RSSBuying Facilitation®: what is it? and how is it different from sales?
Jan 11, 2010 Buying Facilitation®
I’m so pleased that my trademarked model Buying Facilitation® is getting acceptance in the sales field. I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce folks to my definition of it, to ensure that when they use the term they don’t confuse it with sales.
Here is the definition, how it differs from sales, and why we get such different results when we use it.
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Tags: buyers, Buying Facilitation®, Decision Facilitation, model
Buying Facilitation® vs. buyer facilitation
Dec 21, 2009 Buying Facilitation®, Sales Related
Lately, I’ve noticed folks using the term buyer facilitation. While I can make a good guess that the term is a version of Buying Facilitation®, it is being used in a ’sales’ context. So maybe, the term is to be used in conjunction with Buying Facilitation®. After all, the buyer must manage both the internal decision issues and the need-related decision isuses before a purchase happens.
Here is a complete definition of Buying Facilitation®:
Buying Facilitation® is a decision facilitation skill that acts as an unbiased GPS tool to assist buyers in navigating through their unique, behind-the-scenes change issues to ensure they get the buy-in necessary to bring in a new solution.
I named my model Buying Facilitation® because it’s precisely what we need to be doing in addition to selling: helping buyers facilitate the internal, off-line, behind-the-scenes, personal decision process that we are not privy to. It manages that important meeting between colleagues over lunch, the fight that needs to be resolved between department heads before budgets can be used, the political issues that will get the right folks to meetings, that the right considerations and implementation concerns are on the agenda. We are indeed helping facilitate the buying decision, but it’s core is change management. It’s the stuff that often has nothing to do with need or solution. And the stuff that sales methods don’t address, yet needs to happen before buyers can go ahead with any purchase.
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Tags: buyer facilitation, Buying Facilitation®, Facilitative Questions, gps
Buyers Don’t Buy Because You Sell Well
Sep 18, 2009 Buying Facilitation®, Top Posts
Buyers buy when they want to resolve a business problem.
Buyers buy when all of the members of their decision team – all of the members – agree that it’s time to resolve a problem.
Buyers buy when their internal system – their culture – knows how to make room for something new without disrupting the status quo.
Buyers never buy on price unless everything looks equal.
Sales people waste their intellectual capital by merely focusing on pushing a solution: they know so much about the environment their product resides in that they can be true decision facilitators for buyers.
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Tags: buyers, culture, need, price, sellers, solution, systems
Buying Facilitation® Comes Before Sales
Aug 18, 2009 Buying Facilitation®
I’ve recently gotten a few notes from folks thinking that Buying Facilitation® is a way to help buyers make a buying choice once they are prospects. I’d like to correct you: Buying Facilitation® is NOT a selling tool; it is used BEFORE any selling happens, and is a change management tool.
Let’s look at it this way: if a buyer’s buying decision were a 3 inch line, the sales piece would be the last 1/2 inch. Let me give you an example with the client I blogged about yesterday.
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Tags: buying decision team, Buying Facilitation®, Facilitative Questions, Good Practice, internal decision making, learning solution, new provider, sales, sales cycle
A Case Study In Buying Facilitation®
Aug 17, 2009 Buying Facilitation®
I’m at a client site this week (Good Practice), teaching them how to become decision facilitators. As part of their training, I sit with each of them as they learn to make the phone their friend, and practice Buying Facilitation® on cold calls.
These sales folks are long-term professionals, responsible for millions of dollars of business annually. Yet they are discovering wholly new responses and possibilities for starting client relationships.
What are they doing differently from what they used to do? They are directing their efforts to supporting the off-line issues prospects have to address before they are in a position to consider making a buying decision. They are not using sales techniques. They are not gathering data, or understanding needs, or pitching. But their results are far more successful than if they were selling.
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Tags: Buy-In, buying decision team, Buying Facilitation®, change, Decision Facilitation, phone, prospecting, sales cycle, selling, solutions
What Is Buying Facilitation®?
Aug 10, 2009 Buying Facilitation®
What is the difference between selling and helping someone buy?
A lot. But not what you think.
When I began talking about helping buyers buy in 1988, people thought I was a little nuts (and what does that have to do with anything?). I persisted, and finally, about 3 or4 years ago, people began using the phrase as if it had always been around.
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Tags: Buying Facilitation®, Decision Facilitation, internal systems, need, status quo
