Where do they go?

Industry lore believes that 80% of your prospects will purchase a solution similar to yours within two years of your relationship with them – but not from you (and they leave behind a trail of dead sales people in the meantime). Why aren’t those 80% buying from you now?

WHEN DO BUYERS BUY – AND WHAT TAKES THEM SO LONG?

Buyers don’t buy because they can’t buy. The ramifications of a purchase

• made at the wrong time,
• involving an insufficient number of stakeholders,
• with only a fraction of the ultimate Buying Decision Team on board,
• with no clear idea of how the status quo will be effected,
• without all of those who touch the solution in agreement,

are too big to risk disruption if not managed prior to the purchase.

The status quo has worked well-enough until now, and your solution would be disruptive if the above issues weren’t in agreement with change.

• Buyers buy when their entire Buying Decision Team is on board and has offered their voice and buying criteria, and has bought-in to managing whatever change a new solution will demand.
• Buyers buy when the folks who touch the solution know how the changes will effect their people and policies, relationships and internal politics.
• Buyers buy when they know their current, beloved vendors cannot meet their needs and the new solution will fit somehow with the existing technology or systems.
• Buyers buy when everyone involved decides it’s time to resolve a business problem.

They don’t buy because they are in love with your solution.

Until or unless buyers are able to recognize and manage all of the change management issues they will face when bringing in a new solution, they will do nothing.

And the sales model – regardless of the way you sell – does nothing to help buyers navigate their internal, private, and very confusing journey towards buy-in.

The problem with sales is that it treats an Identified Problem (or need) as if it were an isolated event. It’s not. The ‘need’ sits within a system that has not only created it, but holds it in place daily. Attempting to resolve this ‘need’ without managing the change issues involved in a solution would cause disruption that the status quo will not tolerate. And here is where you lose your prospects.

A PURCHASE IS A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM

We recognize needs, do needs assessment, and place solutions. But sales does not help buyers manage the non-solution, back-end issues they must address at the back-end.

It’s here we lose our sales. A purchase is a change management problem, after all. And until or unless buyers manage their change issues and ensure that the people and policies, relationships and internal politics, are ready, willing and able to change, they will do nothing. And that’s when they show up two years later as buyers – it has taken them that long to manage the internal buy-in.

The sales model only manages the last 10% that buyers do: choose a vendor and a solution. And the push back we get is because we are pushing a solution into a currently balanced system that will fight to maintain homeostasis.

Add Buying Facilitation® to the front end of your sales process, and you will start at the beginning of the buyer’s journey. It’s a different skill set – more like being a GPS system or navigation model that is systems based. But you’re either going to sit and wait for buyers to do this, or use new skills to enter the buying journey earlier.

Until now, you’ve been losing prospects to their buy-in issues. But you no longer need to. Avoid time delays in the buying decision. Help buyers choose you in 1/8 the time – really – and be automatically differentiated. Help your buyers understand how to manage their change – on the first call - and turn ‘names’ into real prospects, and avoid wasting time following folks who will never buy.

Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy.

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Learn more about Buying Facilitation® either via http://buyingfaciliation.com or by reading samples of my two latest books: Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that expands and influences thinking and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Why Aren’t Our Prospects Buying: the problem sales can’t solve is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

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% close rate?

Indeed, it’s not enough to understand: so long as you are using the conventional sales model (and bas your interactions on placing a solution) you have no idea how your buyers travel through their buy path or who is involved. And you certainly have no way of influencing it.

MAKE YOURSELF THE BUYER

Let’s say you’re not closing all of the sales you deserve to close. You follow many prospects and are surprised at which ones finally buy and which ones disappear. You constantly shift the dates on your pipeline because the buyers didn’t close when they said they would. Things ‘happen’: the buyer’s company is going through X, or Y decision maker is now involved, or the old vendor has shown up…. always ‘something’  kinda dumb, when their need obviously fits your solution.

You’re suffering the same issues all sellers face: waiting, waiting, waiting for the purchase. From where you sit, it should happen any day. From where you sit, you know what’s going on: you know the players, you know the old vendor and old technology, you are best friends with the buyer, you’ve agreed on price, and everyone is bought in.

Or is that all true.

From where I sit here’s what I see:

• you don’t know on the first call who is going to buy and who will never buy;
• on the first call you haven’t taught your buyer how to put together the full Buying Decision Team or help him/her discover everyone who will touch the solution and helping them buy-in to change;
• you’re not closing all of the sales you deserve to close;
• you actually have no way of knowing if the right folks are on board at any point in the buying decision cycle;
• your sales cycle is at least 50% longer than it needs to be;
• you are not closing half of the sales you should be closing, or finding the right prospects, or spending too much time chasing prospects who will never close;
• you are entering the buying decision too early and attempting to place a solution before they have the proper buy-in to make a purchase, or even know the full data set of purchasing criteria.

From where I sit, you have a need for my solution. You have a need to add Buying Facilitation® to what you’re already doing, so you can manage the upfront change management piece buyers must go through prior to making a purchase, close at least 40% more sales, and close in 1/2 the time. You’re a prospect. You have all of the problems that my buyers exhibit and need my solution.

So your need and my solution fit. Does that make you a buyer?

You have budget constraints. You don’t know how Buying Facilitation® would fit as an addition to your current sales skills. You don’t have the time/money/management support to make a change. Your sales manager is concentrating on, oh.. say Closing Skills or Negotiating Techniques, and doesn’t have the bandwidth to allow you to sell differently from the others. But I don’t  understand how you buy.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SELLING AND HELPING SOMEONE BUY

I am an outsider. The difference between what I, or anyone, can know as an outsider, and what the insiders must do/know to manage their internal politics, or get all the right people onto the Buying Decision Team, is the difference between your need, your change issues, and my solution.

The difference between what you need and how/when/if you buy is the distance between how you consider/seek Excellence, and how you envisage your status quo, and what you need to manage to be ready to make a change.

Do you have a manager that has created a selling environment based on his own sales skills and wants his team to replicate his success of long ago? Does the CEO not want to spend money – regardless of the training funds sitting in your budget (making the CEO the gatekeeper)? Does HQ want all training to come from them? Is there a training roll out happening now and there is no way you can learn anything new until the roll out is complete?

