Learn Your Lines

Malcolm Myers talks a lot about Jonathan Stark during our Business of LabVIEW meetings. Apparently, Stark's big thing is value pricing instead of charging hourly. Somehow I stumbled upon this book the other day. I recognized the author and the description caught my eye so I thought I should check it out.

It is a short easy read. I read it in one sitting. Overall it has very good content. The premise is that when doing sales you end up with a lot of the same questions and objections and you should have prepared answers for those. That's wise. I can confirm from my own experience that I do get a lot of the same questions and many of them are similar to the examples in the book.

I agree whole-heartedly with the spirit of the book. Having memorized responses to common questions does a lot to build credibility and can help to lead the conversation in the right direction. I've been doing this long enough that I've already come up with my own answers. In many cases my answers are similar and there are a few where we differ. If you were new to sales, simply memorizing the lines the author lays out would be a great start. It certainly beats stuttering around.

A lot of it is about responding to clients asking for discounts, which does happen. The book does give some good advice on how to avoid that with good marketing, qualifying leads and really making sure the client is a good fit. Even if with that these questions do still sometimes come up so it is good to have an answer. It takes a pretty firm line on that. Personally, I am a little less firm and I do very much view it as a negotiation therefore if the client wants a discount it must cost them something: time, scope, working conditions, etc. The worst thing you can do is just cave.

The fall-back answer of course is always no. The author does give a slightly more polite version of no. The key point is not every client is good fit and it's ok to say that out loud. Better to say no than to make a deal you regret.

My favorite part of the book was the part about qualifying your clients and helping them see your value. The idea is to help them sell themselves. You do this by simply asking them why any of the other options wouldn't work. Does this problem even need solved? Do you really need custom software? Why not hire someone off Indeed? etc.

If you run your own business, it is worth picking up a copy. It's cheap. It's a quick easy read and you'll probably find some useful tidbits.