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Identifying, Selecting, and Developing Themes 113

Psychologics Worksheet Cell 5
“Based upon the evaluation criteria, how does
Competition
the prospect compare you with competitors?”
Considering the Prospect’s Evaluation Criteria for This Opportunity . . .
Competitors
Competitors’ Strengths Competitors’ Weaknesses
In-House/Other Initiatives

Your Strengths Your Weaknesses
You
“How might you counter competitors’ strengths “How might competitors counter your strengths, exploit
or exploit their weaknesses?” your weaknesses, or redefine the overriding question?”

FIGURE 7.4 Ps y c h o l ogics W o r k s h eet , C e ll 5: C
FIGURE 7.4 Psychologics Worksheet, Cell 5: Competitionompetition

Selecting the Themes

Themes, as we’ve seen, come from three potential sources—hot buttons, evalu-
ation criteria, and counters to the competition. If you have downloaded the
complete Psychologics Worksheet, you will notice that arrows from each of these
sources point to the Themes cell (Cell 6). However, not all hot buttons, evalua-
tion criteria, and counters to the competition should become themes. Themes are
your highlighted essential messages, and they can be highlighted, like the itali-
cized word in this sentence, only if other things are not. Therefore, you want to
use themes sparingly, choosing perhaps three to five in an average-length pro-
posal. Given that your Psychologics Worksheet might have as many as 20 hot
buttons, evaluation criteria, and counters to the competition, which three to five
should become themes? These are my suggestions:

1. Concerning hot buttons, choose the desires and concerns of medium- and
high-power-base buyers. As the Psychologics Worksheet, Cell 3 (see Figure 7.5)
suggests, you should indicate each buyer’s power base and receptivity. Power
base refers to a buyer’s relative influence in this buying opportunity, not to the
buyer’s general level of influence within the organization. Receptivity refers to
a buyer’s relative reception to your selling efforts to date, from “++” (a strong