ProActive Selling
Book Club Discussion Questions
Note: I used Above the Line (ATL) and Below the Line (BTL) in place of Russian,
Greek and whatever the other language Skip uses in the book to describe the
various buyer levels in an organization, because the languages are not
memorable and actually confusing to me. ATL and BTL makes the same point.
Feel free to interchange if you prefer the language analogy.
1) How can you use the tactics and tools of ProActive selling to take control
of the sales process? How will this help you close more deals faster?
2) How is it a disadvantage to you as a sales human when an ATL person
instructs you to work with their BTL staff?
 What can you do to take back control of the sales process?
 Which ProActive selling tool can you use?
 Share an example of a deal you are working on currently that you will
change your approach to keep the ATL team involved?
3) How will you use ‘Summarize Bridge Pull’ to move from a Hypothesis
Pitch conversation to the next step in the oDeal sales process?
 Share an example of a deal you are currently working.
4) How will you benefit from approaching the sales from the ‘Buyer’s Value
Proposition’?
5) What are the steps of the ‘Buy/Sell Process’?
 How will you adjust your selling approach to keep the buyer’s process in
mind?
 How does the ‘Buy Process’ match the ‘Sell Process’?
 How will this benefit you as a sales human?
 Share an example of a current deal you are working – how will you adjust
your process to reflect the buyer's process?
6) How will you utilize the ‘Towards/Away’ tool?
 What are some ‘Away’ talking points or words you will use to sell the
benefits of Optimizely?
 What questions can you ask to determine if your buyer is a ‘Towards’
person or an ‘Away’ person?
7) How can you get a buyer to go from “I get it” to “I GET IT” in the ‘Transfer
of Ownership’ stage? (Share an example of a deal you are working.)
 What does the first “I Get It” signify?
 What does the customer start thinking about in the second “I Get It”?
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 What
types of things will a buyer say to you to demonstrate they have
reached the second “I Get It”?
8) What step in the oDeal sales process can you use to set up Transfer of
Ownership?
 How will you accomplish this? (What can you ask to ensure transfer of
ownership?)
 How do we lose out when we skip from Hypothesis Pitch to pricing
proposal without transfer of ownership?
 What steps will you take to ensure your buyer has taken ownership
of the Optimizely platform before moving forward?
9) What typically happens to a buyer during the ‘Rationalize’ stage?
 What are some signals that the buyer is having some doubt?
 What are some tactics you can use to move the buyer through this stage
quickly?
10)
What can/will you do to control how long the sales process takes?
 Give an example of a deal you are currently working – what can you do to
shorten the sales cycle?
11) How can you use ‘Feature/Benefit/Value’ (FBV) to engage ATL? Give an
example of a deal you are currently working?
 How can you adjust you business hypothesis for ATLs to utilize the FBV
tool?
 Evaluate you current pitch? Is it all about Optimizely?
 How can you make it about the ATL buyer?
12) What is the difference between ‘Cause’ and ‘Effect’?
 Who do you ask ‘Effect’ questions to? What are examples of ‘Effect’
questions?
 Who do you ask ‘Cause’ questions to? What are examples of ‘Cause’
questions?
 How does it benefit you to have the Cause discussions earlier in the sales
process?
 How will you address ATL buyers and BLT buyers using ‘Cause and
Effect’ appropriately?
13) What are the three levels of buyers in every organization?
 What does each level care about?
 Why is it important to include all levels in the sales process?
 How will you address the different levels appropriately? Share an example
of a deal you are currently working?
14) What are the 5 ways of creating value?
15) What do you need to include when you are talking ROI ATL? Give an
example for a deal you are currently working.
16) What are some questions you will ask to determine the value of Time for
our customers?
17) Why is important to ask time questions in terms of ‘Past and Future’?
 What are some ‘Past’ questions you can ask?
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 What
are some ‘Future’ questions you can ask?
18) Why are ‘Risk’ questions so effective?
 What are some ‘Risk’ questions you can ask?
19) Why is it important for ATL buyers to see value across multiple ‘Trains’?
 How will you ensure that what you are offering is attached to multiple
‘Trains’?
 What questions will you ask ATL buyers to uncover multiple Trains?
20) What are the benefits of the ‘30-Second Speech’ tool?
 What are some anchors we can use in an Optimizely 30-Second speech?
 How will you use ‘Bridge’ phrases to engage the customer during the 30second speech?
 What are some examples of ‘Bridge’ sentences/questions?
 Why are questions so important in the ‘About Them’ faze?
