Sharon Drew Morgen

The Steps to Buying: remembering the human element

There are two distinct categories involving buying decisions: the behind-the-scenes issues buyers must manage internally to get stakeholder buy-in for change and for going outside their status quo for a solution and the solution-choice issues. We are all very familiar with the latter: that’s what sales handles so well. But sales does not handle the former at all: we are not there [...]

The Steps to Buying: remembering the human element is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

We can never understand a buyer’s buying environment

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 [...]

We can never understand a buyer’s buying environment is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Do you really understand how your buyers buy?

For decades, salespeople scrunched their faces when I mentioned “how buyers buy”. I heard comments like: “I know what they need.” or “I understand exactly how they buy: price, price, price.” But sellers only close 7% of their prospects (and far, far less if using marketing automation). If you understand how buyers buy, why do you have less than a 40% [...]

Do you really understand how your buyers buy? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Help Buyers Choose the Buying Decision Team: a case study

Would you buy a house without discussing it with your wife or family? Would you even know all of the buying criteria without their input? Would you bring in a leadership training without getting the buy-in from the people who would be trained? Or know their criteria without their voices? Would you choose a web designer without [...]

Help Buyers Choose the Buying Decision Team: a case study is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Buyers don’t sit and wait for sellers

Around 85% of a buyer’s pre-purchase, back-end decision issues get addressed privately, outside of the seller’s purview, and a seller has no place at the table. Here is where we lose our sales – as buyers manage the internal politics, and the strategic/change issues – not because our solutions aren’t relevant or because we haven’t done a good job selling. The [...]

Buyers don’t sit and wait for sellers is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Selling doesn’t cause buying

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 [...]

Selling doesn’t cause buying is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Why Your Sales Cycle is So Long (Hint: It’s Not About Your Solution)

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 [...]

Why Your Sales Cycle is So Long (Hint: It’s Not About Your Solution) is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Behaviors aren’t rational

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 [...]

Behaviors aren’t rational is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Sharon Drew’s ‘retirement’ & the Future of Buying Facilitation®

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

Sharon Drew’s ‘retirement’ & the Future of Buying Facilitation® is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Work, Asperger’s, Fun, and The Future

I wake up each morning determined that nothing will bother me today. I go into the shower where I feel safe – I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that there is nothing I can do wrong there, that I can’t break some sort of rule, or get annoyed by a seemingly inane proceedure that everyone else finds [...]

Work, Asperger’s, Fun, and The Future is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

An Intelligent Contact Sheet

The field of marketing automation would like to get the right data, at the right time, to prospects who sign up on contact sheets.

An Intelligent Contact Sheet is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Cold Calling Works – and it’s fun!

I’m here to tell you that cold calling can be one of the most effective ways to meet new prospects and close sales. And it’s a whole lotta fun. I know, I know. Most sellers eschew cold calling, preferring instead to network, get referrals, golf, meet face-to-face or make friends through facebook and twitter. Did you ever [...]

Cold Calling Works – and it’s fun! is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

First Contact: What to Do, Why, and How to Get Better Results

Depending on the selling approach you’re using, you are closing between .6% – 7% , regardless of size of solution or industry. These numbers are far lower than they need to be: so long as your primary focus is on making a sale and you focus on needs assessment and solution choice (factors which are the buyer’s final considerations), and ignore the [...]

First Contact: What to Do, Why, and How to Get Better Results is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

9 Sales Steps that Influence a Buying Decision

The steps of a buying decision differ from the steps of a sale. The sales model has no way to influence the private decisions and buy-in issues that buyers must address before they can buy. Buyers live in a ‘system’ that maintains their Identified Problem (or ‘pain’) over time, creating work-arounds that become part of the system [...]

9 Sales Steps that Influence a Buying Decision is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

The differences between the solution sale and the buying decision: let’s go to a wedding

Let’s say you were going to a wedding. You had the gift, decided on the outfit, picked a time to leave to get there on time, decided to use your car rather than you’re spouse’s, because it was more comfortable. Then you had to plug in the directions to your trusty GPS system. What does your [...]

The differences between the solution sale and the buying decision: let’s go to a wedding is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com