I know that Dale Carnegie told you to meet face-to-face. But what else are you doing that was initiated in 1937? Oh. That’s right. The typical sales model of focusing on solution placement.

Buyers only buy when their entire Buying Decision Team is on board and when there is buy-in to bring in something new without causing major disruption. Trying to make an appointment before they know how to manage the elements that will touch the final solution will incur the following problems:

• It’s a double sale
  - first selling an appointment and then attempting to sell the solution to only those people who will see you (although many who don’t want to see you still need your solution). You will lose over 90% of your prospective buyers this way. [But if you begin by helping them first recognize their own excellence/change criteria, you can begin your sales job immediately - and without an appointment.]
• You will end up seeing only one or two people at your appointment and may need to make several visits. Trust me: the Buying Decision Team is much, much larger than the folks you will initially meet — although a prospect will probably not know the full complement of Decision Team members until they are almost ready to buy. [Until buyers know all of the idiosyncratic and political issues that might be involved with bringing in a new solution, they cannot know who needs to be involved in the final decision. You can help them, starting on the first call.]
• You are turning off people that can and might buy you. Buyers buy using their buying patterns, not your selling patterns.

2. Treating the ‘need’ as if it were an isolated event. A need never exists on its own. It sits within a system of people and policies and workarounds and relationships. Until everything around it has a plan to get resolved simulteneously, they will not fix ‘the problem’:  there is no such thing as one issue, sitting and waiting to be fixed. And the adjacent issues are not part of your solution or your sales initiative.

3. Offering solution data too soon. Until or unless the entire Buying Decision Team is ready and willing and able to purchase a new solution, the data you are offering them is too much, too soon. They do not need the data. For example: You don’t need data about the new gym until you have already decided to lose weight, get fit, get up at 3:00 a.m to get to the gym before work, etc. It’s not about the gym. When you start by gathering/sharing data, you are beginning at the wrong end of the buying journey.

4. Assuming the need should be resolved on the sales person’s time frame. Contrary to your belief, the buyer is not sitting and waiting – with bated breath – for you to show up as SuperSeller and fix their ‘problem.’ If they had such a strong need, they would have fixed it already. They are managing fine without you. Maybe not perfectly, but well-enough to maintain their status quo while getting the necessary buy-in for change.

5. Trying to find The Decision Maker. The Decision Maker? What does that MEAN? If the gatekeeper doesn’t let you through, she’s the decision maker. If the CSO suddenly and inappropriately gets involved and disrupts the forward trajectory – and it isn’t even in his/her area of responsibility – s/he is the decision maker.

Every. Single. Person. Who. Touches. The. Solution. Is. A. Decision. Maker.

Clear?

Two things need to happen before you can sell a solution: 1. the buyer has to figure out how to get appropriate internal buy-in and traverse the route (not merely understand it) from where they are to where they want to be; 2. the buyer must choose a solution and manage all of the fallout that bringing in your solution would involve.

No matter what their need – which they’ve lived with until now – or how well your solution fits, nothing will happen until the buyer’s decision journey is complete.

Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy? They are two different activities.

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Read my latest book for more on these topics: www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com or buy some of my learning accelerators so you can learn how to add a new skill set www.buyingfacilitation.com

The 5 selling mistakes that lose business is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

To help you understand how foreign systems are to outsiders, here’s a personal story from a trip to India that made me realize I’d never understand another system as an outsider…. and what I needed to focus on instead of trying to manipulate or make sense of a situation that I wanted to effect change over, but was foreign to me.

In this funny story I was so confounded by my inability to understand another culture that I ended up having a spiritual experience.

INDIA HAS NO SYSTEMS

I was on a speaking tour through India titled Spirituality in Business. India is a wonderous place that teaches you how to be authentic: there is no other way to be, since the only system they live with (outside of the strict rules of relationships) is chaos. And with my systems-thinking Asperger brain, that makes me horribly uncomfortable.

So I was going nuts. Absolutely bonkers. Nothing worked as I thought it should. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. No one did the job they were supposed to be doing. There were no rules, far as I could tell. I had no idea what to do, how to fit in or act. I was living in a state of confusion that hurt – every moment of every day.

