting some future need down the road. Then option three is the whole package. It’s a home-run for you and huge value for the client.

Those are the options that you present, but what happens if you’re not in consulting? That’s probably what you’re thinking right now. What happens if you’re just selling copiers let’s say. How do you use this three option approach if you’re selling a product and even a commoditized product? Here’s how you do it.

In option one you give them exactly the copier they wanted and for the price that you agreed on. For the budgeted price. Option two would be the copier that they wanted for the budgeted price, but with a service agreement included that would cover perhaps a year. Option three would be the copier that they wanted at the budgeted price, with a service agreement for say three years, but they’d have the option to upgrade their copier any time after the second year, to a newer more efficient model. This is a phenomenal way to do business, because you’re always on the side of the client. The client always feels like your interests and their interests are in perfect alignment.

Here’s the other thing this does, this eliminates negotiation. If you’re client is sitting there and they want you to take ten dollars off the price. They want you to take a thousand dollars off the price. You can point to the three options and say “If you don’t like the option number two that we put on the table, go with option one”. You always have an option within your budgeted range. What you’re doing now is you’re offering the client multiple ways to say yes, instead of only one option to say yes or to say no. This is powerful and the client views it as you having his best interest at heart.

Let’s take a look at some ways that you can add value to any agreement that you’re writing, so that you can help your clients with multiple options in the future.

One of the first things that I like to do, is I like to have our clients offer their clients a preliminary review and assessment and charge a fee for it. Let me give you an example of what I mean by that.

The best example I can give you from an everyday service, is your typical landscaper. Your landscaper comes and he offers you a price to cut your lawn, trim your hedges, and completely clean up your yard and he offers every week cleaning in the summer time. Maybe every two weeks in the winter time. Well if your landscaper came to your house and sat down with you and said, “We typically have a service that fits the square footage of your yard, but what I’d like to do is I’d like to sit down and interview you. Determine what your landscaping needs are and show you how you can add fifteen to twenty percent to the value of your home over the next five years, by improving your landscaping. I’d like to do that and I charge $500 as a preliminary review and assessment”. Would it be worth $500 to you as a homeowner to have your landscaper sit down with you and interview you and determine how he could enhance the curb appeal to your home, to add ten-fifteen percent value to it? Sure it would. For $500 that would be valuable to you. That preliminary review and assessment is a great way for the landscaper to develop a relationship with you and that could even be option one and then in option two that assessment fee is rolled into the package, if you decide to do weekly landscaping with him or even landscape architecture.

For the landscaper, option one would be preliminary review and assessment and delivery of plans to enhance the outside of your home. Option two would be all of that plus weekly landscaping service in the summer time and bi-weekly landscaping service in the winter time. Option three would be all of those things plus the implementation of that plan, right up front within the first six weeks, so that you get the curb appeal bank for your buck immediately and you get the weekly landscaping a long term along with it.

Those are three options for a mundane service like landscaping. I’m sure you can figure out a way to add value into everything you do, so that you offer three options to your clients every single time.

Here are your action steps for this step in the process. The action items I’d like you to take away- action item number one. I’d like you go to back and look at the last ten deals that you closed and do what we would call post-mortem on them. I’d like you to look at how you closed the deal and I’d like you to look at the value you could have added to offer even above and beyond what you closed the deal for.

Action item number two is, you guessed it, to go back to those people and see how many of them you can offer multiple options for and roll in what you’re currently doing, so that you can enhance the value that you’re providing to them and raise your revenue as a result.

Then action item number three, is look at the deals you have pending on the table now and immediately pick two and write multiple choice options. At least three options for all the deals that you have pending, or at least two of the deals that you have pending, so that you get comfortable doing it and that you do it from now on. Remember, offering a choice of yes or no, that’s really death for you, because more often than not, people are going to come back and negotiate at least one point. If you offer multiple options, people will not negotiate has hard and they’ll feel like you’re enhancing the value you can provide to them long term.