sorry to hear that your job wasn’t recession proof. i suspect we’re all suffering. i keep thinking it’s time to retire!

you have 3 questions: 1. Buying Facilitation hasn’t changed – but i’ve learned how to better code the systems that people and buyers live within, and have broken down the entire process so i can teach it better. i especially like my Guided Study Sessions which offers the entire model, in miniscule, learnable bites. so the process remains robust and powerful. i’m just getting better at it.

2. what’s different in the down turn, is that now folks have no way of making the decisions they are accustomed to making: they no longer have the means to measure the data they used to make decisions, and need to come up with new criteria for making them. i suspect they will be values,criteria and people driven rather than numbers driven. in some ways, i see the economic downturn as a very positive happening because all of the greed, the bad/abusive practices of the past 8 or more years, will now be upended, and we’ll have a clear path to move forward. i believe that the new thinkers, the people who care about people and the earth, will now have the ‘floor’ to make a difference. i count myself as one of those. i see my model now coming into mainstream as sellers (and negotiators, and coaches etc) begin to realize that pushing agendas doesn’t work. it’s now time to truly serve each other and help others design their own best solutions.

3. Buying Facilitation and social networking: my friend Scott Allen wrote a networking book (The Virtual Handshake) that i wrote parts of. before anyone does anything – make friends, choose to speak with one person over another etc – there is a decision to be made. you can do the ‘sales’ stuff and ‘pitch’ yourself, or you can use your time to help another person decide how to ‘be’ with you: “How would you know that partnering with me would give you what you seek?” . there are lists of Facilitative Questions that i posed in Scott’s book. also, you might get some out of the “Buying Facilitation” ebook (www.buyingfacilitation.com) if you haven’t read it already.
the context for using Buying Facilitation is irrelevant: whenever you need to help someone make a decision to do anything, BF works wonders.

Stay well, Ed. and best to you.
sd