I decided that the best route would be either murder or suicide. I didn’t much care which, so long as there was death involved.

I made such a fuss that the organizer of the speaking tour got me the name/number of a travel agent who would get me to HHDL (the Dalai Lama) in Dharamsala in North West India. One of the things to note about India is that your plane/train/bus will be late – or early, who knows – but whenever it does show up it will be yesterday’s transport, or tomorrow’s, and you’ll have to wait til, til who knows when. People wait for days. Calmly.

Anyway, I took the number and went to a nearby village to stand on line (with the goats and chickens, babies and arguing adults) to use the phone – a make-shift deal tied around a tree. It was probably the only phone for miles.

When it was my turn, I contacted Mr. Singh. “Ah, Miss Morgen. Yes. I have your plans to Dharamsala. Please hold while I get your file.” As I waited, watching some children play with a dog, I began smelling smoke. I looked around and saw nothing burning, until I looked down: the phone cord was dangling off of the tree, and on fire. That’s right. And that’s not even possible.

Obviously, I wasn’t going anywhere. No phone, no transport, no way out, no understanding, no choices. Typical of every moment in India: total confusion, all the time.

I sat down on a nearby rock, rolled my eyes upward, defeated: “OK. I’ll stay.”

ONE STEP . AND THEN ANOTHER.

What had to be true for me to remain in India and not commit Death of some kind? I had to learn how to take one step at a time, put one foot in front of the other, have no expectations, and live totally in the present without needing anyone else to behave in any particular way and without needing to understand anything. One step. I’m OK. One step. I’m OK.  One step. I’m OK. The anger, fear, rage, confusion slipped away; each moment was just fine.

After a day of taking very small, slow steps, I realized that not only was I (and folks around me) still alive, but that I felt free: I realized that much of my life had been based on assumptions of what I wanted to happen – what I expected, and what I thought I could influence, and the frustrations and annoyance when I didn’t get what I expected.

I took this lesson back to my life and job as a seller. I realized it’s not possible to understand a buyer’s systems. Sure, I understand the facts about a need and how it fits with my solution, but my ability to understand ends there.

What are the systems in your client’s environment? They must navigate their daily routines, decisions, jobs, relationships so that work gets done and excellence accomplished. But you don’t understand their system. So, what has to be true for you to help prospects traverse their systems and consider purchasing something?

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Read Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. Read two free sample chapters.

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

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

We can never understand a buyer’s buying environment is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Would you bring in a leadership training without getting the buy-in from the people who would be trained? Or know their criteria without their voices?

Would you choose a web designer without getting the buy-in from the current design team and the techies? Would you know what they would want included until they offered their opinions or knew what parts they wanted to do themselves?

Why not?

I recently had a coaching call with a SVP at a well-known CRM Management company. The man had a Harvard MBA, had been a partner at Accenture, and now was running the Texas sales operation for this CRM company. This is not a stupid man, obviously, but a man steeped in the ‘sales’ thinking modality.

During his session he wanted to put together a set of Facilitative Questions that would help his prospect (a hardware company with a sales force of 1500) buy his solution during his ‘big meeting’ that he finally got. Who was going to be in the meeting? I asked.

SS: There will be 10 people there: the head of sales and her team, and the head of marketing and her team.

SDM: So you’ve got 2 people.

SS: No! Ten! And it took me 2 months and 3 meetings with the head of sales to have her set up this meeting.

SDM: But there are only 2 members of the Buying Decision Team who will be present. Who else would need to be on the Buying Decision Team?

SS: Well, the head of technology, obviously, but he’s on board. He loves our solution. Besides, he’s only an influencer.

SDM:  So if he doesn’t want a CRM system, the company will ignore him?

SS: No. They wouldn’t buy. I guess that makes him a decision maker.

SDM:  And  there won’t be a problem with him working together with the heads of sales and marketing? They have no relationship issues?

SS: Oh. I guess I wouldn’t want to be there while they decided on stuff together. Hm. Who else do they have to get on their Buying Decision Team?

SDM: Not only do you not know, but they don’t know yet either. Let’s start with users. There must be user groups with 15oo sales people.

