Assessing each Buyer

For each Buyer, complete the following. The more honestly you assess each Buyer, the better the AI Coach can guide you.

Influence and power

Influence and power are two different things.

• Influence is based on the person: their knowledge, charisma, relationships and so on.
• Power is based on their position. A CEO has a lot of power: the right to hire, fire, reward and discipline. Yes, they may have little personal influence.

Power is statutory and vests in an individual's position, whereas influence vests in the individual personally. See Buyer Types for more on the difference.

Motivation and Support

• Motivation is how motivated the Buyer is to address the issue and solve the problem. This is not about doing something with you. It is about doing something at all.
• Support is how supportive the Buyer is of you and your offering.

They are separate ratings that you read together. See Motivation and Support.

Relationship Type and Score

Choose the Relationship Type that best describes your relationship with the Buyer: Ad Hoc, Technical, Social or Partnership. Partnership is the kind of relationship you want.

The Relationship Score measures the level of partnership. In the App, click the link beside the score to open the INTIMASEE relationship assessment tool. It takes about a minute to complete.

The score runs from 0 to 100.

• 70 or more: you have a Partnership relationship.
• Less than 70: your relationship is Ad Hoc, Technical or Social, and you need to transform it into a Partnership. The assessment gives you tips on how to do that.

For a fuller explanation of the four relationship types, see Buyer relationships.

Buyer Insights

Record what you know about the Buyer. Be as descriptive as you can. The more detail you give, the more the AI Coach has to work with.

Value Gap

A Value Gap is what the Buyer needs, in a professional sense, that they are not getting now. Examples are increased reliability, less waste, greater customer satisfaction or greater employee satisfaction.

This matters because if you don't know the Value Gap, you have no reason to expect the Buyer to buy anything. Ask yourself what the Buyer needs, and what would close their Value Gaps. Complete this for each Buyer.

Example. The key User Buyer wants implementation certainty: knowing there will be no downtime for want of parts. The notes on this Buyer explain why. He has been let down by this company before, with downtime caused by a lack of parts. So his Value Gap is that he needs certainty about this.

For more on Value Gaps, see Value Drivers and POV.

Next

The next thing to complete for each Buyer is their Value Drivers.