Sales people get confused when I suggest they can’t ’understand’ the buyer’s needs if they approach a sale with this outcome. Without everyone on board who will lend their voice to a possible solution, buyers cannot understand it themselves. And using the sales model, we can’t help: we’ll never understand what’s going on behind-the-scenes as they figure out who should be involved, what must be [...]

When you think about your numbers (closing percentages, total calls, etc.), and consider the objections, the price issues, the delayed sales cycles, the excuses, and those who just, well, disappear, don’t you realize these same problems have been cropping up, um, forever? And that whatever you seem to be doing to ‘correct’ the issue doesn’t seem to [...]

Do you know why it takes so long for a buyer to buy? If the buyer knows they have a need, and they like you and your solution, shouldn’t it be easy?
Yes. It is easy. But not with the sales model alone.
THE JOB OF THE SALES MODEL: LIMITING THE PURCHASE CHOICE AND BUYING DECISIONS
The sales [...]

Science, sales, negotiating, and the prison system – not to mention neuromarketing, neurosciences, and decision making sciences – have a base-line belief  that there is a ‘rational’ way to recognize choice -  rationality assumed when the ‘appropriate information’ is available to decide with.
In other words, when choices are made that go against what the world [...]

Sales folks are taught to have a certain amount of curiosity. But what, exactly, are you curious about?
You have been taught to be curious about needs. Do prospects need your solution? Are they in ‘pain’? The moment — the very moment — you hear that a ‘need’ matches your solution, you’re off and running. And you (wrongly) [...]

I recently had a Tab problem on my PC – you know, one of those annoying problems that needs technical assistance from someone, from some country, on the telephone. One of those calls where someone gives his name as “Jim” but it’s probably really Ricardo, or Raj, or Gallal, and his accent is a horrid mixture of Midwest [...]