Unfortunately, the newspaper may be going the way of the dial telephone. I’m a journalist by trade, so this fact pains me greatly. But the truth is, newspapers haven’t yet discovered a way to re-invent themselves to remain relevant today. Technology just does too good a job making news available instantaneously.

Unfortunately, the same thing is happening with our sales jobs. With a focus on

• understanding need and placing a solution,
• attempting to understand what’s going on so you can place your solution, and
• handling objections, pitching solution, and overcoming objections,

you’ve lost the real nugget of what is possible in the role of a seller: true buyer support, time savings so buyers can fix problems sooner, and supporting them through the change management issues they struggle with internally.

By helping buyers navigate through the off-line, behind-the-scenes, political and relationship-based issues they need to handle amongst themselves before they can buy anything, you’d be a real asset to the buyer.

Right now, they muddle through this alone, and doing it with you would put you on the Buying Decision Team and obviously make you a Trusted Advisor. And it’s something the internet cannot do. And it’s the aspect of the buying decision journey that sales has never been privy to.

Here are some questions I have for you:

As part of your sales job, do you keep trying harder and harder to understand — understand what? You can see what the prospect needs. They know they have a need. So why haven’t they bought yet?  Do you know the answer?

What is stopping them from buying? What’s taking so long? Do YOU know? And does understanding their problem help?

What do buyers have to do to get all of the right people on their buying decision team? And what happens when/if they don’t?

Today’s final podcast in the series Keeping Sellers Relevant will focus on how you can enter the buyer’s decision journey far far earlier in their buying decision process. Last podcast I explained the buyer’s journey. This one I go into detail and explains how you can be involved in each step of their buying decision process.

It should open your eyes to a world of new possibilities. Please note that if you want to learn more than I can offer in a 15 minute podcast, please consider purchasing Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. I’ve also developed some Learning Modules to help you actually learn the new skills. And for those of you who want to study with me, I’m running public trainings in Austin and Boston in mid September.

It’s important at this time in history that you recognize that the sales model is incomplete, and you can be far more successful if you can enter the buyer’s journey earlier. Not as a sales person or a solution provider, but as a Change Agent and Coach.

Buyers have always gone through this journey without us, causing us to lose most of our prospects. We’ve not taken the challenge to learn a new skill set. But now your choices are limited. Either add a new skill, or become obsolete. Because like it or not, technology can do a lot of your job.

Enjoy. For those wishing to hear the three podcasts in the Keeping Sellers Relevant series, here is the MP3.

And, Mark Sellers (of the BuyCycle Funnel) and I will be doing a live webinar on August 19. Registration and details.

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