First, let me say that Mike’s publication – Rain Today – is chock full of ideas that are solid, interesting, innovative, and important.  He’s also got some cool people who write for it, such as John Doerr, Charlie Green, and my friend Jill Konrath.

For starters, take a look at his blog: Services Marketing Blog

There is everything you need to be a professional. RainToday.com delivers “innovative, intense, and high-end learning programs to help service business leaders increase their growth and profitability.”

They have cool stuff on buyers buying, sellers selling – you need it, they got it.

Next: Mike’s new book. Since I didn’t have time to get an advance copy from Mike, I read some reviews and marketing data. Here is the summary of what Mike’s book (co-authored with John Doerr) is about:

“How do you build a market leading brand, a thriving lead generation engine, and a culture of business development success? The answer is simple: you’ve got to be as passionate, energetic, and skilled with marketing as you are with your clients.”

Given Mike’s reputation for being both smart and gentle, helpful and innovative, and given what I’ve read by him (His How Buyers Buy is an important document that you’ll find on his blog – especially important for me, since all of my work for the past 20 years has been about the off-line decisions buyers make and Mike’s stuff melds with mine.) I’d bet his book will be thoughtful and packed with usable ideas.

Have a look. Look around his great site, his blog, and the Wellesley Hills Group papers. You’ll learn a lot. I did. I spent about a half hour looking around and reading.  And I’m really impressed. Thanks for making all of that good thinking available, Mike.

Now: go buy Mike’s book.

sd

Mike Schultz Has A New Book – And He’s Smart is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Begun about two years ago by Clayton Shold and Dave Maynard to be an encyclopedia/wikipedia for sales, Shold and Maynard have grown the site to be THE place for all-things-sales, with provocative articles and great podcasts. And they keep the site looking fresh, slightly edgy, and crisp. They are obviously doing everything they can to, as Dave says, “Get your attention so you can find those hidden gems.” 

They do a regular blog post, mention/showcase books, and overall, carry a message of integrity: they offer a site that is people-friendly, and obviously recognize that sales is about serving people. Given that my Decision Facilitation models are about serving our buyers by helping them maneuver through their subjective dynamics on their way to buy-in, Salesopedia matches my own criteria around integrity.

As an aside: Clayton writes thoughtful blogs. He steps outside the field of  ‘sales’ to mention other ideas, books, etc. to help sales folks think. His blog posts are actually stimulating.

Enjoy the site. It will give you the people you like, the articles that will help, and the ideas that will get you to think. The field is lucky to have such thoughtful professionals serving us.

www.salesopedia.com

Salesopedia: The Sales Place is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I hate to be a contrarian (Oh. Ok. I love it. Why change the habits of a lifetime?) but… it’s not the end-all and be-all that it’s being touted as.

Here’s the good news: Sales 2.0 is good for driving people to you. By simply offering a webinar, a free e-book, a White Paper, or some incentive, you can get folks to your site. If your material is good enough, they will Twitter about you, put a TinyUrl about you, link to your site, write you up on their blog. You can gather their data, have some sort of passive or active follow up, use the names on an opt-in list, and get hundreds or thousands of new names on your database.

If you want new names and a large database, Sales 2.0 is for you. I know many, many marketers pouring their hearts out to develop wonderful content to send out as bait to attract attention. And it works: after your event, you can follow people up with an email, or hire a telephone sales group to follow up with a phone call. Allegedly, SalesGenius has a dedicated phone sales crew that will call up a new contact within minutes of them signing up on their contact form.

And, what does that give you? An opt-in list (a different question – did the people opt-in for you to contact them after the event?) to send marketing material to. If you don’t actively follow up, you potentially have a new group of people who have been introduced to you and your material, and will hopefully go to your site and learn more or buy something. Hopefully is the operative word here.

And here’s the bad news: how do these folks decide to convert? How do they choose to make a purchase once you’ve captured their name? After you’ve sent them emails (and emails and emails)? Because this is still a one-way pitch: they are basically unknown addresses, who will  interact meaningfully only if they choose to, and only make a purchase if they need exactly what you are offering at the exact moment you are offering it.

Solution data is the last thing buyers need when making a decision to purchase.

People only use data to make decisions with at the point they need the data – usually as the last act in a purchasing decision. Not before. Primary decisions are made on values. With lots of buy-in necessary.

Let me say that a different way. Sales 2.0 suffers from the same problem that all sales suffers from: the assumption that because there is a need, or a problem, the only thing that must occur is some sort of hook-up between the need and the ‘right solution’ and, miraculously, a purchase will occur.