I might understand your need, and I might even know everyone on your Buying Decision Team (but I probably don’t): but your buying decision issues must match the internal, idiosyncratic, unique, and personal issues that make up your status quo, and I can never, ever understand the politics, or relationships.

Stop trying to undertand. Instead, learn Buying Facilitation®. Add it to the front end of your selling skills. Learn to lead your buyers through their entire series of change management issues so they can avoid all of the delays you’re watching them go through. Then you can find more, close more, close faster, and stop wasting time. And you’ll know who will close, and when.

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Learn Buying Facilitation® as a Self Study program.

Read Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it to really understand how buyers buy.

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

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

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 change management issues buyers must handle before they choose a solution, you are delaying a close by a factor of 8.

By using a different focus and changing your ‘first contact’ criteria, you can enter your prospect’s world and get onto the Buying Decision Team much earlier. And close more/quicker. But it requires a new skill to add to your sales model.

WHAT ISN’T WORKING WITH CURRENT APPROACHES

Here are some numbers my clients have given me over 20+ years:

When using a non-marketing-automation selling model (any form of needs-based consultative selling), and your first contact is to make an appointment as your first outcome, you close 2% from first call (with no idea who might be a prospect, you must start counting your ‘close rates’  from this first call – not from your appointment). It might show up as 15% if you track from first appointment.

When you go through lead scoring and lead nurturing, and then attempt to make an appointment, you are closing much less than 1%. And when counting from first appointment, the close rate shows up as 17% — real, only if the names ignored by lead scoring had no probability.

As a rule of thumb, any time you begin your sale with an attempt to get an appointment, you are being rejected by approximately 90 – 97% of perfectly good prospects.   

At least 50% of the people you are calling are viable prospects. Easily half of  these can close. Are you closing at least 25% of all of your raw leads? These folks are going to buy something similar to your solution within 2 years – but not from you. If you employ a change management model from the first call rather than attempt to get an appointment, you will close more, help put together – and become part of - the Buying Decision Team on your first call,  and making you invaluable immediately.

Note: until or unless the entire Buying Decision Team is on board, buyers will not have the full fact pattern to understand what a solution must include, regardless of what their need or ‘pain’ looks like to us. And generally, buyers do not know all of the Team members until they are close to the end, thereby delaying a purchase.

If you first connect using a qualification process that includes change management criteria, you can turn around a lead from ‘potential interest’ to ‘qualified prospect’ within 10 minutes, and reduce the sales cycle by 50% regardless of the size of the solution.

HAVING A NEED DOES NOT MAKE SOMEONE A BUYER

When you attempt to Qualify using need, purchasing capability, or timing,  or use a Trusted Advisor approach, you are omitting all of those people who

1. don’t know know exactly what they need yet and are not quite ready for solution data,
2. have not managed the off-line change and are not ready to buy – but are indeed buyers and know they have a need,
3. are doing their due diligence, but have assigned others to do on-line research for them and don’t seem to be relevant leads,
4. have not the full solution criteria because they are still getting their Buying Decision Team members on board.

The last thing buyers need is solution information, and they need very little of this on the first contact. Until or unless they get feedback on all who touch the solution, and then know how to move forward with change and solution adoption in a way that will create few ripples in their system, prospects cannot buy – separate from their need.

Personally, you may not care about the private, back-end buying journey. But by collapsing the buyer’s journey between first thought and purchase, by helping them get ALL Buying Decision Team members on board early to define the solution and change processes, and get the right policies in place quickly, you can find more prospects, close a lot more sales (400-800% higher close rate over sales alone) and waste a lot less time – not to mention forecast more efficiently.

THE BUYING FACILITATION METHOD® CHANGES THE NUMBERS

With a cold call and a good list, using the Buying Facilitation Method®, my clients close 35% from first call – often without an appointment, and always at least 50% quicker.

Buying Facilitation® facilitates the behind-the-scenes change management issues necessary prior to a purchase, puts you onto the Buying Decision Team immediately (first call) , and teaches the buyer how to recognize and manage their internal systems  issues up front. The model works in any situation in which back-end decisions get made:

• Periodic upsell  for new solutions
• Client recovery to re-engage with lapsed customer relationships
• Prospecting, telepromoting/telemarketing, and follow up from marketing automation
• Managing negotiations
• Pipeline reviews/management
• Qualifying – for proposal management, sales, marketing, pre-lead scoring

How are you currently adding new capability to your X?

At what point would you and your decision team be seeking to add something new to what you’re already doing successfully?

Let’s add Buying Facilitation® to every sales process – as a front end to marketing automation, or a new skill for sales folks - and close in half the time, manage our pipeline in a timely way, find the right buyers immediately and get rid of the time wasters immediately. And start the process from the very first contact.

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Call me. I can discuss self-directed learning, or site sales training, or the development of custom playbooks and sales scripts. We can also design front-end technology to enter the buying decision journey earlier. To help you learn:

• Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.
• Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions.
• MP3
• Learning accelerators

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

But what, exactly, can you be in control of? You are in control of the details about your solution, and how it’s used in a particular setting, and the data you seek from prospects. You certainly have control over how you enter, and maintain, the relationship. But that is the sum total of what you’re in control of.

Obviously it’s easy to spot a need that matches your solution. But the number of buyers who buy is much, much lower than those you’re following, or those who really have a need that your solution will support.

In fact, most of your time is spent selling to folks who won’t buy. And then when the phone rings with a closed sale, it’s a surprise: you have no idea which of those to whom you are selling will be buyers. In fact, all your prospects seem like buyers. But they’re not. And you don’t know the difference until – well, until they don’t buy.

So it’s obviously not a direct match: need does not equal purchase; time selling doesn’t equal a closed sale. And therefore, ultimately, you are out of control of the actual buy.

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

Buyers don’t know what issues they must confront in order to get the appropriate buy-in to make a purchase. There is so much more going on behind the scenes than you can ever be aware of or have control over, and almost none of it is needs-related, thereby leaving you out of control when it comes to when, or how, or why, or if, a prospect will buy.

