Eliciting Definitions

by Kenrick Cleveland

There’s an English idiom that goes, “The devil is in the details.” I’m sure you’ve all heard it. It implies that the small things in plans or schemes are often the things that take the most time in the long term. Well, in criteria elicitation, we need to dig a little deeper than just the surface act and get a little dirty with the details.

I believe that the elicitation of criteria is at the cornerstone of all sales. When we do this, to use a sports metaphor, it’s like getting the ball down the alley each time with no gutter balls. Further defining their criteria gives us a strike each and every time.

Here’s how definitions work.

I’ve done a lot of trainings and had many students in my coaching club. Everyone has their own specific reason for coming, yet many of them have very similar sounding criteria. If I have two students who tell me that the reason they’re at the training is because what’s being taught is very important to them in their sales, well, that’s the surface criteria.

If you ask them, “Is this important to you? Do you really want to learn this?” Both of them will say yes. Yet each one has different deeper definitions for their criteria when we elicit it.

The first student might say that the training is important because they want to learn new skills and grow in their business. Your follow up is to ask what that means. They might say that they want to see a list of skills and they want to participate in exercises using the skills so they can learn them.

When you ask the second person what’s important to them about being at the training, they might say, well, it’s important to me to be recognized for the hard work that I bring to the table. Now that’s an entirely different criteria. Asking what that means, they may say that they want their classmates and the instructor to recognize that they are skilled and quick to learn.

Both people willing to come to the training, both people willing to pay for the training, both people are in that training but in reality, if you think about it, you’ve really got two radically different subsections.

For any of you that have taught in front of a group, you’ll know what I’m talking about here. In any group there will be a section of people that probably know your material and maybe reasonably well, or at least think they do. There will be a group of people that are star struck, thinking, wow, I’m really in the presence of a master.

Then there will be the majority of the people that are interested in really wanting to gain knowledge and see if there is something of value to them in what you’re saying.

But it’s important that you begin to understand that every time you think you know what someone wants, unless you ask, you don’t. You’re not on target. You’re not on track. And until you both elicit the criteria and elicit the meaning, the definition, you’re missing the boat.

Knowing criteria is a good start. If you want to bowl strike after strike, the key is to learn how to define their criteria.

About the Author:

Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of wealthy clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion strategies.