The seven-step advisory sale

In one paragraph

A sequence for selling professional work. The order matters: most people jump to the proposal at step two and wonder why they are being compared on price.

1. Problem identification. Ask better questions; seek first to understand. Context before content.

2. Value articulation. Define the value — one-off or recurring, financial and non-financial. Link it to what the owner actually wants.

3. Exploration of options. Give the client more control of the process by providing a choice of yeses rather than a single take-it-or-leave-it.

4. Conceptual agreement. Clarify the opportunity, objectives, measures, value, deliverables, timing and price — before anything is written down formally.

5. Send proposal. Within twenty-four hours, capturing what was agreed conceptually. Sending it fast limits scope stretch and keeps the momentum.

6. Acceptance and payment. Ideally electronic acceptance with some payment upfront, to gain commitment.

7. Delivery of service. Including a review of the results at the end, and obtaining three things of value and a testimonial.

Step four is the one that gets skipped. A proposal written before conceptual agreement is a guess, and it invites the client to negotiate against a document rather than a conversation.

How to actually use it

• Never write a proposal before you have verbal agreement on the price. If that feels impossible, you have not done steps one to three properly.
• Build step seven into delivery from the start. Asking for a testimonial six months later is far harder than agreeing at the outset that you will review results together.

Where it breaks down

• Built for considered professional-services sales. Too heavy for small transactional work.
• Payment upfront is not always available to a new firm with no track record.

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