We all know that, sadly, there is a less than 10% conversion rate in sales. And yet the myth persists: great product, trusted partner, perfect solution, good prospecting, great closing techniques, getting past gatekeepers, getting to the decision makers, understanding who the decision makers are, having a great price or a special deal – yup. Sales keeps coming up with ways to persuade, manipulate, position. But still, after centuries of lots of new, new things, there is still a <10% closing rate.

Why, you ask? Ah. I’m going to tell you why. Because (obviously) that’s not how people buy.  Because the sales model only manages the solution-decision end of the buyer’s buying decision. Because a buyer – whether an individual or a group – has a bunch of internal, subjective, hidden, mysterious, unconscious (Are you getting the point? There is no way an outsider can influence this using the sales model.) factors and criteria they need to  address internally in some way, before a purchasing decision can be made.

And many of these factors are deep within the buyer’s culture, and have nothing directly to do with the Identified Problem. It’s the lunch meeting with the boss’s boss that was canceled; the fight your prospect is having with the next department. It’s the relationship and rules and people stuff we can’t control with the sales model. But has to get done.

Your buyer needs a new piece of software? or a team building course? But they have been doing what they doing for quite a while and haven’t changed anything. Obviously, the status quo will continue until it gets enough buy-in to agree to a change.

Indeed, making a purchase is a change management issue – a systems issue, if you will, that can be influenced by Buying Facilitation™. It’s not so simple as problem/need + solution = purchase or we’d be closing a lot more than we close.

Like sales, Sales 2.0 is a push modality, even though it professes to be a pull model. Because it doesn’t help buyers maneuver through their unique and idiosyncratic hidden dynamics that need to buy-in to making a change at this time – independent of the need.

So Sales 2.0 is basically a great tool for sales using a numbers game: have enough names, throw enough spaghetti on the wall, and some of it will stick.

So: don’t expect:

1. people who aren’t ready to buy to buy you because they opted in to a free webinar;
2. people who signed a contact sheet to read your emails;
3. people to know how to buy you because you’ve got their name from a cookie;
4. your sales to increase if you don’t find a way to help the buyer facilitate the unique change decisions (NOT buying decisions) they need to make that will ensure their system will be intact after purchasing your product;
5. to automatically convert an email address to a buyer.

Ask yourself this: why do you assume that the webinar, or the White Paper, or the Podcast you are offering is a precursor to a buying decision?

Just some food for thought. And because I like being a contrarian.
sd

Sales 2.0: 5 Things You Shouldn’t Expect is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I’m writing everyone to reconnect after several months of no contact.

As they say, “Sheeee’s Back!” But this time, with some new offerings. And regular blog posts J I’ve been listed as having one of the top 10 blogs, so please make sure you come back often.

BLOG

My new blog will focus on introducing new ideas from sales books and blogs, and doing interviews, podcasts, and webinars with colleagues in sales, marketing, authenticity in business, outsourcing, MLM, banking – folks whose ideas I find interesting and integrity-filled. My hope is that with this type of support, you’ll be intrigued enough about ‘the dirty little secret’ that you might want to buy it. Stay tuned to see the sorts of offers and offerings I’ll make available for those of you interested in my new book.

I’ll also be counting on you to make comments, and start discussions. What fun we can have! And because the blog will be linked to my friends and colleagues – some of whom are in conventional sales, but all of whom act from a place of integrity – you will have plenty of ideas to help you with your success.

I’ll be sending one blog post a week, and if you want to receive them through RSS feed automatically, you can sign up on the site. For those of you who want to opt out, please unsubscribe below.

NEW BOOK

Why does sales have such a high failure rate? And what can we do about it. My new book will be coming out soon – The Dirty Little Secret: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it – and I’ll be discussing some of the ideas in it:

• why sales is a failed model and how to include the first half of the buying decision in your selling effort;
• how we can help buyers buy by helping them manage their internal, implicit, decisions;
• how the system that has created (and maintains) a buyer’s ‘need’ must be managed in order for them to buy anything;
• how buyers decide and how to help them decide to choose you;
• systems: what are the elements in a buyer’s system, how it can be influenced, and where ‘need’ sits;
• how it’s possible to close a helluva lot more sales, get rid of those prospects who won’t ever buy, and halve the sales cycle (but not with the typical selling model);
• how to be true servant leaders to our customers and work with an integrity/values foundation.

The Dirty Little Secret: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it is my most ambitious book to date, and includes a very complete Case History of a sale, and an alternate scenario that shows what’s possible when the top half of sales (the buying decision half) gets added to the sales model.

I think you’ll like it, and for those of you who haven’t bought my ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions, you might want to get it before the new one comes out as they are companion books.

Thank you for your care. If there is anything I can do for you to help facilitate your success, please let me know.

I look forward to our time together.

Sharon Drew

Catch Up: Blogging With Colleagues, New Book Introduction is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com