Gives and Gets™ is the exchange of value and commitment throughout a sale. You give your buyer time, expertise, answers, and resources. You also ask for reasonable commitments that show they’re participating in the buying process. Those small commitments help you understand where you stand, keep the opportunity moving, and prepare both sides for the final decision.
Too many salespeople wait until the proposal is out before asking their buyer to do anything meaningful. By then, they’ve answered every question, delivered multiple demonstrations, involved their technical team, and revised the pricing. The buyer has attended a few meetings and said, “This looks interesting.”
That is a lot of seller activity. The buyer’s commitment is still unclear.
I’ve found that strong salespeople ask for small closes from their first meaningful conversation onward. They give the buyer opportunities to participate, then pay attention to what happens. Closing becomes something they practice throughout the relationship, well before a contract appears.
Giving feels comfortable. A buyer asks for information, and you send it. They request another presentation, and you schedule it. They want a proposal, and you spend your afternoon preparing one. You’re being helpful, responsive, and busy. (Busy is particularly easy to mistake for progress.)
Asking introduces uncertainty. The buyer might decline. They might hesitate. They might reveal that the project matters much less to them than you hoped.
That uncertainty is useful. You need to know whether your buyer is willing to invest time, share information, involve colleagues, or take responsibility for a next step. Gives and Gets™ helps you bring those questions into the conversation while there is still time to act on the answers.
This takes some confidence. When a buyer turns down a reasonable request, you should be able to say, “Okay,” without becoming defensive or withdrawing the help you already promised. A graceful response leaves room to understand the obstacle and, where appropriate, ask for a smaller commitment.
The exchange also requires judgment. You wouldn’t ask a new contact to arrange an executive meeting before you’ve established why that meeting would be useful. Your request should fit the relationship, the value you’ve provided, and the stage of the sale.
Here are five questions that help you put Gives and Gets™ into practice.
A meaningful conversation doesn’t have to last an hour. Five engaged minutes can tell you more than a scheduled meeting in which your buyer spends most of the time answering someone else’s email.
Once you’ve had a useful exchange, asking for a cell phone number can be an appropriate early Get. You’re asking the buyer to make direct communication easier as the conversation develops.
There’s a difference between finding someone’s number in a database and having that person give it to you. In the second case, the buyer has participated. They’ve agreed to another way of staying in touch.
That doesn’t mean you now have permission to call whenever you feel anxious about your forecast. Find out how they prefer you to use the number. And if they prefer to keep the conversation on email or their work line, respect that.
One declined request doesn’t disqualify a buyer. Look at the broader pattern. Are they offering another way to stay connected? Are they responding, keeping appointments, and helping you move the conversation forward?
A buyer can enjoy your presentation, appreciate your expertise, and have very little intention of changing anything.
You need to understand their appetite for action. One way I’ve asked this is: “How willing are you to buy, with one being ‘Never talk to me again,’ and four being ‘I want to buy in the next hour’?”
The extreme endpoints give the buyer room to place themselves somewhere in between. The useful part comes when you explore their answer. If they say two, ask what would need to happen for them to become a three. If they say three, find out what is keeping them from moving forward.
You’re asking them to share something more useful than a polite reaction to your product. Their answer can reveal a competing priority, an unresolved concern, or a business problem that hasn’t become urgent enough to address.
Within Gives and Gets™, that candid information helps you choose an appropriate next request. A rating alone doesn’t establish commitment. The actions that follow will tell you much more.
Ask a buyer who else is involved in the decision, and you’ll often hear, “My boss,” “Our finance team,” or “A committee.”
You have learned that other people exist. You still know very little about the opportunity.
I prefer to first understand whether this conversation has any visibility inside the organization. “Does the person you’re collaborating with know you’re talking to me right now?” helps you establish that.
A yes gives you something to explore. What do those colleagues know? What are they hoping to accomplish? What will they need to evaluate?
A no tells you that internal communication may be the next step. Your contact could be researching options independently or preparing to raise the issue with their manager. That can be legitimate early buying activity. It also means you should be careful about treating the opportunity as further along than it is.
You can help your contact prepare for that internal conversation, then ask them to have it and share what they learn. That is a practical Gives and Gets™ exchange: useful preparation from you, meaningful participation from them.
Salespeople often describe a friendly contact as their champion. The contact returns calls, laughs at the right moments, and says encouraging things after demonstrations.
A champion has work to do.
Before asking someone to take on that role, define it. You might say: “Will you work as hard inside your company to find a place for our solution as I’ll work to put the right package together for you? If the deal gets stuck, will you help unstick it?”
That makes the commitment clearer than asking someone to be your “go-to person.”
You’re asking whether they will help the organization evaluate the purchase, surface concerns, and navigate the internal steps you cannot manage from outside. You’re also making your own responsibility clear.
Give them room to answer honestly. Someone may believe in your solution and still lack the influence, access, or time to perform that role. Learning that before the proposal helps you understand what the deal still needs.
Then watch for follow-through. A promised introduction becomes useful when the introduction happens. An agreement to gather feedback becomes useful when the feedback arrives. Gives and Gets™ requires attention to what the buyer actually DOES.
Sending a proposal should come with a conversation about the next action.
You might ask, “If I send the proposal today, could you return it signed by Tuesday?” Your buyer may explain that the committee still needs to review it. That response gives you information about the process and an opportunity to establish a smaller, realistic commitment.
For example:
Rep: “Could you return the proposal signed by Tuesday?”
Buyer: “No. The committee still needs to review it.”
Rep: “Okay. Could you send me a preliminary list of their comments by Tuesday?”
Buyer: “Yes, that would work.”
In this example, you adjust the ask while preserving the date. The buyer has identified work that can reasonably happen within that window, and both sides understand the next step.
Use judgment about the timing. An arbitrary deadline won’t remove a required legal review or make an unavailable committee appear. The aim is to agree on meaningful progress and a date the buyer can support.
“Let me know what you think” leaves the next step undefined. An agreed review, a list of comments, or a scheduled decision conversation gives both parties something concrete to work toward.
These five questions give you ways to ask for participation as the relationship develops. Each helps you learn something about the buyer’s willingness and ability to move forward.
Keep providing value. Honor your commitments. Ask for reasonable participation in return, and stay composed when the answer is no. You can use that answer to understand the situation and identify a more appropriate next step.
By the time you ask for the final signature, you should have a history of commitments that both sides have kept. That history gives you a much stronger basis for closing than enthusiasm, meeting attendance, or the number of proposals you’ve rewritten.
Happy Selling!®, Jeff