Years ago I did a Buying Facilitation Method® program for a now-defunct group at KPMG. Before working with this team, they were using 2-4 people, spending between $500,000 and $1,000,000, and spending weeks creating large, glorious presentations to woo and wow the prospects as part of their proposal responses. They won 20% of the business.

When I began talking about ‘helping buyers buy’, or ‘decision facilitation’ in 1988, people thought I was a bit eccentric, to say the least. “I help buyers buy too,” I used to hear. “I find out what they need, position my solution in a way they understand that it will resolve their pain, and give [...]

The sales and marketing communities have a historic enmity: marketing people think sellers don’t effectively use the data they gather, and sales folks think marketers give them bad leads. Marketing people are annoyed that sellers get paid so much when such a high percentage of sales don’t close and sales people think marketers are sending the [...]

By any objective standard, I’ve been successful: It’s been a blessing that an out-of-the-box idea…

Where does selling begin? Why do we begin a buyer conversation by focusing on finding needs?

The sales process is woefully inadequate. It merely focuses on the last 10% of the buying decision: the solution and vendor choice.
To understand and influence the buyer’s buying decision process and all of the people, politics and relationships that buyers must manage internally to be ready to make a purchase, it’s necessary for sellers to learn a new language. Not [...]