“Become the person they call first when they’re ready to buy.” Master this box and you win on trust — 74% choose the person who brought value first.
Which box is holding you back from reaching $1,000,000?
START HERE You know the most — and still lose to a worse product. Expertise doesn’t win deals. Reliability does. The doer — fast follow-up, quick replies, consistently present — beats the expert who’s hard to reach, every time. → Are you winning on being the expert, or on being the easiest to do business with?
DO THE WORK Find common ground with AVI — become the one they call first. You can’t outspend bigger competitors on marketing — but you can out-relate them. The AVI Framework — Aspirations, Values, Interests — finds the genuine common ground that builds closeness fast. Then RIPES tells you why your buyer is buying emotionally, so every interaction lands harder.
Emotional Favourite gets called first
The edge: 37% of the time, the easiest person to do business with wins — regardless of product quality or price. Your champion can leave — your relationships shouldn’t leave with them. At every active account, build three specific relationships: the person your main contact reports to, the person most likely to replace them, and someone in a different department who benefits from your solution. A deal built on one relationship dies the moment that person leaves, gets reassigned, or stops responding. “It’s not the expert that does best — they’re the second worst person. The doer wins.”
YOU’RE READY You’re the one they call first — trusted, liked, connected before the sale. When you’re the emotional favourite, you’ve mastered Box 8. Move on to Won Sales Analysis.
IN THE RESTAURANT EXAMPLE Restaurant scheduling software, 4 X 4. Three shared AVI with Maria: Aspiration — she wants to open her own restaurant one day. Value — she believes staff with kids deserve schedules a week ahead. Interest — they both run half-marathons. Three people beyond Maria: the person she reports to (Daniel, the owner), the person most likely to replace her (Ahmed, the kitchen manager she’s grooming), and someone in another department who benefits (Lisa, the bookkeeper, who loses hours fixing overtime errors). The signal: before the proposal, Maria says, unprompted: “I’d rather work with you than the big app — you actually listened.”
THE THREE BIGGEST MISTAKES
SKIP You skip finding real common ground — no shared Aspirations, Values or Interests documented — so the relationship stays transactional instead of personal.
SHORTCUT You only have one relationship at the account — no one above your contact, no one who could replace them, no one in another department — so the whole deal disappears the moment that person does.
STUMBLE In the last 90 days, no prospect has reached out to you first, unprompted — you’re assuming the relationship is strong instead of testing it.
Key terms for this box: AVI Framework · Emotional Favourite · Multi-Threading See this box in the restaurant example →