Page 243 - Schooley Mitchell Marketing Manual

SCHOOLEY MITCHELL
MARKETING MANUAL
Implementation
Implementation of Your Recommendations
Implementation of Your Recommendations (continued)
If the tech person knows you will be going back to the executive and that you are going to make them the
hero, you’ll get more buy-in during the process as well as a higher likelihood of implementation.
9) ALWAYS present alternatives (three) in your Value Report – never just one solution.
10) ALWAYS present a five-year table for a 3-year deal – emphasizing that they reap the lion’s share of the benefit.
11) ALWAYS be prepared when you go into the meeting. Take completed vendor agreements and paperwork for the recommendation you are summarizing in your Executive Summary. Not for all three (or more) alter- natives. You can get that completed later if they choose a different alternative. You never sign the paper- work but you can certainly prepare it to make it an easy transition for your client.
12) Present in detail for someone that wants detail and in summary fashion for someone that wants to get to brass tacks. If you’re not sure which way to go – ask them. Would you like to go into detail in the three main areas of the report (Current Configuration, Alternative Proposals, & Summary of Results) or review the Executive Summary of our findings?
13) NEVER just take a summary of your findings. The client will implement more readily and understand the value you are delivering if your reports are complete and comprehensive. If the detail cannot be provided by you then you have not completed the job properly and they will recognize that. Even if you are not re- viewing the detail with the client it is absolutely necessary to include it in the reports. You never know who will be seeing the report and if it’s incomplete or if shortcuts are taken they may not implement and you will ever know why. There are no shortcuts to what we do.
14) Present the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative in your report which requires you to be pre- pared for that conversation.
15) Use the Best of Three language – all three make sense to me, which one makes most sense to you? That way they don’t feel they have to say yes or no – right now. There are choices and they can set their own satisfaction level.
16) Don’t be afraid to ask for their approval to ‘move ahead and start saving you some money so you’re not overpaying your vendors again next month’ – by signing off the Value Report. However, this shouldn’t be a pressure sale at this point. There may be several reasons they have to review your findings. However, if that’s the case, make sure you close the impending event – that you schedule an appointment with exact date and time, to come back and discuss the implementation of your results.
17) Present segmented recommendations whenever you have one category completed before the others. This allows you to test their willingness to implement so you don’t continue working on their behalf if they are not going to do so. It also gets you to cashflow quicker instead of waiting until all categories are completed.
Employ all of these practices and you will implement a much higher percentage of your findings!
Manual Revised: April 3 2025 Confidential
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