 What are some questions you can ask to get the customer engaged in the
‘About them’ faze?
 Share an example of your ‘30-Second Speech’.
21) How will you leverage the ‘Flip’ tool with your buyers? What will you
accomplish by using this tool?
22) What are the top 5 mistakes salespeople typically make?
 Which mistakes have you made in the past?
 How will you avoid making those mistakes in the future?
23) How can you leverage the ‘20-Second Help Speech’ tool?
 Why is it effective?
 Has anyone tried it? Did it work?
24) Share an example of how you will use the ‘20-Second Pattern Interrupt
Speech’ tool?
 Why is this effective?
 What questions will you include in your voicemail or email?
25) How will you modify the ‘30-Second Speech’ for the second call and
beyond? Share an example of a deal you a currently working.
26) What is the benefit of providing a next step in the beginning of the second
meeting or beyond?
 How will you leverage this tactic with your buyers going forward?
27) Why is using ‘Them - Us - Them” important in a sales presentation?
 How have/wiil you used it in a current deal you are working?
 How does it benefit your customer/prospect?
 How does the Hypothesis Pitch method fit into this model? Provide an
example of a recent Hypothesis Pitch you presented.
28) How can we keep prospects involved at the end of the meeting by having
them do a SBP?
 What’s the benefit to us?
 What’s the benefit to them?
 How can we use this method on a phone call when not in person?
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29) Think of each stage of the oDeal sales process - what would you say to ‘Pull’
the customers to continue? Provide examples from a current deal.
30) What is the difference between the Education call with the BTL and the
Validate call with the ATL?
 Provided an example of a current deal and how you will use the Validate
method with the ATL.
31) Our a16z meetings are in person and with ATL buyers - how can you use the
in-person sales tips in those meeting’s?
 Which tip is your favourite tip? How will you use it?
32) What is the advantage of using “So What’ questions?
 Think of a deal you’re working and role-play using ‘So What’ questions
until you reach it qualitative answer.
 What are examples of ‘So What’ questions you can ask during a
Hypothesis Pitch?
33) How does it benefit us to start our call prep with the end in mind?
 Provide an example from a current deal - what states will you pull two in
each stage of the process?
34) What will you accomplish using the Gap Chart tool?
 Provide an example of how you will use the Gap Chart in a current deal
with in ATL. Why is this a competitive advantage?
35) What are some of the items that need to be included in a Sales Map?
 What are the customer’s action items?
 What are our action item? Give an example of a current deal
 What does it mean to you if a customer doesn’t want to work on the Sales
Map with you?
36) What happens when you don’t establish mutually agreed upon value early in
the sales process?
 How will you quantify the value early on to give you a competitive
advantage and steer your deal away from becoming a commodity sale?
37) How will it benefit your sale to uncover multiple ATL trains?
 What should you do when an ATL points you to a BTL to solve just one
problem for only one train? Give an example of a current deal.
38) Why is it important to ask ‘What’ questions when speaking about budgets or
money?
 What can you accomplish by asking ‘What’ questions rather than ‘Who’
questions?
 Provide examples of ‘What’ questions you will ask customers.
39) Why is it important to focus on I-dates rather than close dates?
 Why does the customer care about I-dates rather than contract signed
dates?
 What questions will you ask to determine the I-date?
40) Knowing that buyers buy backwards, what actions will you take in the sales
process?
41) What extremes are our typical buyers trying to solve?
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 What
are some quantitative value metrics you can use to demonstrate the
value of an investment in Optimizely?
42) How can we use PPPII to ask better quality questions?
 Which components of PPPII do the buyers use more in their decisionmaking process?
43) What is the reason to use ‘Three Levels of Why’?
 What information do you uncover in each level?
 Think of a deal you lost due to not truly uncovering the ‘Why’ - what will
you do differently now?
44) What is the difference between the Educate and Validate stages?
 How will you move a buyer from the Educate stage to the Validate
stage? Provide an example of a current deal you’re working.
45) You finished the Hypothesis Pitch or demo (Educate phase) and the
buyer asked for pricing - how can you use the TimeDemo tool to move the
buyer into the Validate phase? Provide an example of a current deal.
46) Think about the oDeal sales process-make a list of Gives and Gets you and
the buyer will provide.
47) How does a ProActive I-plan differ from other user centric implementation
plans?
 What are items we should include in our I-plan?
48) Why is it so important to think like a buyer during the Decisions phase?
 What will your conversation Sound like at this point?
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