Until or unless the prospect (or lead) gets the appropriate buy-in to bring in a new solution, they will do nothing. And this buy-in is based on the change management issues the buyer must handle behind-the-scenes:

• if there is not buy-in from everyone who touches the solution, there will be no purchase;
• if there is not a way to meld the new solution with whatever is there now, there will be no purchase;
• if the regular vendor is not in some way ‘managed’, they will not buy;
• if there are turf battles, personality battles, or internal politics involved with trying to resolve a problem, no solution will be purchased.

Because the sales model is solution-placement focused, sellers mistakenly believe that with a need/solution match, there will be a sale. But that’s of course not true 90% of the time. In fact, that belief puts sellers out of control: a buying decision is not made via the sales process. And you should care because you are wasting so much time, and losing so much commission by focusing on the ‘pain’ and the ‘need’ and not focusing first on influencing the complete buying decision path from the beginning. Of course you must sell when it’s the right time; but by that time the buyer has already made the majority of the necessary decisions.

WE CLOSE THE LOW HANGING FRUIT

As long as sellers focus on placing a solution rather than facilitating the decision path that buyers go through as they attempt to bring all of the right people on board and manage change in a way that doesn’t leave behind chaos, you will merely close the low hanging fruit.

If you want real control, facilitate the buying decision path from the beginning: from where they are and an idea for something better, to figuring out what to do with the current situation and workarounds, to what needs to change; from how to use what they are using now to adding something new and fitting the old and new together; from needing a solution to getting the relevant buy-in.

Buying Facilitation® is the model I’ve created to accomplish this: it’s a change management/decision facilitation model (not a selling model) that leads buyers through their entire buying decision journey from the first idea, through to the inclusion of the full Buying Decision Team and getting their buy-in. In conjunction with sales, it truly facilitates the buyer’s decision journey.

If you want real control, lead buyers through their back-end change management issues before you start selling. They have to do this anyway – with you or without you. By helping them navigate, and using the very proscribed model I’ve developed specifically for this purpose, you are fully in control.  I’m not suggesting you stop selling; I’m suggesting you help buyers manage their decision path first.

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Buying Facilitation® licensing program: July 1-7, Austin TX.

Webinar with Method Frameworks June 15th:
Buy-in: A Radical Approach To Change Management

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Sellers can’t control the buyer’s decision journey is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

• to get rid of unworkable leads before handing them over to the sales team;
• to help leads bring together the entire BDT even from a one-way communication;
• to know exactly where prospects are on their buying path. But not using the current thinking.

CURRENT LEAD SCORING IS INSUFFICIENT

Here are a few questions for those of you using marketing automation and lead scoring:

• Do you know how viewed data is being used by your site visitors?
• Do you know which stage of the buying decision path they are on?
• Do you know which member of the Buying Decision Team has viewed/signed up on your site – and what percentage of the solution-choice vote they represent?
• Do you know who else will learn about your data – from a 3rd or 4th source – and what exactly is being transferred? Is it the right message?
• Do you know if all of the folks who will touch the solution are on board to purchase your solution?
• Do you know if the person you’re scoring, or nurturing, or calling for an appointment is the right person, or has the capability to buy or transfer your data to the right people?

And, drum roll, here is the big one: How much money/time/resource are you wasting by focusing on inappropriate leads – and potentially missing the right ones?

You don’t know?? How many of these questions do you not have answers to? Why not?

I’m here to tell that it’s possible. But not using the current marketing automation -> data collection -> lead scoring -> nurturing -> selling model as it is currently being used.

THE WRONG POINT IN THE BUY CYCLE

We use marketing automation, and collect/score data at the wrong point (the last, solution choice, segment) on the buying decision path. As a result, we are collecting insufficient data to sell and qualify with, not scoring leads properly, have too many inappropriate leads in our pipeline, and are not differentiating ourselves from our buyers.

The sales and marketing models merely focus on the last 10% of the buying decision – and by that point, most of the internal decisions that actually bias the solution choice have already been made.

ENTER EARLIER

Think about this differently by considering the questions buyers must have answers to before they can choose a solution:

• Are all of the Buying Decision Team members on board?
• Is everyone who touches the solution in agreement?
• What criteria will be used to choose one solution over another?
• How will you choose a new solution/provider over a familiar resources?

Until or unless all of the above questions are managed, no buying decision will be made.

As you think about adding some new capability to your current processes (and, btw, I’ve developed a very simple  process to add to your current marketing automation processes to manage, follow, and influence, the back-end), here are some questions to ask yourselves:

What do you need to be doing differently to enter the buyer’s path in their private decision-making places? How can you help buyers manage their internal change issues to free them up for purchasing your solution? What can you do to help buyers get their full Buying Decision Team on board and ready to buy?  How can you qualify appropriately and only spend time on those who are going to close?

Until you manage all of the above, you will be wasting a lot of time and resource, and losing prospects who would buy if they knew how.

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Let’s talk about my simple marketing automation solution that tells you where the buyer is on their buy cycle, and offers and collects the right data so they can be both served and sold to. sharondrew@newsalesparadigm.com

Read more about how buyers buy. Here are two sample chapters from Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. Or just buy the book on amazon. com

Sharon Drew is a featured speaker at the Search Insider Summit – May 4 – 7 , 2011

Deliver the Right Content at the Right Stage of the Buy-Path is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Do you know which of the opportunities are the top 10 – and are you certain they are the top 10? How are you and your team – VP of sales, sales execs and managers – connecting with the prospects to know what they need to ‘be ready to buy’ ? How do you know, from where you are sitting, at what stage of the buying decision path they are on?

And how do you define ‘opportunity?’

THE FRONT END VS. THE BACK END OF THE BUYING PATH

Sales merely manages the last 10% of the buyer’s journey. It has no capacity to address the private, off-line, and often unconscious (certainly not based on needs or solution choice) aspects of a decision path that are, by definition, idiosyncratic. Sales was designed merely to assess need and place a solution.

Here are a few things buyers must do before they can buy. As I introduce each one, see if you can determine where your buyer is on this path, because until they complete each of these they will not buy, regardless of their needs or how well your solution fits, or how much ‘pain’ they are in.

