Response Mode Framework
Sell only to buyers who perceive a gap—and create the gap for those who don't
Every buying influence in a complex sale is in one of four Response Modes that determine their openness to change. Growth Mode buyers perceive that their current performance could be significantly better and see your solution as a path to improvement—they are actively receptive. Trouble Mode buyers perceive they are falling below an acceptable standard and feel urgency—they are highly receptive but must be handled carefully as panic can drive poor decisions. Even Keel buyers perceive no meaningful gap between their current reality and their goals—they are not currently buying and will be resistant to features-and-benefits arguments. Overconfident buyers believe they are performing better than their goals require—they feel no need at all.
Only Growth and Trouble modes are buying modes. No amount of presentation skill, relationship depth, or price reduction will move an Even Keel or Overconfident buyer to commitment. The salesperson's task with resistant buyers is not to push harder but to shift their perception of reality—to reveal a discrepancy they have not yet recognized.
Mode is situational, not personal—the same buyer can be in Growth mode for your solution and Even Keel for a competitor's. And mode changes constantly; a buyer who is Even Keel today can move to Trouble overnight if market conditions shift. The strategic imperative is to focus selling resources on Growth and Trouble contacts while devising specific actions to shift Even Keel contacts toward recognizing a discrepancy.
- Only buyers in Growth or Trouble modes are psychologically positioned to consider change—all others require perception-shifting before they can be sold.
- Features, benefits, and ROI arguments are irrelevant to Even Keel or Overconfident buyers because no perceived discrepancy exists to justify the risk of change.
- Response modes are situational perceptions, not personality types—they can change overnight with shifts in market, organizational, or competitive conditions.
- A buyer's mode is their current reality, not your assessment of whether they should be concerned—you must work from their perception, not yours.
- Shifting an Even Keel buyer requires revealing a discrepancy they have not yet seen, not simply presenting a better solution to one they have.
- Diagnose Each Buying Influence's Current ModeFor each person on your buying influence chart, assess whether they perceive a gap between their current performance and their goals. Look for language signals—Growth buyers use opportunity language ('we could be doing better'), Trouble buyers use urgency language ('we have a problem'), Even Keel buyers use satisfied language ('things are fine'), and Overconfident buyers use dismissive language ('we're already the best at this').Pro tipAsk open-ended questions about their business results and targets rather than asking directly how they feel about your category—the gap reveals itself in how they describe performance.
- Prioritize Growth and Trouble ContactsAllocate the majority of your immediate selling effort to buyers already in Growth or Trouble mode. These contacts are positioned to receive your solution; presenting your case here produces the highest return on selling time. Craft your Win-Results statements specifically around the type of discrepancy each contact perceives.WarningTrouble Mode buyers require careful handling—their urgency can drive them toward the first adequate solution rather than the best one. Focus on reducing anxiety by demonstrating competence, not just availability.
- Develop a Perception-Shifting Strategy for Even Keel ContactsFor buying influences who are Even Keel, design an approach that reveals a discrepancy between their current performance and an external benchmark or emerging threat they have not yet recognized. Industry data, competitive intelligence, peer comparisons, and 'what if' scenarios can shift Even Keel buyers toward Growth awareness without creating adversarial pressure.Pro tipUse Coach relationships to understand what business concerns the Even Keel buyer tracks closely—a relevant threat in that area will register far more quickly than one in an area they consider unimportant.
- Monitor Mode Changes Between CallsResponse modes are dynamic—market shifts, leadership changes, competitor actions, and quarterly results can move any buyer from one mode to another between your calls. Before every sales engagement, re-assess mode by asking your Coaches what has changed since the last meeting.WarningAn Overconfident Economic Buyer who moves suddenly to Trouble mode is a high-stakes opportunity—but panic selling to them while they are in extreme Trouble can produce a poor-fit transaction you will both regret.
In the sample account used throughout the book, User Buyer Harry Barnes and Technical Buyer Will Johnson were in Even Keel and Overconfident modes respectively. Despite strong Growth and Trouble perceptions from the Economic Buyer and Coach, these two blocking contacts required separate strategies because presenting product benefits to them was ineffective.
The authors describe a Technical Buyer named Gary Steinberg who was in Trouble mode—perceiving that his department was falling below an acceptable performance standard. Unlike his Even Keel colleague Harry Barnes, Steinberg's Trouble perception made him urgently receptive to any solution that could close the gap. The Coach, Sandy Kelly, shared Steinberg's Trouble perception and was used to reinforce the proposal's relevance to his specific operational problem.
Miller and Heiman developed the Response Mode concept from observing that salespeople who consistently lost deals to weaker competitors often had excellent relationships with their contacts—yet the contacts were not buying. The missing variable was not relationship quality but buyer perception. Contacts who saw no gap between current performance and desired results had no reason to change, regardless of how well they liked the salesperson. The framework gave salespeople a way to diagnose, before investing more relationship capital, whether a contact was in a position to buy.