This document provides guidance on using consultative selling skills to convince others in your organization to allow you to do work that aligns with your interests and skills. It recommends understanding both the human and organizational picture by asking questions, actively listening, summarizing discussions, and proposing solutions to problems. The goal is to have meaningful conversations to determine if your ideas can help achieve business goals. If not, you can iterate your proposals or move on. Using this consultative selling framework is likened to a superpower that can open doors by changing the quality of your conversations.

1. How to do the work you
want to do
Fiz Yazdi, cxpartners

2. Why?

3. Grrrrrrr!

4. “My boss /client is an idiot
and can’t see how X could
make a real difference to us”

5. “I’m wasted here. They don’t
let me do what I’m best at,
or hear my opinions”

6. WTF?

7. I felt pretty
grumpy &
frustrated

8. Don’t let the bastards
grind you down
Margret Atwood
The Handmaids Tale

9. Then I had some
training in…

10. Selling

11. A reluctant seller
People in sales didn’t
really seem like me!
I thought they were
motivated by different
things than me.

12. Selling
skills*
*Consultative

13. Me
My ideas
My rationale
My experiments
My aspiration
My vision
My gut
Me

14. If you want to get to do
something, you’re going to
have to sell it

15. Convince your boss, your
client, your team, your
organisation ….

16. Selling
skills*
*Consultative

17. Humans, eh?!
We get frustrated
because we
need…

18. Autonomy urge to direct out own lives
Mastery desire to improve at something that matters
Purpose yearning to invest in a bigger picture
Daniel Pink’s
Intrinsic motivation Framework

19. “All we have to decide is
what to do with the time
we have”
J. R. R. Tolkien

20. Consultative selling

21. It’s the best way I’ve
found to sell
It’s the only way I can sell

22. It’s the best way I’ve
found to sell
To me, it applies UCD
principles to selling

23. People are at the heart
You aim to understand needs, tasks
and context of people, as well as
business
You summarise and declare your
assumptions to get feedback
You build hypothesis, based on shared
understanding
You test hypothesis to learn, iterate,
and co-create ways forward
Consultative
Selling
Disclaimer - I’m
no expert in this,
this is what I
believe / think!

24. A framework - a set of
techniques
Gives you structure to have
rich, meaningful conversations

25. Ask questions
Actively
listen
Summarise
Big summary
Proposal
Understand the picture
©Alice Chapman
Founder of coaching firm Practice
thisispractice.co.uk
Non-Exec Director, cxpartners

26. Alert: some language will feel odd
• Client - that’s who you’re trying
to convince
• Proposal - that’s what you’re
suggesting to do

27. Me
My ideas
My rationale
My experiments
My aspiration
My vision
My gut
Me
The framework
stops me being an
idiot and pushing
my ideas too hard

28. Good practice
Stops you jumping to
solutions

29. 1. Empathy

30. 2. An open mind

31. 3. Curiosity

32. 4. Good intent

33. Understand the
organisational picture

34. Question
Does the work you want to
do align to the outcomes
your organisation wants?

35. You’re not just in UX
You’re in business
An organisation or economic
system where goods and
services are exchanged for
one another or for money

36. Understand the
organisational picture
business

37. You’re making the move
from UX professional,
to business professional

38. The NHS enables people to live healthier and more independent lives
through high quality seamless care. To provide care and services that
we and our families would want to use.
CooP aims to be the UK's best consumer co-operative society by
making a real difference to our members and our communities.
CooP Digital helps our existing businesses make the most of digital and
pioneer new ways to co-operate online
IKEA creates a better everyday life for people. We offer a wide range of
well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low
that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.Vision
Luckily we’re experts at
understanding people

39. Zoom in
Zoom out

40. Strategy
Is a coherent plan to achieve
a goal that will lead to
significant positive change
Sophie Dennis

41. Enables us to delegate
control and making
decisions
That’s handy to
know and playback
to the people
we’re trying to
convince!