1. get all of the right people onto the Buying Decision Team (BDT). Each BDT member brings their own criteria for a solution, and the solution requirements will not be stabilized until everyone puts in their 2 cents. Presenting from, or gathering data from, anything less than the whole BDT will result in insufficient data to choose a solution – or pitch – on.
2. get buy-in from everyone who will touch the solution. If a solution is chosen without the requisite buy-in, the system will face massive chaos/disruption.
3. all of the people, policies, historic vendors, old technology, systems issues, must know how they will shift when something new is added. Will they need to outsource staff? Where? When? Who? Who will supervise? Project lead? What happens to their current work load?

Just because we see a problem and have a great solution, doesn’t mean the buyer is ready, willing, and able to buy – otherwise you’d close a lot more sales.

Why are prospects in your pipeline?

What criteria of yours have placed them there?

How accurate are you with your projections? And why aren’t they more accurate?

What’s the difference between someone who will buy and someone who might initially look like a buyer but isn’t? And how do you know the difference?

So long as you place prospects in your pipeline because you believe 1. the buyer is ready, 2. they have the money, 3. they know they need your solution, and/or 4. they like you and are in ‘pain’, you will have a wildly fluctuating success rate.

Here is what you should know before putting a prospect onto the pipeline:

1. that every single one of the Buying Decision Team members is on board, and bought in to making a change and a purchase;
2. that there is a change management/implementation plan – that the seller is a part of – for when the solution will be purchased;
3. that any of the buy-in or change problems are addressed with anyone who will touch the solution;
4. that all existing technology and jobs that will be effected by the solution will be somehow included into the solution purchase so there are no loose ends or mystery.

Just because a seller thinks a buyer is ready doesn’t mean the prospect belongs in the pipeline.

Manage your pipeline by managing the buying decision path. Otherwise, your forecasting is ineffective. Buying Facilitation® will teach you how to manage the buying journey and understand exactly when, who, why, and how the solution will be purchased. Then you can forecast with accuracy.

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Fire up your sales folks at your next sales conference, have Sharon Drew give your keynote.

Look at our Learning Accelerators to add some new skills to your sales so you can manage your pipeline effectively.

Learn how buyer’s decide: read two sample chapters of Sharon Drew’s latest book Dirty Little Secrets.

Sharon Drew is a featured speaker at the Search Insider Summit – May 4 – 7 , 2011

Pipeline management: is your forecasting accurate? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

But actually, that is exactly what happens: you are missing income on the sales you aren’t closing. But if you based your efforts on the buyer’s decision paths rather than your solution, you can be closing a helluva lot more sales.

THE COST OF NOT ADDRESSING THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

If you could keep the commission you’re now on, and close twice as many sales, would you?

If you could close your business in half the time, leaving you time to close more, would you?

If you could close all of the prospects who would buy and avoid spending time on all of  the prospects/leads who will never buy, would you?

If you could only spend time on those people who you accurately qualify as buyers on the first call, would you?

If you could only respond to those RFPs who will choose you, would you?

If you could get 4x more prospects to want an appointment with you – and speak with folks who are eager to connect with you -  would you?

If you only went on appointments when the entire Buying Decision Team was present, and only need to make one appointment before you close the deal, would you?

If you needed to learn a new skill to do all of the above, would you?

So why aren’t you?

Just asking.

FACILITATE THE BUYING DECISION FIRST, THEN PLACE SOLUTION

With Buying Facilitation® as a front end – and yes, a new skill to learn as it is a change management model that works with sales - you can do all of the above.

But you’d have to learn something new. What is it worth to you?

And yes, this is an unmitigated plug for Buying Facilitation®. I’ve heard too many people this week tell me that they don’t get paid for helping the buyer manage their buying decision journey. And that’s just not true: they do get paid for what they are closing – and not getting paid for what they are losing.

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Easy ways to learn Buying Facilitation®:

Buy Dirty Little Secrets Bundle and read the tactical and strategic sides  of the model.

Buy the MP3′s of Sharon Drew making live phone prospecting and qualifying calls.

Buy a Learning Accelerator for just those areas you’d like to brush up on (i.e. prospecting, managing objections, etc.).

Or get really bold, and learn the whole model with the Guided Study program.

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The Buyer’s Decision Path: why it’s important to sellers is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

You think you know what your problem is. But you don’t know what it is. And that is a problem!

Whenever I work with sales teams I will ask them what their sales process is. They’ll usually say something like ‘lead generation, meet with prospect, identify the problem, propose a solution, keep pushing (and offering more “value”) until they decide.’

Though there is something inherently wrong with that whole process, the problem I’d like to talk about today is “problems” themselves.

The Salesperson’s Problem

Today salespeople are being pushed hard by their companies. They have to deliver ever increasing sales quotas with less and less support. So they fear wasting any time with a prospect.

To that end, when they get into the “identify the problem” stage of the sales process they look for the first “problem” the client presents, at which point the salesperson kicks out a solution-proposal and is off to the next appointment.

Will they win most of the proposals they put out there? No. in fact they will get anywhere from 5% to 15% if they are lucky. Such low closing ratios only increase the belief that they need to see “more prospects”.  After all with such miserable ratios, how else are they supposed to make quota?

The Problem with Solving Problems

But let’s step back and look at this logically. The client obviously had the salesperson in because they believed that the salesperson could help them solve a problem. And the client will ultimately buy (or do) something to solve a problem. So, was the problem with the solution offered OR was the problem with the “problem” itself?

As I tell my clients, “people’s biggest problem is that they don’t know what their biggest problem is.” This means that the problem people tell you up front is not the deep problem they need or even want to solve.

A Story about Problems and Levels

A few years ago I was meeting with an HR manager. After we had built some rapport we began to discuss the problems of the company. She said their biggest issue was “turnover.”

“Turnover” is what I call a “Level One problem”. It is generic and meaningless. It describes a current result, not the real problem of the company and certainly not the real problem of the HR Manager. However, most salespeople would try to sell a “turnover” solution at this point…and they’d get shot down.

The Problems beneath the Surface

In this case “turnover” acted like one of those Russian nesting dolls (one inside the other) that held all of the deeper problems and kept them out of sight. In order to determine a useful solution for the HR Manager I had to open the “doll” and see the deeper problems.

I discovered that a deeper problem was the fact that they were suffering a large turnover in their mid-level managers. The average staying time of a newly hired mid-level manager was 18 months.

We were now at a Level Three or Four Problem.

