Recently in Sales Related Category
After years and years of me being the lone voice in the wilderness, crying IT'S THE BUYING DECISION, STUPID!, there are now several training folks talking about sales being about the buyer, not the product. Cool. But is that the underlying thought here?
Apparently coaching - which we used to call consulting - is now the new new thing. What's amazing to me is how few people either get properly trained, or - if trained - really know what they are doing. How does a client choose one coach over another? How does s/he know when a coach is 'good' or 'bad'? What does success or failure look like - and do those concepts get confusing?
If I need to do something I don't want to do, and a coach gets me to do it somehow, and I'm not comfortable but do it anyway, was that a success? or a failure? And how do I explain to my psyche why I'm doing something I hate?
I'm curious: what is it that makes the sales model so important to maintain?
For centuries, we've never closed more than (on average) 7% of our prospects - from first call to close - giving us a 93% failure rate. What makes this ok?
We all (including 'buyers') live within systems that are self-sustaining.
When an Identified Problem occurs that might require a resolution (and buyers seek resolutions to business problems, NOT a new product purchase!), the entire system that created it and maintains it must be included in the solution or disruption will ensue. That is the length of the sales cycle. Sales has treated the Identified Problem as if it were Pain, or a Need.
I've had several instances today in which people whom I've paid to give me a product or service didn't contact me to tell me something I needed to know, and it cost me money. When I finally got ahold of them, they just kinda shrugged it off.
How do we know when vendors will give us what we deserve - before we choose the vendor?
Seems to me vendors should be aware of their customer service these days. The world has indeed become a very small place.
Recently, many folks have found my Buying Facilitation Method to be a skill set they wish to add to their current sales techniques. As I speak with each one, I seem to have a similar discussion: folks seem to believe they need to understand how buyer's buy. Surprising, even those who have read some of my books have the same takeaway.
Obviously, I'm not writing clearly enough or that wouldn't be the takeaway. But that said, what is it that makes it so compelling for folks to believe that they need to understand buyer's buying decisions?
For years I've been saying that sales is focused on the wrong element of the buy/sell process, that instead of focusing on the product end, to focus on the buying end. After all, you can't make a sale without a buyer, and buyers buy only when they discover their own answers.
The missing piece for sellers has been that they haven't been able to effect the buyer's buying environment, even thought they pitch and present with great professionalism, intent, and skill. Indeed, the buyer's buying environment is filled with all of those pesky things that sellers can't see, like people's relationships and internal politics, or how initiatives create rules and roles, or how the company history creates unique stories and beliefs that people carry into their daily activities.
Hi everyone:
I just came from a client site and got blown away, yet again, but how the current sales process acts as such a deterrent to people buying. Not to mention that it causes you (the seller) to end up using price as the sales differentiator (because when you attempt to use information, it ends up sounding like everyone else's products).
We have put together a brand new book series to help you learn and apply Buying Facilitation. The newsletter essays that you have enjoyed for years have been organized into topic chapters with introductions written by Sharon Drew.
E-Book #1 CHANGING THE THINKING: Redefining Our Jobs
Without buy-in, there is no leadership.
Too many leadership programs focus on the strength and power of the leader, but no where do I read a conversation about how the leader supported their crew in making the decisions that would lead to group collaboration.
I also don't hear the stories about how modern-day leaders are followers. Historically, our religious leaders and past figureheads always spoke about who and how they followed. We forget that without following, leaders don't have the heart to lead.
-Sharon Drew Morgen
