Upon initial creation of the concept and process known as “Moving Conversations Forward™, I had a gut sense that the idea might have a future.
Many years, a handful of books, and hundreds of speaking engagements later, Moving Conversations Forward™ has as much energy and insight as ever.
Moving Enterprise Sales Conversations Forward™ is an evolution of the ideas, concepts, and techniques. I share them with you here, because: They have helped lots of professionals close… lots of deals.
Enterprise sales conversations require patience, clarity and determination. Selling at this level is not for the impatient.
One New and powerful aspects of the process stands in response to the emergence of “The Decision Committee.”
The rare “Decision Maker” (the single person who makes the ultimate decision whether to buy from you) has virtually disappeared. The replacement: ad hoc and informal teams or groups of people who gather specifically to evaluate offers, vendors and budget commitments; “Decision Committees”. As a fact of life in Business to Business sales, we must respond… as opposed to resist.
This wrinkle in the selling landscape can be daunting, but in Moving Enterprise Sales Conversations Forward™, it boils down to two components:
Mechanics
Nuance
The “mechanics” are the steps, actions, and habits the TOP performing Enterprise Salespeople employ.
The “nuance” refers to the musical connotations and refinements that these sales pros learn to finesse. (phrasing, tempo, feel, for example…)
Leading salespeople make regular use of all the technology at their disposal, and they are very conscious of staying out of the way of the process.
The mechanics range from phone calls to LinkedIn messages, from email to hand-written notes, from video meetings to in-person pitch meetings.
The structure of the selling day is best established the night before. The Pro invests precious time in preparing for what the following day might yield.
The pro pays attention, stays focused, and exercises discipline.
Discipline is defined as “following a regular, proven path.” [1]
Every selling day shows up with challenges and opportunities. Moving Enterprise Sales Conversations Forward™ means that we understand the process and people involved in an organization vetting, evaluating and ultimately choosing a product, service, idea or experience.
What is it that you truly sell? Before you quickly answer, strip away the marketing material, the slogans, and the ad copy.
Tell me what you sell, without offering features or benefits.
Without telling me how much better what you offer is than what your competitor offers.
Without reaching beyond facts. Focus on facts and be firm.
How will what you provide change the condition, improve the future of your target prospect, and their organization?
What can the buyers expect to experience in the first ninety days after signing an agreement to use, experience or receive what you offer?
How will it make their business BETTER?
When I was a Sales Manager in the computer hardware field, my mantra and encouragement to my Sales Pros was: “We are NOT selling a box! We are selling what the BOX DOES, and how it will improve things for the end user.”
From the dawn of Selling, people have been excited to share WHY they are convinced that what they sell is superior, smarter, faster, cooler, more technologically sound.
And … any or all of those may be true. But until those statements come out of the mouth (s) of your prospects (The Decision Committee) they are your OPINION.
Here’s a Klymshynism that has stood the test of time:
“When someone hears a statement come out of MY mouth… all they hear is an OPINION. When it comes out of THEIR mouth… it is a FACT.”
There is freedom to be found in this, in that Moving Enterprise Sales Conversations Forward™ is not accomplished by the Sales Pro talking more. It is accomplished by crafting and delivering insightful, intuitive questions that are about the prospects’ ideas, business, and future.
The Mechanics of what we do are:
Review the past
Discuss THEIR present
Plan the future TWOGETHER
We can (and will!) discuss prospecting elsewhere. This post is about how we move a conversation that has started… forward.
One or two meetings leads you to the opportunity to meet with the larger portion of The Decision Committee.
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(Remember – these are not formal groups. They are people that will have a voice and a vote about whether you are invited to submit a proposal or respond to an RFP.)
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The mechanics are the crafting of questions, our maintaining the discipline to not
· Ask for too much
· Push, thereby vacating a Position of Power
· Appear impatient to “get the deal done.”
The Nuance speaks to the patience, the technique, and the clearly demonstrated ability to follow the prospects directions precisely and to the letter.
Nuance is about subtly, technique and finesse.
This incorporates our earlier reference to the musicality of language.
Phrasing. Tone, feel/
When we marry mechanics and nuance, we unleash a momentum in these conversations that will lead to MORE enterprise deals.
Now… get to work!
[1] From the “Klymshyn Dictionary of Critical Terms”; projected publication date October 5, 2025. If waiting for that publication is inconvenient, more definitions may be found in any of Coach K’s books, found here: Klymshyn Library