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

I just read a blog that asked that question. What, exactly, does this mean?

I’m going to say something you’re not going to like: your customer is not stuck in the buying cycle. They are stuck trying to herd cats. And you are stuck trying to get them to do what you want them to do. Your way. On your time scale.

You forget that before buyers can buy they have to make sure all of the people, groups, and capabilities that touch the ‘fix’ (your solution) must buy-in to something new coming into the company and make sure they won’t be harmed in the process. They need to make sure that people work together, that outsourcing is considered as appropriate, that the rules that need to be changed don’t harm anyone.

And, if they had such a demanding need, they would have figure out a solution already.

ARE YOU STUCK IN THE SALES CYCLE?

Maybe you’re the one who is stuck.

Do you assume that because a prospect has a need and your solution is a good fix, that there is a prospect?

Do you assume that because a prospect understands how their need is resolved by your solution that they will buy?

At what point do you recognize all the steps buyers have to take behind-the-scenes before they can even consider making a purchase – and help them navigate through all of these change management (non-sales-related) decisions?

How do you change your selling patterns to match your buyer’s buying patterns?

How do you help your prospect recognize that their regular vendor can’t provide the total solution, even though they are close friends (Hint: telling them your solution is better does not help one bit.)?

How do you even get into the sort of relationship wherein you can lead them through the discovery of their choice criteria?

Do you assume there will be a price objection? How do you build it in to your sales effort upfront – and bias the conversation to make sure it happen (i.e. cause the objection because of your communication assumptions)?

Stop thinking about the buyer being stuck. Once you know how to become the GPS system that leads your buyers through their entire decision journey – not just the part that your solution can resolve – you will become a partner in the buying cycle. If you just stick with your typical sales skills, you’re stuck in the sales cycle.

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Read Dirty Little Secrets and learn some skills to help your buyer navigate through their decision journey. It’s not sales – it’s change management – but it will certain unstick both of you.

Stuck in the buying cycle is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I didn’t know Dan Seidman then. Dan has taken this difficult job and made it laughable. After all, if we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?

Dan is an internationally-recognized columnist whose “regular business humor columns are read by almost 2 million monthly readers. His writing appears in Advantages Magazine, Health Insurance Underwriter, Agent’s Sales Journal, Independent Agent Magazine, Insurance News Net Magazine, Monster.com and more.”

Impressed yet? Dan has written a “Sales Comics” book so we can laugh at ourselves and our customers, with books and CD with titles such as Revenge of the Reps, Sales Horror Stories, and a best seller called “Sales Autopsy: a post mortem of your sales that died.” His products page is: Sales Autopsy Catalog

Dan even has a page of confessions – your horror stories, colleague’s horror stories – and as you read them (SEEING RED! Carl’s Attack on a Bad Prospect Backfires) you can see yourself in them and groan.

Dan is the master of the sale-gone-bad-but-it’s-funny story. But there is more to Dan. He offers training programs to help. Here is what he writes about his sales training program:

Here are 3 questions that world class sales pros can answer:

1. Who are you competing with? (hint: It’s just one person and it’s not yourself)
2. What is the #1 problem encountered by anyone who sells anything? (The answer gets sales mangers’ head’s nodding quickly when they hear it.)
3. What is your responsibility on a call? (hint: There are plenty of responses; educate, close, etc . – but the right answer is correct 100% of the time.)

I hope to learn how to make Buying Facilitation™ funny from Dan. That way we can laugh our way through both ends of the buying cycle – the sales portion and the off-line decision-making portion. As long as we can laugh. And Dan is the one to tickle your funny bone.

Good job, Dan. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to laugh with you. www.salesautopsy.com

Please join me and Dan on a podcast during the week of my new book launch, sometime around Oct. 19th.

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Dan Seidman Thinks Sales is a Laughing Matter is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com