Intensive workshop · Strategy
Diagnose before you quote
A salesperson who lists features competes on price; one who understands the problem competes on judgment.
- Duration
- 4 hours
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 8 to 25 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
The request arrives already written as a specification. The client states what they want, how much of it and by when, and asks for a price. The quote goes out the same day, accurate and complete, with a feature list and a delivery date.
The same thing happens twice more elsewhere. Three suppliers send documents that resemble one another, describe the same thing in different words, and give the client no basis for choosing beyond the single line that varies. The client chooses on that line, which is price, and the salesperson takes away the wrong lesson: next time, start lower. In time the discount stops being an exception and becomes the tool.
What erodes does not come back easily. The company teaches its own market that its price is negotiable, and teaches its team that resistance is answered by conceding rather than by asking. Work won that way also tends to arrive with expectations nobody clarified, to generate the most friction during delivery, and to leave as soon as someone appears with a lower line still. The commercial conversation turns into an auction this company cannot win, only survive.
What it covers
The whole session turns on the conversation that precedes the proposal, because that is where nearly everything else gets decided. It opens with a distinction that is simple to state and hard to hold under pressure: what the client asked for is not necessarily the problem they are trying to solve. In a case discussion the group reads one literal request and reconstructs the three or four different situations that could have produced it, each calling for a different commercial answer.
The second part builds the diagnostic sequence. Not a list to recite but an order: what each question opens, what is lost by proposing early, and how to hold a silence after an incomplete answer. Participants rehearse in pairs with a third person observing, working from opportunities they have open this week, and the observation focuses on who did the talking and at what point a solution appeared.
The third part turns findings into a proposal. The group works with a structure that opens with the diagnosis in the client's own words, continues with what will be done, and arrives at price last, rather than the reverse order almost everyone uses. In a group exercise participants rewrite a real proposal their company sent recently, and comparing the two versions is usually the most useful moment of the session.
The closing section handles objections and limits. Where an objection comes from is examined before it is answered, a price objection is separated from one about risk, timing or authority, and participants practise responding without conceding on the spot. The group also works on who decides and who influences on the client's side, when to decline work that does not suit the company, and how to record the diagnosis so the next conversation does not start from nothing again.
What participants learn
- Apply a diagnostic question sequence before presenting any proposal.
- Identify the problem the client is trying to solve behind what they asked for.
- Design a proposal that answers the diagnosis instead of reciting a catalogue.
- Analyse where an objection comes from before offering a concession.
- Evaluate when a piece of work does not suit the company, and say so in time.
Agenda
- What the client asked for and what they are trying to solve
- Diagnostic questions, and the order to ask them in
- Listening to the end: what gets lost by proposing early
- From findings to a proposal the client recognizes as theirs
- Objections: origin, examination, and an answer without instant concession
- Who decides on the client's side, and who influences
- Saying no when the work is not right for your company
- Recording the diagnosis so the next conversation can build on it
What the organisation leaves with
- A written set of diagnostic questions for the company's offer, with the order in which they are asked.
- A proposal structure that opens with the diagnosis written in the client's own words.
- A prepared response to the three objections the company hears most often, with no discount as the first move.
- A written criterion for declining work that does not suit this company.
Programme details
- Format
- Intensive workshop
- Also available as
- Workshop · Corporate training day
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Salespeople competing with proposals that look like everyone else's.
- Owners and professionals selling technical or specialized services.
- Sales teams that reach for a discount at the first sign of resistance.
Frequently asked questions
- Does this teach closing techniques?
- No, and some salespeople find that uncomfortable. The session works on what comes earlier: what gets asked, what gets heard and what gets proposed. For the first few weeks the conversation feels slower, because diagnosis takes the time that used to go into sending a quote the same day.
- Is it useful for short, low-value sales?
- Not very. When the purchase is standard and settled in a single conversation, most of this method is unnecessary weight and makes selling more expensive. In that situation there is more to gain from working on the content of the first reply and on converting inquiries, which is a different piece of work.
- Are our own cases used in the practice sessions?
- Yes, and they should be live: opportunities open this week rather than examples already settled. The role plays are built on those real conversations, so what gets practised can be used the next day with the same client.
- Should the owner attend if they do not sell directly?
- It is advisable, because the owner approves proposals and prices. When the team changes how it sells and the person approving still judges proposals by the old standard, the method survives until the first proposal comes back with an instruction to add a discount.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.