As I continued, I found out that it cost $60,000 to hire each Manager, $25,000 to train them, and $150,000 to compensate them annually. This meant they were out $310,000 each time a manger left. And they had lost 12 managers a year for the last two years. A net loss of $7,440,000.

We were now at a Level Five or Six Problem.

Picking Apart the Problem Pile

The work teams in the company were built around these managers. Each time a manager left there was chaos in the team. There was also a lack of faith on the part of the team members every time a new manager was assigned to them.

This chaos and loss of faith had created a 10% drop in productivity in the teams, which meant a 10% drop in profitability. This equated to a $14,000,000 loss for them.

We were now at a Level Seven or Eight Problem.

The loss of productivity and profitability had lost them customers and, ultimately, led to them dropping from second place in their market to a distant fourth.

The Real Problem

We were at the Level Ten Problem for the company. However, I still had to get to her Level Ten Problem, so I kept asking questions.

Finally, I learned that they had already done two rounds of layoffs in the company.

The HR manager knew if things didn’t change soon there would be more layoffs. She realized her staff, all of whom were paid significantly less than she was, could cover her work if she was gone, so she knew she’d be gone in the next round of layoffs.

She was a single-mom of two boys, and she couldn’t afford to lose her job.

Now we were at her Level Ten Problem.

A New POV on the Problem

From this new vantage point, level ten versus level one, I was able to see a much bigger picture of what was going on, and the HR manager also had a new perspective. This allowed us to have a completely different conversation then she had with any other salesperson she’d spoken to and it allowed me to offer a different solution, which was accepted with little effort.

The moral here is that no one, not even you, knows what their “real problem” is. It takes an outsider with the curiosity, compassion and, most importantly, patience to help us see it.

So, forget about trying to meet with 10 prospects so you can propose 10 solutions to 10 problems. Instead focus on one prospect and take their “problem” 10 levels deep.

—–

Erik Luhrs is the author of BE DO SALE and the creator of The GURUS Selling System.

Guest Post: You know what your problem is? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

One of my annoyances is about the buying decision journey. If I read the words ‘each stage of the buyer life-cycle’ one more time I’ll scream. Everyone seems to believe they understand how buyer’s buy. The stages? Have a need; seek a solution. Really? There are dozens of actions, decisions, and stages between ‘need’ and seeking a purchase.

BUYERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IN CONTROL

When folks are talking about this, they really mean: “each stage of the solution-focused end of the buyer’s movements that we can track” because there is no marketing automation capability now in place to manage the entire buying decision journey. And goodness knows, we have no clue as to what’s really going on that we can’t see, like those behind-the-scenes issues that always crop up with internal politics and with old vendors.  That’s why we have no more than a 10% close rate no matter what form of sales we’re applying.

Next: What makes you think that buyers are now in control because they can peruse the net and discover a full range of choices and all the data they need to feed their curiosity? Listen up, folks: Buyers have always been in control. He or She who writes – or withholds – check is in control. Period. No check, No sale.

Oh, I know you think that because you were able to discuss features and functions (such as this) that you had some control. Or because you understood ’need’. Or because you made nice and had a great relationship and thought that they liked you so much that they’d choose you.

But did they choose you? They liked you, liked your solution, found your solution helpful and cool. But did you know the other vendors they’re talking to? Did you know who was on the Buying Decision Team? Did you know what role their regular vendor is playing?

SOME HARD REALITY

Let’s take a hard look at this.

1. Buyers will never buy until or unless they have their entire Buying Decision Team lined up and in agreement.

Are we there when they do this? How do they get the right people on board? How do they get them to agree to a change/new vendor/new solution? We don’t have a clue. And our technology – the way it’s operating at the moment – has no way of knowing any of this. It’s a mystery to us right now.

2. Until they know what to do with their status quo so that any disruption will be managed appropriately, they won’t buy.

This is simple systems thinking. Systems (and our buyers live in teams/groups/companies – all of which are systems that follow their own unique rules) do this thing called Homeostasis: they seek balance, and won’t change until balance is assured. This is where your buyers go when they don’t buy.

3. Until all parts/pieces/people that touch the ultimate solution know how to shift, act, add, collaborate, reorganize, etc. they will not buy.

The cost of change is far too high: the fallout would damage the system. It’s ‘cheaper’ to maintain the status quo, regardless of the need.

So tell me now: what sort of control do buyers have now that they didn’t have before? They know more details about your solution and other competitive choices. They can read about more possibilities and find others who are using your solution. They are more active, more knowledgeable. They don’t need the sales person as much.

But that doesn’t mean they do their buy-in/change journey differently.

At the end of the day, until or unless the buyer gives you a check that cashes, you haven’t sold anything. She or He who writes check has control. End of discussion.

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Learn Buying Facilitation™ so you can take control of the relationship from early into the buying decision journey — the entire buying decision journey.

Buyers have always been in control is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

When you have a need for a new car, how do you and your family choose it?

When your work unit (team, company) wants a new training program, how do you go about choosing if/when/why to have one, and with whom you’ll study?

AT THE START, NO ONE KNOWS THEIR DECISION JOURNEY

When I ask you these questions, do you know the complete answer right now? Do you know now how everyone is going to react - at the start of, or during, the decision  process? What everyone will add to the conversation and weigh in on the choices? How you will shift perspectives, or reconsider needs based on other’s needs or comments? What  problems will arise? What additional solutions will arise? What will happen to your relationships as you all go through the process? What sort of a choice will you end up with in relation to the thoughts you had when you started?

Often when people are first aware of my work, they think I suggest that sellers  find out more about the buyer’s decision making. This always surprises me: I’ve never suggested this at all. Indeed, it’s impossible.

As sellers, we  work to understand a buyer’s needs, and then find the best route to showing how our solution fits. We absolutely need to understand the who, what, why, where, when.

But make no mistake: we will never, ever, understand what is going on during their behind-the-scenes decision process. And here, I speak not only of the decisions around a solution choice, but all of those change management issues they must address privately before they even get as far as choosing a solution. If your partner doesn’t want to move, you’re not moving. If your family needs a van, you’re not getting your Porsche right now. If your team wants to use their old vendor, they won’t choose the new solution.

