As sales professionals, we want to produce a solution that exactly meets our client’s needs. Anything less is likely to be of no value to our client, and, therefore, of no value to us. We can approach the task in one of four ways:
1. Apply our experience and intellect and guess at what clients need
2. Tell them what they need
3. Accept without challenge what they say they need
4. Mutually explore to develop what they need

This course develops the rationale and skills to consistently execute the fourth approach.

Foundational Principles of Critical Thinking and Communication
The business development dialogue is a balance between inquiry and advocacy. The better job we do of inquiry, the more powerfully we can advocate. Asking effective questions is the core competence of understanding client needs. This module introduces the paradigm shifts, concepts, and practical skills that build the foundation for the rest of the course.

Step One: The Business Opportunity
Participants learn how to collaborate with clients to develop a compelling business case around a particular issue - or to agree that a high priority opportunity does not exist. This analysis permits both consultant and client to allocate resources to high probability situations and exit gracefully from low probability activities.

Participants learn to avoid premature discussion of solutions and move instead to exploring the underlying problems the solution is intended to solve and the desired results the solution is intended to produce. Problems and results can be examined for evidence, evidence can be developed into economic consequences and implications, thus creating a sound business case for adopting the solution.

Explicit strategies and skills are explored for the following matrix of opportunities:

Step Two: The Available Resources
Participants learn to qualify the opportunity in terms of time, division of labor, and budget. A distinction is made between price justification (Step Four) and budget justification (Step Two). Particular emphasis is given to establishing a realistic expectation on the part of the client on what is required financially to achieve the desired results. Participants role-play the predictable client responses to the question, "Have you established a budget for this project?"

Step Three: The Decision Process
Participants learn to decipher the steps involved in the decision making process, who is involved in each step, what decision is made in each step, and how the decision will be made. Since often the criteria for making the decision are tacit and implicit, participants learn to make them conscious and explicit. Once consultants learn whom they must see, they learn how to get to see them, developing a compelling rationale that is in the client’s best interest.
Additional topics included in this module are: competition (how clients will decide between alternative solutions); personal stake (how decision makers will decide based on personal as well as organizational interests); gain/loss (who is perceived to win or lose as a result of this intervention and how to act accordingly.)
Advanced questioning techniques
Redirection: How to keep the focus on the client and not on the consultant; how to deal with tough questions from the client; how to answer the real question.
Verbal Stop signs and Smokescreens: How to listen to the structure as well as the content of client statements and ask questions that build greater clarity and mutual understanding.

Step Four: The Business Solution
Consultants learn to gain agreement for and execute a "What if…Oral Proposal." They learn to position the written proposal as a confirming rather than a persuasive device. They learn to advocate solutions based on the mutual understanding built in steps one, two and three.
When the solution is presented, consultants learn to surface and resolve client’s concerns and issues and to obtain a yes/no decision rather than a protracted maybe. Considerable practice is given in resolving price objections. Participants will learn to present-to-close rather than present-to-open.

Step Five: The Business Relationship
Consultants learn what to do if the client says yes, no, or maybe, that will ensure there is an ongoing, productive relationship.

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