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​In last week’s newsletter, we talked about starting with the buying situation, not the offer.

And memorably, we used Liam Neeson in Taken as the example.

But demand is only one side of the story.

We still have to match the engagement to what the buyer is willing to purchase.

We’re matching three things: the buyer, the situation, and the engagement.

When we’re testing our offers, we’re testing two hypotheses:

1. Demand (Buyer + Situation): Have we found the right buyer, facing a situation that’s important enough for them to act?
2. Engagement: Have we proposed the right kind of help, at a level of value and commitment they’re willing to buy?

It’s easy, when we don’t get a sale, to jump straight to “They didn’t want my offer. I need to change the offer.”

Sometimes the offer itself was fine, we just hadn’t found the right buyer or a compelling enough buying situation.

But the flip side is what we're also evaluating: The buying situation is spot on, but what we’re proposing isn’t the kind of help they need.

Both result in no sale, but they’re different problems to fix.

Consider Liam Neeson’s mythical consulting firm.

Your daughter has been kidnapped in Paris and you need someone to get her back.

Pretty clear, urgent demand.

But what if he tried to sell a diagnostic?

“I’ll identify the likeliest places she might be held.”

Or a training?

“I’ll teach you how to fight your way through the streets of Paris.”

Or an advisory retainer?

“I’ll advise you on how to get her back, and continue advising you on surveillance and negotiation once she’s home.”

No. We’re paying for Liam Neeson's character to fly to Paris, fight the crooks, and make the rescue in less than 48 hours.

Pinpointing the right buying situation doesn’t automatically mean you’ve proposed the right engagement.

Three things to test when designing an engagement

Does the engagement provide the kind of help the buyer actually needs?

Clients generally hire outside expertise for three reasons:

• Capacity: They need someone to do work they don’t have the bandwidth or resources to handle internally.
• Skill: They need specialized knowledge, capabilities, or experience they don’t possess.
• Vantage point: They need outside perspective, independent judgment, challenge, or accountability.

Often they’re buying a combination of the three. But which one is driving the decision?

Let’s say I’m an operations consultant working with a busy founder.

The business has grown, operations are chaotic, and the founder is spending too much time managing the day-to-day.

But if I propose a four-week sprint to develop a better operations playbook for the founder to execute, when what they want to buy is someone to run operations, I’m unlikely to make the sale. I’m selling them a plan when they want to hire someone to do the work.

On the flip side, let’s say I’m planning a trip to Paris. (For vacation, not for rescuing anyone.)

I don’t want someone to go to Paris for me. I want a travel concierge who can recommend where to stay and handle the reservations.

In that case, expertise and a defined set of deliverables are exactly what I need.

Does the engagement match the level of commitment and trust established?

Someone needs to trust you quite a bit to commit to a 12-month business consulting engagement upfront.

They may have a real problem and believe you have the expertise to solve it, but still not be ready to commit to a year of working together, especially at the price you want to charge.

Instead of lowering your price or rethinking the whole offer, consider whether you can offer a smaller first engagement that matches the scope, duration, investment, and trust the buyer is prepared to commit to.

Perhaps you start with a four-week planning project or a focused implementation sprint.

Once that’s complete, the buying situation often changes. Initially, they needed a plan. Now they need help implementing it. Later, they may want ongoing advisory support.

You don’t have to sell the entire client journey in the first sale.

Does the engagement deliver meaningful value on its own?

When we break a larger engagement into smaller pieces, experts often start with a diagnostic or planning project. But that first engagement has to be seen as valuable to the client on its own.

Imagine a company is considering hiring a marketing consultant because their leads have dried up.

The consultant proposes a $3,000 marketing audit that identifies the gaps with their current approach. But the company really wants a marketing plan they can execute (with or without your help), not just a view of what's not working—even though you know an audit is necessary to develop the plan.

How can you frame the initial engagement around the result the buyer values, even when your process includes steps they don't yet realize are necessary?

So what actually was the gap when an offer doesn’t sell?

We often treat a lost or failed sale as evidence that something is wrong with the offer. So we change the price, rewrite the deliverables, adjust the timeline, or invent a new package.

But before changing anything, we need to figure out which hypothesis failed.

Problem 1: We haven’t validated demand.

Maybe we’re talking to the wrong buyer. Maybe the situation isn’t recognizable to them. Maybe they agree it’s a problem, but it isn’t important enough to spend money, time, or effort solving right now.

Changing a six-week engagement into a four-week engagement probably won’t help.

We need to revisit the buyer and the buying situation.

Problem 2: We’ve found demand, but proposed the wrong engagement.

The buyer recognizes the problem, wants to do something about it, and is willing to invest.

But they need implementation and we’re selling advice. Or they need a decision and we’re selling a lengthy diagnostic or implementation plan. Or they want a bounded project and we’re asking for a year-long commitment.

The buying situation may be perfectly good. We need to change what we’re proposing.

Of course, a sale can also fall through because of timing, budget, or competing priorities. And if we're not having enough sales conversations, we may not have enough evidence to know what's working.

The next time an offer doesn’t sell, before changing the proposed package, ask:

Did I find the wrong buying situation or the wrong buyer? Or did I propose the wrong kind of help?

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Pick up the Phone: Sales with Max Traylor Going back to the archive for some of my favorite episodes, now that Aggressively Human is bi-weekly! ​Max Traylor—agency churn physician and LinkedIn truth-teller—joins us to break down why so much of what passes for “sales strategy” today was never actually working. (It just didn’t matter when money was cheap.) We talk about how most of us have never learned (or needed to learn) real sales skills, why AI and automation are actually doing you a favor by making real humans stand out, and why your best sales strategy is still a damn phone call. We also dive into what real client expansion looks like, how to expand your existing relationships (hint: the word you’ll stop using is “done”), and how agency owners and soloists can rebuild around human relationships instead of implementing software and tools that take us farther away from connections in search of “scale”. Listen to the Pod