Prescribe
SalesAccelerate — Opportunity Planner: Prescribe stage
Transitioning from Discovery to Propose
Prescribe is where you sketch the solution and invite them to poke holes in it — on purpose. Buyers get more pessimistic the closer they get to a decision, and that pessimism is an asset here: every objection they raise in front of you is one you will not have to answer in a room you are not invited to. Work through this before and during the session, then print it and bring it to Propose.
Seller’s objective
Collaborate with your Champion, and build fences around your unique value proposition.
Buyer’s objective
Gather information on options, get internal feedback, and build consensus around a top three.
Start by giving them back their own words
Before you show anything, read back what you heard in Discovery: the process as they drew it, the moment of truth, the requirements in their language, and the number they arrived at. This does two things — it proves you listened, and it gives them the chance to correct you while corrections are still cheap.
The three things from Discovery you will read back first
Four moves, in this order
This is the spine of the session. You are not presenting a solution — you are thinking out loud about what a solution would have to handle, and letting them react. Fill in your own answers before you walk in.
Every objection they raise now is one you get to answer
Write down what comes up, then sort it. Only two kinds get addressed in the room: misunderstandings, and anything that threatens your UVP. Everything else you note and let stand — arguing a fair limitation costs you more credibility than the limitation does.
The three to five things that have to be true
When the conversation drifts into feature debates, this is what you come back to: the short list of things the project must deliver to solve the compelling event. Anything not on this list is a detail, and you can say so.
They will sell this when you are not in the room
Your Champion has to carry this to people you have never met, in meetings you will not attend. Before you leave, make sure they can say these things in their own words — not read them off your slide.
Reconfirm the three anchors
You know you ran a good Prescribe if your Champion does most of the selling when you formally Propose.
Propose
SalesAccelerate — Opportunity Planner: Propose stage
How to Propose your solution
There is one test for this meeting. The day after you present, someone's boss asks them: “how did you like that presentation you went to yesterday?” Whatever they say back is what your pitch actually was. Build the twenty minutes so that the answer is your unique value proposition — not a tour of your product.
Seller’s objective
Introduce the big idea, establish the 3X ROI, and surface and mitigate every risk.
Buyer’s objective
Pick the best option, weighed as risk against reward.
Write the sentence you want repeated
Before you build a single slide, write down what you want an attendee to say when their boss asks about your presentation tomorrow. If that sentence is not your UVP, the deck is aimed wrong. Everything you stack into the twenty minutes should drive toward it.
What they should say the day after
Everything you present answers one of these
If a slide does not answer one of these three, it belongs in the Appendix.
Why the pitch is twenty minutes, not sixty
An hour-long meeting really starts about ten minutes in, once people have straggled in and the small talk is done. Twenty minutes of content reliably triggers about fifteen minutes of questions, which leaves fifteen to wrap up and let everyone make their next meeting. Executives do not have a sixty-minute attention span, and more information does not help — it dilutes the parts that matter.
Pitch the idea, not the product
Nothing about your company or your product catalogue goes in here. Everything you are tempted to include lives in the Appendix, ready if they ask.
Create urgency by stepping back, not leaning in
Pushing raises defences. Pulling away raises interest. Name the condition that has to be true for this to work, and let them qualify themselves into it.
“But this approach will only work if you are prepared to…”
Then stop. End the presentation there unless they insist on more detail — and if they do, that is what the Appendix is for.
Everything you wanted to present, held in reserve
Having it ready is what lets you keep the main pitch short. Check off what you have prepared.
The thing that separates you from the other vendors
Attention = Novelty + Tension
Novelty is anticipating a reward. Tension is alertness. Most vendor pitches deliver neither, which is why being interesting, compelling and different is not a stylistic choice — it is the whole advantage.