Each day that passes, we’re getting closer to “Yes”.  Are you excited?  Great! Let’s move on to Step 2 in the Getting to “Yes” series: understanding how your prospects make decisions.

Yesterday we discussed the first three questions of the NEADS analysis: what does the prospect do Now, what do they Enjoy about what they do now, and What would they like to Alter or change about what they do now?  That brings us to the D in NEADS, and the spot where I modify this Tom Hopkins piece a bit.

Tom suggests that the D stands for Decision maker, as in make sure at this point that you’re talking to a person who can actually sign on the dotted line when the time for conversion comes. I disagree for two reasons: first, this is a little late in the process to be finding out if you’re talking to the right person; you really should be trying to take care of that while you’re in Getting to “No” mode.

The second, more important reason is simply my belief that the only way you’re ever going to know whether the person you’re talking to is the decision maker is to ask them to make a decision. It’s true: we’ve all had the experience of asking the right question (“So if we’re fortunate enough today to find a solution that fits your needs, who else will be involved in making the final decision?”), getting the right answer (“Oh, no one else will be involved…this is my decision to make!”) and still hearing at the conclusion of the meeting, “Everything looks great! I just need to get my supervisor’s approval so we can move forward.”

My suggestion is to stop worrying so much about whether you’ve got the decision maker and start paying attention to how the prospect makes decisions. That’s why I think that the D in NEADS really stands, not for “Decision maker” but for “Decision-making modality”.

Essentially, a prospect’s (or any other person’s) decision-making modality is the way they receive and process information before making a decision. There are four modalities: thinking, feeling, knowing and sensing. All of us use all four modalities, but there is usually one that dominates the way we decide on a course of action. As Jeremy Marchant and Kay McMahon of Emotional Intelligence At Work put it (in their article “We Make All Our Decisions Based On Feelings“):

They make the distinctions between the four modalities abundantly clear (better than I could) by relating what it would be like to have dinner at a restaurant with one of each of the types:

Got it? Good. If you can remember these differences the next time you’re talking to a prospect, you’ll have the inside track on getting a “Yes” because you’ll be able to present your solution in a way that appeals to the prospect’s decision making modality. But how can you tell which prospects use which modalities? Following the logic above, you might take them out for lunch; if that’s not possible, have a look around their office and really pay attention to the way they speak.

See lots of piles of papers in neat stacks with tons of data on them? You’ve probably got a thinker; bring lots of charts and graphs to support your presentation. She keeps talking about how she’d like to “cut to the chase” and “get down to brass tacks”? Likely a knower; make your presentation quick and impactful, using bullet points instead of paragraphs. Keeps getting misty-eyed when he’s talking about how happy he was the day he bought his first home? Sounds like a feeler; tell lots of stories during your presentation. Wants to see the pictures in the brochure or asks to touch a sample? Definitely a senser; a multi-media presentation would make his day.

If you can tune in to the decision-making modality of the prospect and design a presentation that speaks to that modality, you’re well on your way to getting the coveted “Yes”. Now all that remains to be done is to finish up the NEADS analysis by creating and presenting a Solution ( the S in NEADS) that exactly fits the prospects situation.

And of course, we’ll be talking about exactly how to do that tomorrow.

Question: What have you done this week to move yourself closer to your goals? Do you have a clearly defined, written plan to get you where you want to be? If not, what are you waiting for?!

We’ve all heard that what gets written down gets done, yet the majority of us don’t do it. It really amazes me how many salespeople I talk to who have no idea what they need to accomplish on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis to help them achieve their goals; in fact, I still encounter many people who have no idea what their goals are! I only have one question: if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived? More importantly, how will you even know if you’re on the right course to get there?

Specific written goals are vital to your success. You know that. If you haven’t written out your goals for this year, stop reading and go do it now. Don’t come back until you’re done, because what I’m going to suggest next will require you to have your written goals in front of you. This is a powerful tool that will help you achieve any goal you set, and it is actually very easy to do. Unfortunately, anything that’s easy to do is also easy not to to do, so I want you to make a commitment, here and now, to try this method out for the next seven days. If it doesn’t work for you, you can stop; but you have to try it for at least seven consecutive days before passing judgment. Ready?

Looking at your list of goals, I want you to think of the six most important things you could do tomorrow to move you closer to their accomplishment. Limit your list to only six things, the six most critical. Now, prioritize the list in order of highest impact; in other words, the most impactful thing you could do becomes number one and so on. Now comes the hard part.

Tomorrow morning, start your day with task number one from your list. Don’t do anything else until you have completely finished task number one and can cross it off the list. Next, move on to task number two, again not moving on until it is completely finished and can be crossed off. Do the same for the rest of the tasks on the list. If you get to the end of the day and haven’t completed all the tasks, those left unfinished move to the top of tomorrow’s list. Do this for seven days, and you’ll be amazed at what you’ve accomplished.

How do I know this works? When I first read about this technique in James Arthur Ray’s new book Harmonic Wealth I decided to give it a try. You wouldn’t believe the impact this habit has had on my effectiveness every day since! Knowing what you need to be doing now and what comes next is truly one of the most powerful methods I’ve ever used to get more done.

It’s like my friend Tibor Shanto of Renbor Sales Solutions said in his blog the other day: taking daily action is the key.  If you’re not in action every day, you’ll find your motivation beginning to wane.  You can have grand plans, but without action you’ll also have massive frustration when those plans don’t materialize.  

So, no excuses now! Get out your day planner and make your “Must Do” list for tomorrow; repeat this practice every day for the next seven, then let me know what you think. I look forward to reading all your comments.