Dialogue 2. Talking about Technology
In the evening, after signing the training agreement, George invited Jack to a restaurant. There, in a cozy atmosphere, they had a conversation.
Motivation
G: Jack, one thought haunts me. I am an experienced seller, I worked “on the ground” for ten years, but I have never encountered such a thing. In less than an hour you managed to sell me your services. It happens, but not very often. But you have not yielded to me anything, and at the same time I had the feeling that I won from this purchase. Moreover, you were not bargaining for anything! And most importantly, how did you manage to calculate so quickly what my benefit is and how to motivate me?
J: No wonder. I just used the win-win sales technology. I am glad that you have a feeling of gain from buying our services. Actually, the technology is aimed at this: buyer gets exactly what he really needs. The seller, too. But let’s start with the last question. I really needed to motivate you to take on the added burden of walking through each invoice for my work at the end of each month. Without motivation, you would never want to do this, right?
G: Of course.
J: For this purpose, I needed to show you what your benefit is in supporting our services. In fact, I had to sell these services to you personally. Before that, I talked a lot about our services: training, coaching, projects. It was interesting but did not touch your feelings and emotions. That’s because I was selling my services to your company, not to you. But, when it came to your personal participation in the process, it was necessary to sell these services to you personally.
Benefits to the company were my “homework.” The interests of most companies are usually the same: to maintain and expand their business, to outperform competitors and attract more customers. But your personal interests are individual, and I could not have prepared the sale to you personally in advance. I had to do it on the go, with your active participation.
G: This is what struck me the most. In fact, I answered your questions and identified what benefits I can get if your training succeeds. But before that I had no idea what my benefits are!
J: Yes, exactly. This is how the benefit identification algorithm works. How to benefit from buying a product? Improve the satisfaction of needs in a way that could not be done with other, similar products. And how to improve the satisfaction of needs? Do the job that uses this product better. What do you need to do the job better? Some new skill/capability. How could this occur? By use of some product features. That’s the entire logic. The algorithm follows this logic along the chain: job – need – product features – new capabilities – advantage (job done better) – direct benefit (need satisfied better) – indirect benefit (other needs satisfied better).
However, when we worked on your motivation, we had to complicate this algorithm. You were buying the derivative product: renewal of your department as a result of our training. Having learned technology, your subordinates can do their job better, and due to this, you can better do your job. In all other respects, the logic remained the same.
G: Interesting! But you also compared motivation to costs.
J: Right. Here we use a simple formula (we call it the main marketing formula): buyer buys a product if benefits of its purchase significantly exceed the total cost associated with owning this product (Total Cost of Ownership). The benefits are greater than the costs. Otherwise, he would never buy!
G: It is true! I have one more question. Usually, when we think how to advertise and sell our products, this work is very tedious and time consuming. And you did it so quickly and easily!
J: Our technology is based on the method of minimal mental effort. We use algorithms rather than guessing. Our algorithms are built so that answering each question is easy, and in the end we get unexpected result. Well, as if we tried to eat this steak “in one shot” or cut it into small pieces. If you cut it into pieces, you can eat every bite without straining and not risking choking.