The LOCKS Framework — Crack the Code of the Deal | Chris Sund

Sales Keynote & Training

The LOCKS Framework

Crack the code of the deal.

Five conditions have to be met inside a buyer’s head before a deal closes. Hit four and the lock stays shut. This session gives your team all five, and the method for working through the objection that shows up when one is missing.

Check Availability →See the Frameworks
L
O
C
K
S
The Problem

Most teams are guessing at which tumbler didn’t turn.

A rep comes back from a call and says it went great, and then the deal stalls. Nobody can say why. So the team does more follow-up, sends another case study, drops the price, and none of it works, because none of it touches the thing that was actually missing.Sales does not need to be complicated. Think of a closed deal like a combination lock. There are five tumblers. All five have to line up before it opens. Get four and you have exactly nothing, because a lock that is eighty percent cracked is still a locked lock.This session names all five, in order, so a rep can hear an objection and know which tumbler it came from instead of guessing.
The Framework

The five conditions of a closed deal.

Each one is a question the buyer is answering privately, whether or not anyone says it out loud.

L

Love the Product

“Do I actually want this?”
The obvious one, and the only one most training covers. They have to want what you are selling. This is where value gets built, and it is table stakes rather than the finish line.
O

Own Belief

“Could someone like me actually pull this off?”
They can believe every word you said and still not believe in themselves. “Great product, I’m just not sure I’d get the results.” That is a limiting belief, not a product objection, and no discount fixes it. Your job is to help them see themselves succeeding before they buy.
C

Confidence in You

“Do I trust the person and the company behind it?”
They can love the product and not love you. When that happens they do not walk away from the category, they walk down the street and buy it from a competitor they like better. Know, like and trust is not soft. It decides who gets paid.
K

Kickoff Plan

“What happens the moment I say yes?”
The most overlooked tumbler by a distance. People are not buying the product, they are buying the first thirty days. They need to see the exact steps that follow the payment, clearly enough that the yes becomes an investment in a plan they already believe in rather than a leap into fog.
S

Stakes

“What does it cost me to do nothing?”
They love it, they trust you, they believe in themselves, they can see the plan, and then they say they need to think about it. Real urgency is not one spot left or five hundred off today. Real urgency is showing both twelve-month paths from this conversation: where they are if they solve this, and where they are if the problem keeps compounding. They are paying either way. One path they pay to fix it, the other they pay to keep it.
◆ Why It Works

Because it makes objections diagnostic instead of personal. “I need to think about it” stops being a brush-off and becomes information: the Stakes tumbler did not turn. A rep who knows which of the five is missing knows exactly what to do next, and stops defaulting to discounting.

Part Two

Then the tumbler that sticks.

Knowing which condition is missing is half of it. The other half is the conversation that follows, which is where most reps talk themselves out of the deal.

LOCKS · Diagnose

Five conditions, in order. Where is the deal actually stuck? This is the read.

LAARC · Respond

Listen, Acknowledge, Ask, Respond, Confirm. The method for working through the objection once you know which one it is. Published by LeadingAge Illinois and written up by Cisive.
Both frameworks in full →
“
A lock that is eighty percent cracked is still a locked lock.
Chris Sund
Formats

How it runs.

01 · Keynote

45 to 60 minutes

The full framework for a sales kickoff or conference general session, with stories from running revenue teams rather than theory.
02 · Workshop

Half day

The team brings live deals. Chris works through which tumbler is missing on each and what the next conversation needs to do.
03 · Training

Multi-session

LOCKS and LAARC delivered across sessions with practice between, so it becomes how the team talks rather than a deck they saw once.
◆ Who This Is For

Sales teams, agency owners, recruiters and anyone whose income depends on someone else saying yes. Chris built and leads revenue teams across three companies and delivered this to Definitive Healthcare’s sales kickoff in front of more than 800 people. This is what he actually uses, not a model he read about.

Bring It to Your Team

Give them the combination.

Tell Chris where your deals are stalling and he will tell you which tumbler you are missing, and whether this is the right session for your team.

Check Availability →The Sales Keynote
Response within one business day · info@chrissund.com · 402-212-5771