It looked like a great product. But he couldn't sell them as rapidly as the company wanted.

"Tell me how you go about selling them" I asked.

"We qualify our prospects to the point where we know we have someone who could use the equipment. Then I call the production engineer or the plant manager on the phone, and gather some information about the type of equipment they use. Then I create a written proposal showing the economic payback, and mail it to him. Next I call and try to close the sale."

"Let me see if I understand correctly," I said. "You're calling a plant manager on the phone. I would guess that most plant managers are men in their 50's, probably with advanced degrees, and who have been in the plant for a number of years, is that right?"

"That's right."

"OK," I said. "So, you're calling someone twice your age, asking him to spend $20,000 - $30,000 on equipment he's never seen, from a company he's never heard of, and from a sales person half his age who he's never met. Is that right?"

My client became a little defensive. "If you put it that way, I suppose it's right."

"Well put it that way," I replied, "because that's the way he sees it."

The problem was simple - risk. On that scale of 0 - 25, how much risk would you think the plant manager would be accepting if he said "Yes" to the over-the-phone offer?

Put yourself in his shoes. Suppose the equipment didn't work the way it was supposed to? He could shut down production lines, spend weeks trying to make things right, cause all sorts of havoc in the plant, and potentially even lose his job. Now that's risk.

If you were that plant manager, how much more than the original $20,000 quote would you spend to reduce the risk? It wouldn't be hard to justify a price double that.