When I attended a sales training course many years ago, it was suggested to us that an excellent way of pushing the prospect towards placing his order was the "alternative close" - offering two options so that his decision moved away from whether or not to buy, and to which of two alternatives ro select.

That's an interesting thought and something I've born in mind over the years; I'm not thrilled at the idea of pushing a prospect, though there are times that doing so is a service to everyone, and I'm not thrilled at the idea of restricting the options to just two. Case in point this morning - an enquiry from a customer who's looking to train up a complete team. Although training the whole group at once would be very practical (from my view point) and cost effective (from his), the team has an ongoing support role which must be maintained while they're learning the new technology.

I can up with a whole wide range of options - should I simply offer to run two courses? Should I offer training at the weekend when the support role can be closed down? Should I suggest that the trainees attend two successive public courses, or that the majority have a private course and those who are left as office anchors attend the subsequenct public course? Should I suggest they come to our training centre where they'll spend less on each tiny group and the groups will be away from the office and not subject to interruption? To offer just two options in these circumstances seems to me like it would be almost insulting, but to offer every option would be confusing. In the end, I decided to email through my three best suggestions, with a note that I would welcome an email or call to tune the best option further or to explore other possibilities. It won't close the sale quicker, but it will help better ensure that the customer gets the most appropriate possible product.


(written 2005-05-23, updated 2006-06-05)

 G400 - Well House Consultants - Private course
  [3074] Running a course ... what if the tutor isn't well? - (2010-11-29)
  [3071] Well House Price list, January to March 2011 - (2010-11-25)
  [2965] Testimonials - Well House Consultants Open Source courses - (2010-09-21)
  [2953] Turning an exercise into the real thing with extreme programming - (2010-09-11)
  [2928] Public (scheduled) or private course? Book direct, or through a third party? - (2010-08-19)
  [2881] Tailoring of courses to meet customers needs - how it works - (2010-07-21)
  [2802] After the Perl course in Nurnberg - (2010-06-11)
  [1968] Review of 2008 - (2008-12-31)
  [1929] 2009 - Hotel, Meeting, Training Course prices - (2008-12-07)
  [1555] Advanced Python, Perl, PHP and Tcl training courses / classes - (2008-02-25)
  [1414] What we teach - expained for the non-technical - (2007-10-28)
  [1092] Tcl training - often for a larger group - (2007-02-24)
  [994] Training on Cascading Style Sheets - (2006-12-17)
  [387] Training course plans for 2006 - (2005-07-23)
  [181] Maximum number of trainees on a course - (2005-01-18)

G502 - Well House Consultants - Business Practice
  [3506] Cold call contacts - preference services and turning off spam sales approaches - (2011-11-03)
  [3333] Honesty and a friendly welcome goes a long way - (2011-06-25)
  [3157] A new monopoly on the ferry to Northern Ireland - (2011-02-04)
  [3073] Customer Service - the boundary - (2010-11-27)
  [2966] Cheap Country Hotel in Melksham, Wiltshire? - (2010-09-21)
  [2936] The service that customers should receive - (2010-08-27)
  [2821] Chancellor George Osborne inspires Perl Program - (2010-06-22)
  [2788] Cost of Sales - (2010-06-01)
  [2598] An excuse for making a sales call - (2010-01-26)
  [2465] Melksham Town - asleep or awake? - (2009-10-21)
  [2331] Certification Revisted - Lua - (2009-08-09)
  [2283] Everyone is in the customer relations business - (2009-07-12)
  [2190] How you are (re)presented at an exhibition - (2009-05-19)
  [2187] Are we IITT (Institute of IT Training) members? - (2009-05-17)
  [2161] Get it right ... if it goes wrong, it takes so much effort to sort out! - (2009-05-08)
  [2126] Weeding out old phone numbers - (2009-04-11)
  [2122] Commission Creep - (2009-04-08)
  [2044] Please Trouble me - (2009-02-16)
  [1913] Alastair Darling helps make paperwork and confusion - (2008-11-30)
  [1855] Volunteer v Employee - a skewed balance? (FSB) - (2008-10-25)
  [1713] Ways to accept credit cards - or not! - (2008-07-19)
  [1626] Early May - a short chance to regroup and improve - (2008-05-01)
  [1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
  [1453] What makes our courses special? - (2007-12-02)
  [1394] Business to Business Networking - North and West Wilts / Melksham - (2007-10-17)
  [1373] New Month, New Quarter, New Laws - (2007-10-01)
  [1342] Google, wwmdirectory, Freshwater, ATP - new scam? - (2007-09-09)
  [1319] Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business - (2007-08-25)
  [1263] 0800 043 8225 - a new phone number for Well House - (2007-07-10)
  [1260] An inspirational business talk from one of our prospective MPs - (2007-07-06)
  [1243] Heavy duty hole punch - (2007-06-24)
  [1165] Extended Credit request - train in June and be paid in September - (2007-04-27)
  [1157] Speed Networking - a great evening and how we arranged it - (2007-04-21)
  [1133] B-2-B Networking, 20th April. Useful for YOUR business? - (2007-04-03)
  [1084] Writing terms and conditions for conferences and other events - (2007-02-17)
  [1057] Selling by phone and Skype - our policy - (2007-01-30)
  [906] A commitment we won't be making - (2006-10-27)
  [883] Age discrimination law - (2006-10-01)
  [869] UNABLE TO ATTEND - (2006-09-16)
  [849] Staff Meeting - (2006-08-30)
  [808] Sales call - (2006-07-19)
  [766] Discounts and approved supplier lists - (2006-06-17)
  [664] Ruby course - oops - it's not happening - (2006-04-01)
  [652] Morning Post - (2006-03-20)
  [626] Not just a pretty face to answer the phone. - (2006-02-26)
  [536] Cancellations and penalties - (2005-12-21)
  [491] Being atypical is typical - (2005-11-10)
  [487] On line course booking - credit card protection - (2005-11-06)
  [467] Tell them three times - (2005-10-17)
  [457] Do the work and take the risk - a PHP contract to avoid - (2005-10-06)
  [438] Fair system for travel and accommodation expenses - (2005-09-07)
  [399] simplicity hides real size - (2005-07-31)
  [297] A reminder that the customer is King - (2005-05-01)
  [226] Growing our systems - (2005-02-24)
  [217] Use of time - (2005-02-16)
  [211] Look after your staff and they'll look after you. AOL. - (2005-02-12)
  [200] Tips for the top - (2005-02-03)
  [188] Pink elephant and appreciation - (2005-01-24)
  [180] Skunk works - (2005-01-17)
  [157] Automatic service upgrades - (2004-12-19)
  [137] Certification schemes - (2004-12-02)
  [129] Trawling our site to prevent student copying - (2004-11-24)
  [125] Staff theft - (2004-11-21)
  [121] Fair and Simple - (2004-11-17)
  [108] A typical morning - (2004-11-03)
  [95] Five red flags - (2004-10-21)
  [88] Getting the right level of trainer - (2004-10-14)
  [77] Telephone systems - (2004-10-07)
  [68] Get the strategy worked out and the tactics just fall into place. - (2004-09-30)
  [27] Sales technique - (2004-08-25)
  [15] 90 to 10 or 80 to 20 rule - (2004-08-15)

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The backtick operator in Python and Perl
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