OUTSIDERS CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE PERSONAL DECISION CRITERIA

Can I ‘understand’ your relationship with your spouse and/or family and the relationship issues and history involved in your decisions? Never. Gosh – YOU don’t even understand it sometimes. But as an outsider, I’ll certainly never understand. Do you understand your parent’s marriage? No? You lived with them for at least 18 years – and you still don’t understand?

So how would you ever expect to understand folks who you don’t know? THEY don’t even understand their process!

But let’s say there was some magical way you could understand – some way you could

• get into each individual’s head and heart,
• be there when they unconsciously figure out the reasons why they are saying what they are saying or pushing for their specific choices,
• understand what’s going through their heads at the moment they decide to compromise or dig their heals in,
• understand how their communications with colleagues have taken place over time and their relationship history.

Let’s say you’re wearing a cloak that makes you invisible and enables you to go into everyone’s unconscious individually, and then be there during the several meetings and dialogues take place. Even if you could do all that, you STILL wouldn’t have the capability to influence their private issues.

• You can’t help them figure out whether to fire the guy who has been running the work-around that your solution will replace.
• You can’t help the CSO and CMO communicate effectively with the CTO.
• You can’t help the tech guys work better with the users.
• You aren’t there when your Internal Client seeks out several alternatives to using you.
• You can’t choose the criteria that will make or break their personal log-jam.

Sellers must understand need so they can place a solution. But the sales model does NOT handle the behind-the-scenes decision issues buyers must address to manage the change that will occur, to elicit the buy-in necessary to move forward – and design new pathways to allow change to happen without disruption. Because until or unless they do, they will make no decision – and hence the length of the sales cycle.

Asking ‘what is your buying decision’ is specious. As is ‘who are the decision makers.’ You knowing all that – which you can never do as there are far too many unknowns even for the buyers – will not help the buyer make their decisions. Sorry. It just won’t.

Buying Facilitation™ is a change management model that adds a decision facilitation capability to your sales model. Then you can be a support to the buyer’s private decisions instead of just sitting and waiting while they do this.

Have a look at Dirty Little Secrets – read 2 sample chapters. It explains exactly what buyers are doing internally while you’re hovering waiting to sell (and actually shows you how you can facilitate their decision making with a new skill set). Look at the Learning Accelerators that offer Buying Facilitation™ skills to help you help them manage their change. But make no mistake: the sales model does not give you the tools to be effective in this space.

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For those wishing to hear Sharon Drew live in Boston, please register for the September 23rd evening event titled: A Trail of Dead Salespeople https://m360.smei.org/ViewEvent.aspx?id=20780&instance=0

Listen to Sharon Drew on the following webinars and podcasts:

• Leadformix - What’s the Difference between a newspaper and a sales professional? Hint: both are doomed. – Sept. 13 at 11:00 AM PST - http://www.leadformix.com/webinar/aug25/webinar.html
• CustomerThink Sales Summit - Start at the beginning: add new Trusted Advisor skills earlier in the buyer’s journey – Oct. 5-7 with Dave Brock. Time TBA. - http://www.customerthink.com/summit/sales_edge_2010
• Focus.com - The Focus Interactive Summit: Evolving your sales game plan – Oct. 21 - http://www.focus.com/interactive-summits/

Sellers can’t understand the buyer’s decision process is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

1. getting internal buy-in from colleagues, bosses, and budgets to decide to make a change, figuring out how or what will be included in the change, and agreeing how to move forward;

2. choosing a solution and vendor.

In today’s buying decision journey, technology is beginning to ably handle the solution choice: Since sales focuses on the needs analysis and solution choice end of the buying decision, it’s easy-enough for the process of selection and information-gathering to be co-opted by the web.

That leaves the seller not meeting quotas, not involved until the very end after many of the decisions have been made, and not using their talents as purveyors of industry knowledge. Sellers are not entering the buying decision journey early enough, are too often reduced to order takers.

WHAT’S A SELLER TO DO?

The choices are:

• have many sellers leave the profession as there just isn’t going to be enough work;
• have sellers play musical chairs as they get fired/hired/fired/hired etc.;
• learn new skills to change the sales job to better accommodate the front-end of the buyer’s buying decision journey.

About 20 years ago, I wrote a column for Telemarketing Magazine. I had written a book called Sales on the Line in which I introduced Buying Facilitation™ as a sales tool for the phone. In the book I told telemarketers that unless they used their brief phone time helping prospects navigate through their decision issues quickly (i.e. “Hi, Mrs. Jones. Is this a good time to speak? I’m selling magazines. I’m wondering how you are currently choosing to add new subscriptions to the ones you already have?”), they would be out of business.

The editor of Telemarketing loved my stuff. Of the 4 telemarketing magazines on the market in those days, he (Robert – forgot his last name) was the only one who thought my ideas were print-worthy. I yelled and cajoled and begged and offered and wrote and taught. I said, over and over and over: If you don’t change your ways, you won’t be in business in 10 years. Few listened.

OK. I was right. Now I’m going to say that again to the sales field: If you don’t shift your jobs to managing the entire buying decision journey – not just that end that is concerned with the solution purchase – you won’t have a job. As we speak, I know of 2 tech companies working very hard on creating a Q&A capability for a piece of software to replicate a buyer-seller conversation.

ENTER THE BUYING DECISION JOURNEY EARLIER

Now is the time. Get ahead of the curve. Learn Buying Facilitation™. Read Dirty Little Secrets and Buying Facilitation™. Take the Guided Study program or training with me, or get the Modules. But add this new skill to what you’re doing, and

• get onto the Buying Decision Team on the first call;
• become necessary for buyers as a consultant who can be a real asset during the early parts of the buying journey;
• use your skills and industry knowledge to truly become servant leaders to your buyers.

I’m not talking about choosing a solution or vendor - they can use the net for that. I’m talking about a change management skill set: to help them bring together the people, the decisions, the policies, the tech solutions, the partners, the buy-in/resistance issues, so they can quickly, effectively, make a solution choice – with you on their decision team and then, naturally, their provider.

Here is my 2nd podcast in the series: Keeping Sellers Relevant. This one explains the buyer’s journey. Enjoy. And please, take this to heart.

Previous: Podcast 1 | Next: Podcast 3

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Here are chapters from Dirty Little Secrets to better understand how Buying Facilitation™ helps buyers decide.

