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Identifying, Selecting, and Developing Themes 109

Psychologics Worksheet Cell 2
Hot Buttons “What desires or concerns of each buyer must be addressed?”

Buyer’s Hot Benefits to Each Buyer from
Buttons* How Addressed SA M PO Addressing His/Her Hot Buttons

1
2

3

4

5

*Hot button: Process-related desire or concern of a buyer that will affect your sales approach (SA), project’s
methodology (M), and/or project organization (PO); often personal, having emotional rather than technical
content. Use single words or short phrases such as:
• Thorough, integrated, balanced, or flexible approach • Project complexity
• Urgency (e.g., to get quick results) • Objectivity
• Creativity • Sensitivity to . . .
• Control • Involvement
• Fear or change • Teaching/training

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ogics W
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FIGURE
FIGURE 7.2 Psychologics Worksheet, Cell 2: Hot buttons
7.2

and, in this case, you have very little of either. When you pay the bill and the expert
tells you the problem wasn’t the relatively inexpensive fan belt but the much more
expensive starter or alternator, you have no way of evaluating that claim, no way of
knowing for certain whether you’re being “taken.” Worse, even if you’re not being
taken, you have no way of knowing that you’re not. So when you take your car to a
mechanic, you have a hot button—call it trust or honesty or clear communication.
Again, note that if your hot button had been addressed, two effects would
have occurred, neither of which involves the mechanic’s technical expertise for
addressing your problem. First, the mechanic would have to change how he works
with you (for example, by calling you for approval if the solution turned out to be
different from or more expensive than what you anticipated, or by returning to
you the damaged part, or by clearly showing you how or why the part was dam-
aged). Second, you would benefit from that change. You would feel better. You’d
be less anxious or apprehensive and more certain, not that the car got fixed but
that what was wrong got fixed.