[ID Discuss] Creating a proposal for field research

[Elizabeth Bacon]

Hi David, et al.,

I recently took a fantastic class at UCLA Extension in the art of
persuasion, which has already had numerous applications throughout my work.

Rather than putting forth your value proposition up-front, a powerful way to
approach your situation is to make your supes FEEL THE PAIN of their current
way of doing things *first*. It's only when people recognize the *cost* of
their behaviors that they tend to embrace change, accept risk, and otherwise
look for new solutions. In fact, psychology shows us that most decisions are
made on emotional basis - shocking news to those of us who like to think
business is rational & analytical.

The basics of this approach are outlined in a sales process known as
"consultative selling", which unfortunately I'm having trouble finding good
descriptions of online. The key idea of this process that I want to share is
that you first dialog with your buyer/prospect/supe in order to discover
their true problem(s), and then you quantify the cost of that problem, and
then you make your buyer/prospect/supe articulate that problem themselves.
Make them actually say the words out loud themselves: "We are losing
customers because we aren't delivering the features that they want" --or
whatever it is you zero in on as your supes' true point of pain (where the
cost for them = losing customers). Then, and only then, can you propose the
solutions that would ameliorate the problems.

Your value proposition stated below is, of course, on target...it's just
that your supes may not even really *hear* it if they aren't focused on why
they should take action to solve their problems. And it really sounds like
you're up against some serious denial, based on your background description.

I hope this idea can help you with your proposal. Truly, the class was one
big A-HA moment for me, for I looked back on various opportunities to sell
my services to people and I realized how much more effective this approach
would have been, unlike my previously all-too-self-assured "Here's what I
can do for you and boy is it great!!" approach. ;)

Cheers,
EB


-----Original Message-----
From: David Heller [mailto:dave at interactiondesigners.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 2:42 PM
To: discuss at interactiondesigners.com
Subject: [ID Discuss] Creating a proposal for field research


Hey there,

I've been tasked with the job of writing a proposal to my supes to convince
the powers that be that field research will give real results and show true
value to all involved stake holders. I'd love to gain some insights from
others who had to do the selling of this great idea to people who just don't
get it at all.

Background: I work for a very business driven company. Our clientele (those
that pay) are very exclusive in a particular way and our sales teams guard
access to them and the dev and marketing teams are not fully convinced
either of the value of UCD in general let alone something as amorphous and
qualatative as Contextual Design or Goal-Directed research and design.

Here is the value statement I came up with:
The way to keep current customers is by providing them better service.
We can provide them better service if we better understand their user's
needs.
To better understand their needs we need to have a picture of the context in
which they use the service; what of their existing busienss processes are
not being met; and in what wasy is the services functionality not meeting
the business processes it was designed to meet.
To get this picture we need first hand access to both the customer and the
customer's user-base.
What the customer gets out of this experience is ...
	real contact with the decision makers who are designing THEIR tool.
	thus being able to directly effect that design.

Does that work? Is there something I'm missing here? Any help would be
appreciated.

-- dave