The Buyer’s Buying Journey – Podcast 2: Keeping Sellers Relevant is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

While their capability to attain data, or make the actual purchase is much easier, is their route to their buying decision different?

Do you know that point in a buyer’s decision process that they seek this information? And is there other material we could be offering at other points in the buying decision process?

DOES OUR SOLUTION DATA DRIVE THE BUYER’S DECISION?

Does our carefully branded data drive our buyer’s buying decision?

Well, yes and no. Obviously buyers must ultimately know if your solution fits their needs. But this is the last, the very last thing, that they need before they make a purchase.

Think of a house purchase. The very last thing you need is information about the house. First you need to decide to move – and your family might have some really interesting conversations before that decision is actually reached. Then you have to figure out the criteria – neighborhood? school district? travel time to work? /affordable mortgage/price? It’s only when all of purchasing criteria are lined up that you know where to look for a house, the sort of house you need, etc.

Think of losing weight. The last thing you need is to know membership prices for a gym. First you need to decide to be a healthy person, change your eating habits, decide to change your schedule – which might involve several family members and the family dog.

Before any purchase gets made, an unknown number of internal, private, behind-the-scenes decisions and considerations must be resolved first. And make no mistake: until or unless they are dealt with, the status quo will prevail regardless of the efficacy of the new solution. Indeed, the status quo has been ‘good-enough’ until now, and far easier to maintain than going through whatever change must happen when something new is adopted.

THE CRITERIA UNDERLYING THE CHANGE

When a consumer wants the new iPhone, is it about owning the newest MAC product?  Then that person is someone who is an early adopter who has ‘time’ and ‘wizzy factor’ as their major criteria. If someone’s criteria for purchasing a phone is usability, then their 3G phone may suffice. Same product (phone), different criteria, different buying choices. Different information needed.

People never, ever, make choices that lie outside of their values or criteria. The pain involved with living with the results of shoving an incongruent element into a working ‘system’ - into accepted beliefs and values, into people’s jobs and relationships and habitual daily activities - is greater than any noticeable need or problem to be resolved. Not to mention that the choices they’ve already made has created their status quo, which has been ‘good enough’ and most likely not facing an emergency situation to change immediately.

So while it’s easier, these days, to actually make a purchase, and easier for buyers to get whatever – whatever – data they may need as a way to meet their final choice criteria, all of the new sites, posts, clicks, links, that help the purchaser buy only address that portion of the population just beginning to consider a purchase, or those who have already make their foundational decisions to change and are just needing those final detailed bits.

INFORMATION DOES NOT CREATE A NEW DECISION

Our current buying support options do NOT address the making of the foundational change/criteria/values decisions. In other words, just because people like your solution and it’s easy to purchase, doesn’t mean they have garnered all of the internal agreement necessary to purchase. [I have written a book about this: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can't buy and sellers can't sell and what you can do about it.]

And herein lies the problem: until or unless buyers navigate through all of their decision criteria, they will not buy regardless of their need or ability to press a purchasing button. All of our lead generation is rendered useless if there is a political issue going on between two departments, for example.

It’s time to add a new skill to augment the sales process. I know, I know, I’m a hammer running around seeking a nail. But really: would you rather sell? or have someone buy?

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Take a look at my new learning Modules, and stick your toe into learning bits of Buying Facilitation™. Also I’ll be up in Boston in mid September running a tiny public training (pdf) for those interested in studying with me personally.

The New Buying Habits of Buyers: Does solution data drive a decision? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I was speaking with a colleague today who complained that although he understands his customer’s needs – does surveys of every aspect of their decisions (how, when, what) so he ‘knows’ how and what they buy – and creates marketing materials positioned to address those needs and segments, the buyers still didn’t behave in a way he believes they should.

Sound familiar? You know who your buyers are. You’ve done assessments and surveys so you ‘know’ how they buy. You’ve developed marketing materials, pitches, websites, white papers, and they should be more successful. What’s going on?

Let’s look at the assumptions here, and see why they are faulty. 1. when you ask questions to gather data so YOU can understand, you are asking biased questions based on what you think is important data that will be useful in creating a selling strategy.Buyers:

• may/may not know how to answer your question,
• may not want to answer your question,
• may give you a partial answer and leave out the nuances,
• may be leaving out large aspects that they decide from unconsciously,
• may be offering the wrong data (inadvertently)
• may not relate with the material you are sending them.

Not to mention that a large, significant number are not responding at all.

2. when you have ‘data’ about another’s decision making, you assume it follows that what you are presenting is offered in the way they are ready, willing, and able to buy. It’s not working, because every purchase is a change management situation. Bring in software? How will you manage the techies, the old systems, the users? Team building? How will the people choose to work with others in the nearby department? How will folks at ‘war’ with each other choose to attend?

Until buyers are ready to do something different – i.e. change – they won’t respond to your offering even if it’s the right offering for them. That’s why you lose 90% of your prospects.

Change happens only when people’s (unconscious) criteria are met and the system they live in is willing to be disrupted. Have you tried to change your diet or cease an addictive behavior? You know there is a problem. You know what the solutions are. You are not ready to do anything different (or you would have already). Someone gathering data about your habits won’t help you do something different.

3. when you develop a pitch or solution based on the data you’ve gathered, you assume it’s appropriate for their needs AND they believe their current situation needs to change now. But it’s specious – nothing to do with the customer. How do you know what criteria someone will use to make a buying decision at that moment? That their buying decision team will agree with the data you used to create an offering with?

Rarely is solution-specific data all people need to make a purchase, and their private decision criteria may not align with the offering you developed based on demographic assumptions.

As I hope I’ve shown, when you attempt to influence a buying decision by creating a pitch or solution that should fit into their buying patterns, you are making specious assumptions. Do you know – right now – how you’re going to choose to move next time you move? Will your choices be based on kids’ school districts, or proximity to a hospital? Who will be involved in this decision this time, different from a similar decision 5 months ago? How will you choose who fits in where and when? Do you know when you’re filling out an assessment what your buying patterns might be at some point in the future?

People make decisions in idiosyncratic ways and they must, they must, handle the change management issues that the new solution will compromise. Sales only handles needs assessment and solution placement, and the surveys and questionnaires we prepare merely manage the sales end. You are left with the same assumptions and possibilities you have when you make a sales call, or place an advertisement.

