Does Your Client Contact Record Fail Marriage Breakdown Test

The Mail Online’s relentless deluge of relationship “tips” stretched last week to listing someone’s “pHD” (sic) on the maths of why couples split. The top finding?

“You have six good experiences together for every bad one”

So, six in every seven ‘experiences’ should be ‘good’.

For a moment I thought about how prospects would cut you for any slip into badness. Nothing below permanent wonderfulness tolerated. Fail pre-sale, fail post-sale. And that’s not an option.

Then I moved on to the notion that you only get to see the true person once they’ve a mistake to clear up. Everybody and every project will inevitably suffer a glitch. It isn’t necessarily about what that error is, but how it is remedied. And it is that approach which determines whether you should work together.

Next I contemplated how on earth you might know said coveted prospect genuinely assigns – and later recalls – greatly performance to your efforts. Click the supersmiley emoji. (& no, I never mentioned net promoter scores.)

Finally, I wondered about the raw numbers. Does the ‘research’ actually suggest you must have six successive lovely times together, then (and only then) have an unsavoury one as an essential pothole so that you can fix the blip before you continue along the same road, then venturing re-energised through the next set of sizzling six?

There’s all manner of stats suggesting when the typical deal is made. A time at which most reps have long given up. One favourite figure is Call Seven.

If this were believable, then solution selling surely cannot afford any troubled contact.

So perhaps we’re better focused on what represents a less-than-great prospect experience. And actively head them off. Is there a checklist?

key question met? challenged in a stimulating productive way? understanding fully transmitted? thorough documentation? innovation and flair applied to solutions? simplicity reigned? feasible price/cost/return?

Good is often the minimum standard. Satisfactory may no longer be enough. Do you score Great on these?

Fancy another angle? Then courtesy of the indy100, here’s another to riff on with the ‘healthy’ ratio of compliments to criticism: