Challenge Meetings

Here’s an interesting selling stage that a specialised business broker uses.

As part of their pre-engagement work with a business owner, they always seem to find that the prospective vendor has what they term an “aspirational value” higher than the true worth of their firm.

As this is so prevalent, they go away and prepare for what they call their Challenge Meeting.

This is where they seek to bring realism to the owner’s expectations. Apparently the largest pair of discrepancies concern asset values, especially around property, and IP, which is often unprotected.

They find that after detailed discussion, the owner voluntarily recalibrates.

This methodology is highly relevant to all solution sales in two areas.

Talking Money

There is always a time when you need to tell your prospect “the bad news”.
By this, I mean Price.
They always want it to be lower, don’t they?

Pinpointing Worth

Think about a makeover, before & after style, business case.
There’s often a series of figures that show up old inefficiencies.
Along with anticipated future improvements.
Many of your change-averse prospect employees will dismiss them.

If you incorporate a challenge meeting into your process you do two things. You’ll show that all numbers are up for discussion at the outset, meaning they are more likely to be as irrefutable as possible by the end. And you give yourself the chance to return and re-tackle the potentially derailing doubters.