At first, they fill the top of the funnel with as many choices as possible. Essentially, they’re asking the market; who out there can do this? They want the broadest spectrum of possibilities they can get in order to gain more leverage on things such as pricing and terms.

At this point, there are too many options inside the funnel to effectively scrutinize. Thus, the screening phase begins, in which potential candidates are narrowed down based on a list of requirements given by the client.

Once the client feels they have removed any risk of lack of competency from their field of options, they are ready to begin the final selection process.

At this point, say there are only three potential candidates left in the bottom part of the funnel. All are technically qualified to take on the project. So now the question is – what will be the distinguishing characteristics of the one business that is finally chosen?

At this point, emotion enters the equation. The client asks themselves; “Who will take better care of me?”

There are real life examples of how certain companies have won RFP’s by making themselves stand out in situations in which all of the candidates were equally qualified from a technical standpoint.

I look forward to delving further into this with you,

- Bob

Once clients narrow their options to a short list of highly capable alternatives, nuanced differences in capabilities cease to be a factor in their final choice. Top competitors pretty much look the same. At this level everybody is qualified. On the other hand, client’s feel that their situation, project, people, preferences and process are unique.

Where most service professionals are wasting time trying to force clients to recognize and value increasingly nuanced differences in their capabilities (Vendor Differentiation), elite, Third Level service providers win in competition by finding and aligning to what is unique about the client, the project, client preferences and decision process (Client Differentiation).

Clients want to work with someone they know and trust, someone who knows their situation, their project, their preferences and their process better. In other words, instead of wanting to know more about the providers, they want providers to know more about them. They don’t want to work with a vendor. They want to work with a partner. Instead of forcing the client to differentiate between competitors, Third Level Service Selling shows service providers how to differentiate on the client. If you can find and align to that uniqueness, the client will view you as a partner and not just another vendor.

In this course Bob Potter, the author of Winning In The Invisible Market: A Guide To Selling Professional Services In Turbulent Times and Selling Real Estate Services: Third Level Secrets of Top Producers, will show you how to:

• Identify and master the communication skills that elite providers employ to build strategic partnerships, win in competition and retain committed clients
• Recognize why and how clients choose one service provider over another
• Recognize that price decisions are frequently self inflicted because price is the last of 10 choice factors
• Understand and align to predictable client decision patterns in order to reduce friction and enable faster choices
• Accelerate business relationships by learning how to engage clients in a strategic and more client-centric level
• Accelerate client understanding, agreement and commitment to your recommendations
• Determine and align to unique characteristics and client execution preferences
• Build client preference for your solutions through more a differentiated rational and emotional value proposition
• Consistently get first and last look
• Get chosen away from price

The bottom line is that you will win more business without competing on price.

See more videos below

We teach your top producers how to take their game to the next level. That’s because you get a much better return (10 times better!) sooner by investing limited training dollars in your top producers. Most training dollars are spent on mid to low level people. The objective is to get them to perform more like your top producers. Little or no money is spent on training the top people because they are already very good, or so the thinking goes. But even a small improvement in your best is much better than a big improvement in the rest. It could help you survive this hostile economy.

Also, in my training classes it’s the best people who learn the most. They get and use it faster. That is what made them your best people in the first place. Now that you know where to allocate your training budget, here is why you should invest it sooner rather than later.

Your top people are fighting the biggest battles. In business there is no prize money when you finish second. All of the spoils go to the winner. And the difference between winning and losing is razor thin. I interviewed a woman who had recently chosen a service provider for a $300 million project.  When asked why she chose the winner over the competitive alternatives, she explained that she thought they were a little more responsive. Think about that. After countless hours of research, preparation, interviews, proposal writing and presentations the second place finisher in this competition lost business worth $300,000,000 for lack of a few timely phone calls. What would it mean to your organization if each of your top people won one more “bake off” this year.

 We teach you how to win, not just how to sell - Most client acquisition training programs teach you how to sell your services, but not how to win. They teach you how to ask questions, uncover needs and then position your service as a solution. But what happens when the client has already decided to use the services that you offer, and now they are just deciding between you and your best competitors? The Third Level Series picks up where most training stops – How to win in competition. There is a clear pattern to how clients chose and how elite providers align and win.

We teach your top people first – We teach your top producers how to take their game to the next level. That’s because you get a much better return (10 times better!) sooner by investing limited training dollars in your top producers. Most training dollars are spent on mid to low level people. The objective is to get them to perform more like your top producers. Little or no money is spent on training the top people because they are already very good, or so the thinking goes. Your top people are fighting the biggest battles. In business there is no prize money when you finish second. All of the spoils go to the winner. What would it mean to your organization if each of your top people won one more “bake off” this year. The penetration of the training goes wider and deeper.

Once we have buy in of your top people, lower level participants are more highly motivated to participate.

Outcome Based Instructional Design vs. Content – Most training fails because it is content driven. But content without outcome is at best entertainment. Would you ask you child to learn the piano by reading a book? Client acquisition and retention is a highly complex skill that is not mastered in a day or two of training. Research showd that most accomplished people need around 10 years of hard work before becoming world class, a pattern so well established researchers call it the 10-year rule.  Further, the best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice”: “activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition,” according to the article. Our courseware is outcome driven (vs. content or activity driven) that allows participants to continually coach themselves (Deliberate Practice) over time. That leads to much greater sustainability in learning.

Sustainability vs. “Fire hose” - Let’s you were a professional base ball coach and one of your best players was not taking batting practice. You asked him why and he said, “I took batting practice five years ago.” You probably would not react well because you know that the difference between an average batter and a hall of famer is only one hit every two weeks. Yet that is often how we view training: “I took sales training five years ago.” To be successful skills training must be sustainable. That is why we not only design our training to be outcome oriented so participants can coach themselves, we also reinforce training with Webinars, self paced elearning, and Coach the Coaches training.

Third Level Concept: Becoming a Strategic Partner 

Most service providers like to think of themselves as Strategic Partners, however only 5% actually achieve that status in the eyes of their clients. These elite service providers have the biggest and most profitable clients. They rarely compete on price, and they do well in good and bad markets.

What do these elite providers do differently than the rest of us to win new clients and retain the ones they have? They engage clients at a deeper personal and professional level, a Third-Level that leads to greater success and career satisfaction and less price competition.

But it is the client who defines you as a Strategic Partner. Strategic Partners are those few highly capable providers for whom a client holds the following opinions and feelings:

1. Technically souund
2. I know, like and trust them
3. I believe they have a deep understanding of my industry, my business situation,  my role and my challenges and objectives
4. I believe they are highly motivated to help me win