1. What you will learn
This lesson gives you the outcome map for the programme and a diagnostic showing where your selling stands against it. You will learn the eight areas assessed here, how to score each with evidence, how to identify the stage of your selling that is actually costing you, and how to convert low scores into actions completable within a week.
2. The idea explained
An outcome map states what you should be able to produce at the end. Here the outcomes are a three-way selling baseline, a question list in use, a qualification test recorded on every conversation, cost per conversation and per sale, one measured loop, and a ninety-day plan.
The diagnostic scores eight areas: finding conversations, qualifying them, discovery, recommendation and proposal, handling objections, closing and decision-forcing, follow-up discipline, and measurement.
Two features keep it honest. Evidence: each score rests on a count, a document or a specific conversation. Forced distribution: at least two areas must score two or below.
Then the question that matters: which area is actually costing you. In selling this can be found precisely, because the pipeline is a sequence and losses occur at identifiable points. Count how many conversations pass each stage. The stage with the largest proportional loss that you can influence is your constraint.
There is a caution particular to selling. Owners tend to blame the last stage, closing, because that is where the absence of a sale becomes visible. In practice the loss usually occurred earlier, at qualification or discovery, and the closing difficulty is a symptom of having spent an hour with someone who was never going to buy. A useful test: of your last ten conversations that did not close, how many had all four qualification conditions met. If the answer is two, your problem is not closing.
Measurement deserves its own area because without it nothing else can be assessed, and it is the cheapest to fix. An owner scoring one on measurement should fix that first regardless of what else scores low, because a week of recording turns every other score from an opinion into a fact.
Apply it
3. How to apply it in your own business
Score each area from one to five with one line of evidence. Where you have none, score one.
Apply the forced distribution; the usual hiding places are qualification and measurement.
Count conversations passing each stage over three months, and compute the proportional loss at each.
Test the closing hypothesis: of your last ten non-closes, how many were fully qualified.
Name the constraint as the stage with the largest influenceable loss, and write one corrective action per low score, completable within a week. If measurement scores one, fix that first.
Worked example
4. Worked example
Deepa sells bookkeeping services to small firms. She scores herself.
Finding conversations, four: she has steady referral flow. Qualifying, two: she rarely asks about budget or who decides. Discovery, three. Recommendation and proposal, three. Objections, two: she tends to defend rather than ask. Closing, two, which is what she came to the programme to fix. Follow-up, three. Measurement, one: she keeps no record at all.
She fixes measurement first, which takes a week of recording plus reconstruction from her message history.
The counts over three months: forty-four conversations. Thirty-four reached a proposal. Twelve reached a decision, of which nine were yes. Twenty-two faded after the proposal.
Proportional losses: forty-four to thirty-four loses about twenty-three per cent. Thirty-four to twelve loses about sixty-five per cent. That second loss is enormous and is where her attention belongs.
Then the closing test. Of her last ten non-closes, she checks the four conditions. Problem she can solve: ten. Authority: three. Budget known: one. Reason to act now: two.
So of ten people she proposed to and could not close, only three were speaking to someone who could decide and only one had discussed money. Her closing score of two is a symptom. Her actual constraint is qualification, which she had scored two and treated as less urgent.
She computes the cost. Twenty-two fades after proposal, each consuming about an hour of proposal writing plus about forty minutes of follow-up, so about thirty-seven hours in a quarter, which at five hundred rupees an hour is about eighteen thousand five hundred rupees, or about seventy-four thousand rupees a year.
Her actions: add two questions to every first conversation, about who signs and what range they had in mind; and write no proposal until both are answered. Both are completable this week.
5. Common mistakes and how to fix them
The first mistake is blaming closing. Fix it by testing how many of your non-closes were fully qualified.
The second is scoring from impression. Fix it by counting conversations at each stage.
The third is leaving measurement at one and working on something else. Fix it by fixing measurement first, since a week of recording turns every other score into a fact.
The fourth is scoring everything in the middle. Fix it with the forced distribution.
The fifth is writing corrective actions that are really projects. Fix it by requiring completion within a week.
Key takeaways
6. Board summary
The outcomes are a three-way baseline, a question list in use, a recorded qualification test, cost per conversation and per sale, one measured loop, and a ninety-day plan. The diagnostic scores eight areas: finding, qualifying, discovery, recommendation, objections, closing, follow-up and measurement. Count conversations at each stage and name the constraint as the largest influenceable proportional loss. Closing difficulty is usually a symptom of poor qualification, so test how many of your non-closes met all four conditions. If measurement scores one, fix it first, because a week of recording converts every other score from opinion into fact.
Check your understanding
7. Practice and self-check
One. Name the eight areas. Answer: finding conversations, qualifying, discovery, recommendation and proposal, objections, closing, follow-up discipline, and measurement.
Two. Why is closing usually the wrong place to look? Answer: because the loss typically occurred earlier at qualification or discovery, and closing is where the absence becomes visible.
Three. Deepa had forty-four conversations and thirty-four proposals. What is the loss? Answer: about twenty-three per cent.
Four. Thirty-four proposals produced twelve decisions. What is the loss? Answer: about sixty-five per cent.
Five. Of her last ten non-closes, how many had authority present? Answer: three.
Six. What does that tell her? Answer: that her constraint is qualification, not closing.
Seven. Twenty-two fades at about one hour forty minutes each, at five hundred rupees an hour. What is the quarterly cost, and the annual figure? Answer: about thirty-seven hours, or about eighteen thousand five hundred rupees a quarter, which is roughly seventy-four thousand rupees a year.
Eight. Why fix measurement first when it scores one? Answer: because without records every other score is an opinion, and a week of recording makes them facts.