RSSLeadership and Decision Making
Dec 15, 2009 Sales Related
What, exactly, is a leader?
The definition used in Tango is my favorite: If you notice the leader, he’s not doing a very good job. The job of the leader is to get the best out of his follower and get out of the way: He opens the door, the follower goes through exhibiting her best, and then the leader follows. I believe that it’s a leader’s job to help followers - colleagues, staff, partners, teammates - make the decisions they need to make to achieve excellence.
Of course we all know many leaders who believe it’s their job to make the decisions and get their followers to do their bidding. They call that Influencing, and there are many methods and models that teach this. But doing it this way often comes back to haunt: when people are not part of the decision making process and haven’t bought in to the proposed change, they may go through their own brand of sabatoge, acting out, forgetfulness, or misinterpretation en route to following orders. Their knowledge of the environment, of the day-to-day working conditions, and their creative ideas, are ignored. We see this frequently with tech implementations. Indeed, requests made by senior people for ‘underlings’ to do their bidding are often met with failure.
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Tags: Buy-In, decision making, leadership
“Dirty Little Secrets” launches tomorrow: 3 more secrets unveiled
Oct 14, 2009 Sales Related
Yesterday I gave you 3 ’secrets’ from the Conclusion of my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.
An answers for those of you who have asked how this book differs from some of my other books, and then I’ll give you 3 more ’secrets.’
This book is very very different from Sales on the Line, Selling with Integrity and Buying Facilitation®. While those books talk about the buying decision process as being separate from the sales process and introduce some new skills, none of my previous books delve into exactly, EXACTLY what happens behind the scenes. I have thoroughly explained
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Tags: behind-the-scenes, book, Buy-In, buyer, change, Dirty Little Secrets, information, internal systems, off-line, solution
“Dirty Little Secrets” Does the Field Really Need a New Sales Book?
Oct 12, 2009 Sales Related
There have been almost as many sales books written as there have been cook books.
But none have ever been written on how to influence, understand, manage, or support the full complement behind-the-scenes, personal/policital and non-need-related elements in a buyer’s decision to purchase.
Sales books manage the solution sale: understanding needs, ‘getting in’, handling cold calls, closing, or objections. Using the phone, getting to the top people, differentiating from the competition, closing a complex sale. Pitching, presenting, postioning the solution. These books – and many written by friends and colleagues whom I respect and admire greatly – manage the solution-placement portion of the buyer’s buying decision.
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Tags: Buy-In, buyers, Buying Facilitation®, buying facilitator, Decision Facilitation, Dirty Little Secrets, sellers
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 A Need?
Aug 5, 2009 Decisioning & Change Management
Since I’m the Queen Contrarian, I’d like to say that the ‘need’ we think that buyers have is not a real need.
First of all, we often meet them at the wrong end of their buying decision – when they are just starting their search for a possible solution. Not only have they not committed to making a purchase, they are too early in their decision process to fully understand all that their ‘need’ entails.
Tags: Buy-In, buyer, buying decisions, need, systems
The Internal Customer: Is It A Sales Job?
Jul 24, 2009 Decisioning & Change Management
What is the difference between selling to an internal customer and selling to an external customer?
Nothing.
At the end of the day, there is the buyer, the seller, and the solution. The influencer, the influenced, and the idea, or request. Regardless of the moving parts, one person wants another person to buy in to something that represents some sort of change.
Whenever we are responsible for having someone else buy in to an idea, change an opinion, help us on a project, we have a sales issue.
But it’s not the sort of sales issue we’re accustomed to. It’s a change management issue: after all, if the Other can’t figure out a way to add our request to their daily activities, their beliefs about their job, their feelings about what is being asked of them, they will do nothing. If we force them to do something they are not internally comfortable with, we’ll have to manage their sabatoge.
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Tags: Buy-In, buying decisions, customers, management tools, teach
