Chapter 5: Commitment and Advancement

Core Idea

Once you reveal your idea and show a product, compliments come back. Cut through them by asking for commitment and advancement. Every meeting either succeeds or fails; there is no such thing as a meeting that “went well”.

Frameworks Introduced

• Commitment and advancement (treated as one concept in this book):
  • Commitment: they show they’re serious by giving up something they value, such as time, reputation, or money.
  • Advancement: they move to the next step of your real-world funnel and get closer to purchasing.
  • The two usually arrive together. For example, an intro to their boss is both the next step and a reputation commitment.
• Meetings either succeed or fail:
  • Success: the meeting ends with a commitment to advance to the next step.
  • Failure: you leave with a compliment or a stalling tactic.
  • If you leave with vague goodwill, you fell into one or both traps: you asked for their opinion about your idea, or you didn’t ask for a clear commitment or next step.
  • Rejection is not failure. It’s a strong negative data point. Not asking is the real failure.
• The currencies of conversation (what they give up):
  • Time: a clear next meeting with known goals; sitting down to give feedback on wireframes; using a trial of the product for a non-trivial period.
  • Reputation risk: an intro to peers or team; an intro to a decision maker (boss, spouse, lawyer); a public testimonial or case study.
  • Cash: a letter of intent (a non-legal agreement to purchase); a pre-order; a deposit.
  • Strong commitments combine currencies, such as a paid trial with their whole team.
  • A compliment costs nothing, so it carries no data.
• How to fix a bad meeting: at the end, while they’re brushing you off with a compliment, push for a commitment. You aren’t strong-arming them. You’re putting them to a decision so you learn whether they’re a real lead.
• Don’t pitch blind: start even sales meetings with open-ended learning about this customer. “We do X. Want to buy it?” “No thanks.” teaches you nothing, because hard pitching gives only yes or no. Ask Mom Test questions first, then confirm by selling. This applies over the life of the company and inside a single meeting.
• Earlyvangelists (Steve Blank’s term): your “crazy” first customers. In enterprise, they:
  1. Have the problem
  2. Know they have the problem
  3. Have the budget to solve the problem
  4. Have already cobbled together their own makeshift solution
  • In consumer markets, they pre-order when all you have is a rough prototype, tell their friends, read your blog, and search for workarounds.
  • Takeaways: people who aren’t emotional about your product are unlikely to be first customers, so keep them happy but don’t count on them. When you see deep emotion, keep that person close.

Key Concepts

• Zombie lead: someone who keeps taking meetings and saying nice things but never pays. The author calls this being “friend-zoned”.
• Stalling tactic: a polite postponement, such as “Let me know when it launches.” It is a polite version of “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
• Next steps: the concrete action that advances the relationship. You must know what yours are before the meeting.
• Cost of a trial: how much the customer gives up to try your product. A free trial that takes ten seconds to sign up for is not a commitment.
• Letter of intent (LOI): a written, non-binding agreement to purchase.

Mental Models

• Think in currencies: ask what they’re giving up. The more it is, the more you can trust what they say.
• Think of clinginess and fear of rejection as the cause of zombie leads. You caused it, so you can fix it.
• Enterprise sales give clear early signals (intros to other team members), while consumer products are murkier because the conversation doesn’t mirror the purchase.
• Kickstarter works as validation because it forces people who say they’d buy to pay.

Symptoms (not pushing for commitment)

• A pipeline of zombie leads
• Product meetings that end with a compliment
• Product meetings that end with no clear next steps
• Meetings which “went well”
• They haven’t given up anything of value

Anti-patterns

• Treating “let me know when it launches” as a pre-order: it’s a compliment plus a stall.
• Saying “let me think about that and get back to you” when they ask for next steps: you’ve ruined a good meeting because you didn’t plan your next step.
• Accepting vague next steps: “think about it”, “check with the team”, or “find a time to chat” may be sincere, but stay skeptical until something of value changes hands.

Rules of Thumb (author’s wording)

• “Customers” who keep being friendly but aren’t ever going to buy are a particularly dangerous source of mixed signals.
• If you don’t know what happens next after a product or sales meeting, the meeting was pointless.
• The more they’re giving up, the more seriously you can take what they’re saying.
• It’s not a real lead until you’ve given them a concrete chance to reject you.
• In early stage sales, the real goal is learning. Revenue is a side-effect.

Worked Example

Good meeting / bad meeting: eight meeting endings judged.

How the meeting ended	Verdict	What to do
“That’s so cool. I love it!”	Bad	Pure compliment, zero data. Deflect it and get back to business.
“Looks great. Let me know when it launches.”	Bad	Compliment plus stall. Ask for something today. Early on, ask for an intro to their boss, tech team, or budget holder “to make sure you fully understand their needs.” Later, ask them to be an alpha user and a launch case study.
“There are a couple people I can intro you to when you’re ready.”	Nearly good, but bad now	The promise is too vague to mean anything. Make it concrete: who are the people, what does “ready” mean, and why not now?
“What are the next steps?”	Good (usually)	The classic good ending. It only works if you already know your next steps.
“I would definitely buy that.”	Bad, high danger	Turn the future promise into a current commitment: a letter of intent, a pre-purchase, a deposit, or intros to other decision makers.
“When can we start the trial?”	Maybe good	Check what the trial costs them. If it’s cheap, raise the cost: a case study after two weeks of use, a promise to use it with their team for a week, or taking their card and charging nothing if they cancel within 30 days.
“Can I buy the prototype?”	Great	The best ending. A tripod designer had gone through a dozen prototypes because people kept buying them.
“When can you come back to talk to the rest of the team?”	Good	B2B sales always involve several people. If they won’t introduce you, you’re probably at a dead end.

Key Takeaways

1. Before every product or sales meeting, decide which commitment and next step you’ll ask for.
2. Judge every meeting as succeeded or failed. “Went well” means failed.
3. Ask for commitments in time, reputation, or cash, and trust them in proportion to their cost.
4. Turn vague promises into specific ones, and raise the cost of cheap trials.
5. Start sales meetings with Mom Test learning before you pitch.
6. Look for earlyvangelists and keep people who show deep emotion close.

Connects To

• Ch 1: the solution you chose after gathering facts gets confirmed here.
• Ch 2: deflect compliments in product meetings just as in learning conversations.
• Ch 7: the condiment maker’s request for shelf space is a commitment that separates serious retailers from polite ones.
• Ch 8: prep includes deciding which commitments to push for.
• Neil Rackham, SPIN Selling: separates “advances” from “continuations” in sales calls. The author credits Rackham’s work on sales in the acknowledgments.