If you want to know what types of decisions someone will make and/or how they will allocate their limited budget dollars, knowing the questions they're asking is critical.
| Are they asking: | Or: |
| How can they get additional price concessions from vendors? | How can they gain improved performance from vendors that can enable them to lower their total costs? |
| How can they centralize their decision making to their purchasing department? | How can they utilize the intelligence that lies outside their organization to gain and exploit competitive advantages? |
| How can we build our capabilities internally? | How can we transform fixed costs into variable costs by better utilizing the capabilities of others? |
| How can we utilize the past to drive improvements? | What do we need to know to ensure that we can compete effectively in the future? |
If your market is the questions on the left side, you are clearly in a "What's it Cost Conversation." If they're asking the questions on the right side, you've got an opportunity to discusswhat it's worth.
What questions do you want your market to ask themselves?