How s Zat Tactics

How's Zat Tactics

While How's Zat? is the overall strategy for handling hinges, the following are its ministrategies and tactics. They make the Safety Zone and How's Zat? strategies work better.

The Silence Is Golden Tactic

This tactic helps you handle a hinge initially by doing nothing, nada, zilch ... silence! Use the fact that most people in a conversation dread the sound of silence. Four to five seconds of quiet seems like an eternity.

The following benefits result from this time-out:

• It allows you to collect your thoughts and ask yourself, "Wow, I wonder how I am going to handle this one?"

• It prevents an automatic response that otherwise sounds canned or defensive.

• It gives you the opportunity to remind yourself that customers are not attacking you personally. They are just reacting to MPCs or calls for action they feel are unwarranted or unjustifiable. Take hinges personally and you become subjective, rather than objective, in handling them.

• You can use the pause to let customers know you are giving their comments proper consideration.

• You can give customers the opportunity to clarify or even answer their own hinges. They might skip over this one to bring up hinges that are more important.

The Pat from Saturday Night Live Tactic

This tactic treats hinges like the androgynous character Pat from the television show Saturday Night Live whom no one could identify as either man or woman. With hinges, you often face situations where you cannot tell what you have. Is it a hinge or a request for more information, a better explanation, or more documentation?

Therefore, when clarifying and verifying customers' responses, do not assume they are hinges until you gather more information. In addition, do not sound like you agree it is a hinge by validating their comments.

Example

• Olivia: Your service costs $25,000 more than we budgeted!

• Steven: (on automatic pilot): I assumed your $50,000 budget was just an estimate, not a firm number.

  A better way to respond is with the following tactic:

• Steven: How will that affect your purchasing decision? (If she says it does not, leave it alone. If she states that it does, handle it by using the next tactic.)

The Lose the Battle, Win the War Tactic

Use this tactic to build credibility by acknowledging that customers' hinges, if accurate, have merit. However, demonstrate that in the grand scheme of things, the hinge—even with merit—is not a deterrent to continuing the sale. You can resolve a hinge with merit. Just transform hinges into benefits.

Customers appreciate it when you tackle their valid concerns head on and turn them into benefits. Heck, you usually impress yourself when you do it. You convert a liability into an asset by showing customers how their hinges help them to achieve their goals.

Example

• Olivia: Your ProdoGain service costs $25,000 more than we budgeted. I will not be able to get more money without getting corporate involved.

• Steven: It does. Yet, the $25,000 is for the single operator control feature (see Steven's Market Profile Sheet in Chapter 3) that only FutureTech provides, which lowers your payback from two years to one. We can also extend payment terms so you pay the additional $25,000 in your next fiscal year. It will not affect this year's budget. Can you see where the $25,000 pays for itself within a year—and won't require corporate approval?

The You Can't Do Both Tactic

Sometimes your products achieve customers' goals, but not all their prerequisites. This hinge usually involves difficulty meeting funding requirements or delivery dates. Unless you arbitrarily lower your price or miraculously speed up deliveries, use this tactic. Explain that your products cannot do both. Let customers choose which one is more important, the prerequisite or the goal. If the value of their goals is measurable, chances are high that the customer will choose the goal.

Example

• Olivia: We can only go with your proposal if you meet your competitor's bid price, which is $18,000 less.

• Steven (on automatic pilot): There's no way I can meet that price! (Unless, Steven arbitrarily lowers his price and watches the bidding wars begin! Steven might also say, "OK, let me talk to my sales manager. I'll see if I can get her to lower the price." Both responses hurt his ability to sell value and protect profit levels.)

  A better reply would be to use the following tactic:

• Steven: I understand the need to cost-justify any difference in price. Using your figures, you justified our price. I would like to work with you; however, the only way to lower my price by $18,000 is to change our product selections. If we do that, we cannot help you achieve your goals. Olivia, do you understand why I cannot just lower my price and still achieve your goal of improving productivity by 15 percent or $240,000 (converting percentages to dollars make them powerful allies)?