a single source, nothing corroborates it

Open on the chore they avoid, then name the product

Steer the conversation onto the part of the job the prospect keeps putting off and let them make the connection to what you sell. Questions and what-ifs surface context you do not have, whereas telling someone what they should do produces agreement without a sale.

The method

1. 01

   Open the sales conversation by asking about the parts of the job they put off: invoicing, paying bills, paperwork, research, the work nobody wants to think about.

2. 02

   Only name your product once the prospect is already thinking about the task they avoid, because at that point the connection makes itself.

3. 03

   Diagnose before you advise, because advice that is only a projection of your own history hides the problem the other person actually has.

4. 04

   In a conversation where you need to understand somebody's problem, lead with a what-if, or ask what they make of an option, instead of telling them what they should do; they then surface the context you do not have and arrive at the action themselves.

5. 05

   Stop arguing with a prospect who knows they could get the outcome for nothing, and go looking instead for the specific task where the free option is failing them.

What it returned

• Hillman and his team routinely steer new conversations onto administrative work, on the basis that everyone has blocks of it whether or not they are self-employed.

• Hillman puts it at nine times out of ten, with prospects working out for themselves that they would get much more done by setting aside admin time and doing it near other people rather than procrastinating.

• Hillman's framing is medical: the useful adviser examines the patient's history rather than treating whichever spot the patient points at.

• Hillman splits advice into prescriptive and transformative, and argues that absolute phrasing creates a dependency where the same person keeps coming back for the same answer.

Sources

• Vitamins vs. PrescriptionsAlex Hillman · dangerouslyawesome.com · 2010-11-01
• How coworking can work for more people than you ever thoughtAlex Hillman · dangerouslyawesome.com · What would change if we learned how to choose an environment that was best suited for the task we were trying to accomplish? · 2015-05-01