You might ask, how do customers go about creating context and expectations? Well, from your very earliest discussions, they might start to talk about all the constraints that they are under or they might bring up problems that they have had with your products and services.

You might well hear such statements as "The budget is tight around here," "They're pressing me to reduce costs," "Your competition is lower," "You'll have to do better," "We can't ever reach your service people," "Service has deteriorated," "Your deliveries are always late," etc., etc. Such statement could be true -- but they may also be designed to create context and expectations that will affect the way you negotiate.

How do you combat these attempts to create context and expectations? Well, you don't. What you do do is listen very carefully to what they are saying. Most of the time you'll get both efforts to create context and expectations, and you'll also be able to pick up bits and pieces of information that will help you to truly identify customer needs, goals, and most importantly, the location of their LAS. Your job is to sort through what you hear, screening out the false trails that the customer may be laying down from the true information that the customer may be giving away.

Remember, too, each customer will develop their own unique pattern as to how they go about setting context and expectations. Watch for these customer patterns, make notes of them in your log, and be ready for them whenever you meet with the customer.

The other thing about combating customer attempts to create context and expectations is the old adage that the best defense is a good offense. In other words, you set your own context and expectations. You can do this not only when you meet with the customer to make a sales presentation or to start a negotiation, but you can also do it while you're servicing the customer's account. Some of the ways in which you create context and expectations would be:

Get them to acknowledge the value of special services that you supply. If for example, you are asked to do something that is going to take three hours of your time, and you agree to do it, make sure that the customer knows that it took three hours of your time. And make sure the customer acknowledges the importance of your doing that so that later on, when you're trying to sell the added value of your service, you have that ammunition in your pocket.