43. How do they govern, how
do they run the show?

44. How do they know if what
they are doing is working?

45. Where’s the advocacy &
money coming from?

46. What’s important right now?

47. Join the dots

48. Understand the
human picture

49. Question
Does the work you want to
do align to the outcomes
your client wants
Remember that’s your boss,
colleague - the person
you're trying to convince

50. Difficult
Political
Complex
That’s pretty normal ;-)

51. Ask questions
Actively
listen
Summarise
Big summary
Proposal
Understand the picture
©Alice Chapman
Founder of coaching firm Practice
thisispractice.co.uk
Non-Exec Director, cxpartners

52. Ask questions
On a train journey,
in the kitchen, in a
‘proper’ meeting.
Can be v informal,
and span
conversations

53. How’s it going?
What’s on your mind?
What are you focussing on right now?
Situation type
questions

54. Problem type
questions
What problems are you facing?
What’s going well / not well?
What bugs you?

55. Impact & benefit
questions
What’s the impact?
What would be better if it was fixed?
If it was sorted, how would it be of value?

56. Ask questions
Actively
listen
Summarise
Big summary
Proposal
Understand the picture

57. What do you do with
the cloud of stuff?

58. Actively listen

59. Passive listening -
good for now!

60. It’s not the time for
a debate!

61. 1. Mind - active decision to understand
2. Body - show you’re listening with your
eyes and body language and voice
3. Speech - acknowledge and say
thank you

62. Understand and acknowledge
- not fix, change or debate

63. Ask questions
Summarise
Big summary
Proposal
Understand the picture
Actively
listen

64. How do you know if
you’ve understood?

65. Summarise

66. Summarise = check you’ve
understood
Getting your assumptions
out

67. 1. Paraphrase - if I’ve understood,
if I’m hearing you correctly,
I just want to check?
2. Mirror - playback key words
3. Empathise - you seem…

68. Let’s practice - 2 mins
1. Detective - what’s on your mind right now?
2. Client - something from work / home
3. Detective - if I’ve understood, can I just check…
In pairs, one of you be the detective - the person asking
the question - and the other be the client. Then swap.

69. Ask questions
Summarise
Big summary
Proposal
Understand the picture
Actively
listen
©Alice Chapman
Founder of coaching firm Practice
thisispractice.co.uk
Non-Exec Director, cxpartners

70. Summarise every
30-60 seconds!

71. This is a wonderful service
you are providing - it
helps people gain clarity.
Be explicit that you’re
trying out something new
with colleagues but you
hope it will help them
buckets too

72. Try and sketch a big
summary together

73. Big summary

74. Ask questions
Summarise
Proposal
Understand the picture
Actively
listen
Big summary
©Alice Chapman
Founder of coaching firm Practice
thisispractice.co.uk
Non-Exec Director, cxpartners

75. You’ve asked
You’ve listened
You’ve summarised
What next?

76. Make proposals

77. Proposal
/prəˈpəʊz(ə)l/
A plan or suggestion put
forward for consideration
by others.

78. “Don’t assume people will
know what they need”
Jesmond Allen,
Design Leader

79. Proposal = a hypothesis

80. Value hypothesis

81. One problem you have is [this]
One answer could be [this]
So that you can do / achieve [this]

82. It doesn’t matter if it’s wrong
It’s just a hypothesis
The important thing is to share it

83. One problem you have is [this]
One answer could be [what you want to do]
So that you can do / achieve [this]

84. One problem you have is [this]
One answer could be [ ? ]
So that you can do / achieve [this]
You’re bound to
have discovered
lots that you’d like
to do during the
rich discussion

85. You might get a No!
Don’t concede
Don’t make a speech
Do investigate

86. Ask questions
Summarise
Proposal
Understand the picture
Actively
listen
Big summary
©Alice Chapman
Founder of coaching firm Practice
thisispractice.co.uk
Non-Exec Director, cxpartners

87. Build
Test
Iterate

88. Build
Test
Iterate Move on?

89. To end

90. You are not just in UX
You’re in business

91. Do. Or do not.
There is no try
Yoda

92. Sell*
Ask
Listen
Summarise
Propose
*

93. Use the framework to have rich,
meaningful conversations
So that you can find out if what you
want to do aligns your business /
client
So that you can build a convincing
proposal

94. This will be a win - win
If Yes :-)
If No, you choose to
iterate or move on

95. Trust me, this a bit like
having a super power!

96. “It changes the quality of your
conversations.
For me, it has opened doors
like nothing before”
Walt Buchan
Design Leader

97. Ask questions
Actively
listen
Summarise
Big summary
Proposal
Understand the picture
Do you want to do
©Alice Chapman
Founder of coaching firm Practice
thisispractice.co.uk
Non-Exec Director, cxpartners

98. Use it to do what we do
best, serve human needs

99. Thank you
Fiz Yazdi
UXFiz
fiz.yazdi@cxpartners.co.uk