A couple years ago, a consultant we were working with – let’s call him Jayson – was asked to submit a proposal for a leadership development program. They also told him they had a program budget of ~$80k.
Two months later, Jayson had a signed contract. Not for an $80k Leadership Program, but a $450k, year-long engagement.
Wait, what?
See, what Jayson did – that all of us can do – was to understand and acknowledge that while “training” almost always has a fixed budget, budgets related to realizing business strategy are often (a) much larger and (b) more flexible.
In other words, align to the CEO’s top 1 or 2 priorities, and you tap into substantially greater budget allocation.
So that’s exactly what Jayson did.
To be clear, it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
Jayson was laughed out of the room initially.
The CEO said (and I quote) – “You’re nuts. I’m not paying $450,000 for a leadership development program.”
But Jayson worked at it, applying what he had learned as an Actionable Consulting Partner:
He used the Value ChainTM to design the program specifically to advance strategic priorities
He used the Proposal Conversion AmplifierTM to help the CEO reframe the program as a Strategy Activation investment (not “training”)
He used the Insight-Action FlywheelTM to build confidence in the process.
The program was a huge success, and renewed for a second year.
“Connecting to executive pain points” is one of three areas you need to nail in your proposals to increase your win rates, but arguably the most important if you want to dramatically increase the scope of your client programs.
Want the guide on how to do this in your own programs? Get it free, here.
Here at Actionable, we help elite consultants deliver Impact Certainty for their clients. If you’d like to be able to guarantee demonstrable impact for your clients, we’d love to show you how we can help make that happen. Book a no risk, 20 minute discovery call to learn more.
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