Gap Selling: Current State, Future State, the Gap
Find out exactly where the buyer is now and where they want to be; your offer is only worth what the gap between them is worth.
A practitioner book based on the author's consulting experience; no controlled studies.
Why it works
Buyers do not buy services, they buy a change. When both the current state and the target are written in numbers, the price is compared with the size of the gap, not with other vendors.
How to do it
- Ask for the current state in facts: how many, how long, how much.
- Ask what is causing it.
- Ask for the future state they want, with a number and a date.
- State the gap back to them in one sentence.
- Size your offer against that gap, not against your cost.
What to say
Where are you today: how many open roles, and for how long?
Where do you need to be, and by when?
So the gap is five field roles that need to be filled before October. Is that right?
Avoid
Skipping the current state and jumping to features. Without the starting point, there is no gap, and the talk turns to price.
Example
A Bengaluru agritech firm wanted to grow from 40 to 90 farmer-facing staff by March. Vikram wrote both numbers on the whiteboard and asked what the 50 people were worth to them. Fee talk took two minutes after that.
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