To help buyers handle their private decision issues (often having nothing to do with their need or your solution) is a separate skill set from knowing they have a need or seeking a solution. It’s possible to create surveys/questionnaires that will not only give you good data but will create a customer for you at the same time, Facilitative Questions such as:

• What would you need to see from a solution to know that you would be willing to use it?
• How would we be creating this for you in a way that would make it comfortable to bring in to your family?

Managing the need isn’t enough. Help them choose how to use it without too much internal disruption. If you don’t help them, they’ll wait until they figure it out by themselves. Stop trying to understand them as you never will in the way that will help them change. But you can help them understand themselves.

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Understanding customers doesn’t help the buyer buy is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Why do we assume buyers are, um, stupid? Because it’s obvious to us they should buy. From where we stand, it seems we have THE perfect fit – the right solution at the right price, filling the right need, and the right relationship.

But we consistently forget that a buyer’s problem is not an isolated event, and it sits within the buyer’s environment – their system, if you will – all mashed up with a bunch of unknown and unknowable other elements that not only hold it in place, but maintain it daily.

And we walk in as Super Saviours, assuming we are, as Dr. Seuss says in The Sneetches The Fixxit Up Chappie.

But it’s so much more complex – even for a very simple sale. Because every single purchase is a Change Management issue. Every single one. And, so different from what we perceive, buyers are doing perfectly well as they are – or they would have fixed their problem already.

So, no, it’s not a money problem, or a competition problem, or a differentiation problem. And where prospects go is not to find a better price or visit your competition. They go to the next department, or an old vendor, or the tech group, to see if they can get buy-in for change.

Because until or unless buyers get agreement from everyone and everything that touches the Identified Problem, and would be in some way stressed if something different entered the system, they will do nothing. Regardless of their need, or your stellar, and (of course) perfect solution.

It’s  not about you, your solution, your relationship, your price, your care, your presentation, your appointment, your charisma, or having the perfect fit.

Until or unless buyers recognize and manage all of the internal issues that not only created their Identified Problem but keep it in place daily, and until they all buy-in to whatever change will happen when something new enters, they will do absolutely nothing.

Check out my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. It will explain what’s going on and what you can do about it. Then you can stop telling your manager that you’ve got prospects in the pipeline, and you’ll have a much better understanding of where and how you and your solution will fit in.

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Why Do We Blame Buyers? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Here is the definition, how it differs from sales, and why we get such different results when we use it.Buying Facilitation™ is a decision facilitation model that leads buyers through all of the internal, off-line, behind-the-scenes issues they must manage privately, to ensure there is buy-in for change. This is a change management model, and not focused on need or solution placement. it is a way to help lead buyers through their change issues they must address as they consider bringing in something ‘different’ – a solution, for example – from outside.

Buyers do this anyway: until or unless they attain buy-in from the relevant (and often unconscious) decision issues they must address, they will take no action. If there was an emergency, they would have made the necessary change (bought a new solution, developed a work-around, used an existing vendor) already. So there is no emergency, no ‘pain,’ and no reason for them to act within the seller’s time frame.

In fact, this is where buyers go when they say “I’ll call you back” and sellers sit there and think, “What’s the deal? Where have they gone? They’ve got a need, I’ve got the solution, and they like me. I don’t get it.”

Unless buyers get buy-in, they face internal disruption if they try to change – and maintaining their internal system (their status quo) takes precedence over fixing a problem that in all likelihood already has a work-around.

HOW BUYING FACILITATION® DIFFERS FROM SALES

Sales focuses on understanding need and placing a solution. In fact, sellers pose their entire first conversation around finding need, uncovering need, understanding need, to see if there is a fit. See, sellers think they must do this first to ensure the solution matches the need. Certainly they need to do this eventually. But buyers don’t have all of the right data too share with sellers this early on.

Thinking about a solution or vendor is the very last thing a buyer does. Not only is a buyer not ready to buy just because they have an apparent need, they haven’t figured out yet the process they are going to go through in order to decide if they are going to resolve it. The timing to make a purchase is very very different from the timing a seller uses to attempt to place a solution.

THE DEFINITION IS NOT SALES-FOCUSED

When I see folks misdefining the term Buying Facilitation™ (and decision facilitation too, for that matter) they are using the term to mean Solution Choice/Product Purchase Facilitation, continuing to focus on product sale. Sales does not handle this internal, off-line private stuff and it’s so idiosyncratic and unique that even buyers don’t know what’s going to happen. Are the two user teams having a fight – or a budget dispute? Is the tech team attempting to take over the solution? Does the new business partner have a partial solution that seems as if it will manage the entire problem? Until the issues occur, there is no way to understand what’s going to happen. But there is a way to understand the types of things that need to happen, and we can be neutral navigators and leaders – an additional, unbiased job to add to the sales function.

Sales doesn’t manage these things, and buyers won’t buy until they get managed. Without ensuring that relationships don’t fall apart, that initiatives are on track, that internal politics don’t get out of joint, buyers can make no decisions to bring in anything new. Think of buying a new car without discussing it with your spouse. Think of a gym trying to get you to join when you haven’t decided to lose weight.

Not only is the model different, but by using it as the front end of the sales model, it’s possible to shorten sales cycle dramatically – almost unbelievably. See, one of the Dirty Little Secrets that I discuss in my new book, is that buyers don’t know what they must do to get alignment at the start of their decision process. But the seller can take on this new skill set and help them make their own idiosyncratic decisions.

As I’ve said, they must do this anyway. And once you do it you’ll know on the first call who is going to be a buyer. That’s right. No more wasting time following folks who won’t buy around for months…. and yet you will double the number of people who want to buy…. in half the time. And I’ve got testimonials for those numbers.

If you have any questions about this, my new book will answer most of them. Otherwise, let me know and we can talk.

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Check out my new book: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Read two free chapters, testimonials, and much more. Then buy the book.

Or consider purchasing the bundle: Dirty Little Secrets plus my last book Buying Facilitation™: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. These books were written to be read together, as they offer the full complement of concepts to help you learn and understand Buying Facilitation™ - the new skill set that gives you the ability to lead buyers through their buying decisions.

Buying Facilitation®: what is it? and how is it different from sales? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com