SS: There are 6 user groups. I guess we’d need their buy in.

SDM: I’m curious about the tech group. Your solution has a complicated implementation process and takes quite a bit of collaboration with the in-house folks. Does the tech team know they will need to free up folks for the implementation? Or are they going to outsource all of this? Or some combination?

SS: I have no way of knowing that.

SDM: That’s correct. And neither do they. And until they figure that out, they cannot buy your solution. In fact, until they have the entire Buying Decision Team on board, they can’t buy. There are too many people who need to have a voice, too many unknown decisions to make, too many buying and implementation criteria to take into account. And you can’t understand any of this – or be directly involved in doing it for the prospect. But you can lead them through their decisions so they have a path to follow. Otherwise you can wait until they figure it out themselves.

SS: So this meeting tomorrow is too early, with too few of the Buying Decision Team members, and giving them a big presentation right now is wasting my time and theirs because we don’t have all of the right people and they don’t have all of their buying criteria. This is why my sales take years to close. What do I do tomorrow? I bet you’re going to tell me not to make a presentation.

SDM: Let’s put together a list of Facilitative Questions that will help them figure out how to manage all of the issues we just discussed. And, at the end, if they still want a bit of your presentation, it’s fine. So long as you understand that their needs might change once all of the Buying Decision Team members have a say in the outcome. Obviously the tech folks will have different purchasing criteria than the sales folks, and the users won’t want anything new. And now, no one knows any of this.

Until or unless all of the members of the Buying Decision Team are on board, the buyer can not know their full set of buying criteria – or even the full definition of their need. When sellers go in and first attempt to ‘understand need’ or even ‘know who is on the Buying Decision Team [useless data as an outsider is not an influencer on the Team]‘ or offer solution data, they are wasting a lot of time and delaying the buying decision.

Facilitate buy-in, manage change, and help gather the correct Buying Decision Team members first. Then help them all figure out their buying, buy-in, and change criteria. And THEN you can focus on the need and your solution. And close a lot more sales a whole lot faster.

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Read sample chapters of Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. This book is a very clear discussion of what Buying Facilitation® is and does. It’s tactical; my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it is strategic. You can get them both in a bundle with an additional illustrated booklet in a bundle at www.buyingfacilitation.com

Help Buyers Choose the Buying Decision Team: a case study is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I’m here to tell you that cold calling can be one of the most effective ways to meet new prospects and close sales. And it’s a whole lotta fun.

I know, I know. Most sellers eschew cold calling, preferring instead to network, get referrals, golf, meet face-to-face or make friends through facebook and twitter.

Did you ever ask yourself why you don’t like cold calling?

Think historically: Dale Carnegie, in How to win friends and influence people published in 1937, told us to meet prospects in person (and his choices then were….. were what?). You can think about trying to ‘get through’ the gatekeeper. You can think about trying to gather information or pitch product with no ability to understand or share personal expressions on a phone.

So let’s say you do your networking, getting referrals, golfing, face-to-face meets and tweeting. What does it give you? Well, it gives you a connection, but it doesn’t necessarily help you close more deals: buyers still need to do their part to manage their behind-the-scenes systems (change management) issues and get buy-in at all levels, or nothing will happen whether they need you or like you.

The bigger problem than meeting someone who might buy is how to help buyers manage those off-line issues, because until they do, your sterling personalities are immaterial: If you start your conversations by shifting from making a sale to helping manage the internal buy-in issues, you can use the phone effectively AND make a sale in at least half the time.

WHY ARE WE CONNECTING?

Let’s begin with the question: Why are we attempting to make contact?

If you begin by trying to understand need, push product, or influence with your personal charm, then I agree; cold calling sucks.

But when you begin as a true consultant to help buyers manage the change of a buying journey, cold calling is wonderful. Buying Facilitation® is a change management/decision facilitation model I”ve been teaching globally for decades that employs a totally different skill set than sales, and helps buyers understand and manage the off-line portion of the buying decision. And then your sales skills are necessary. First manage change, then place the solution. Different way to think, right?

Given the space we’ve got on a blog post, I’ll give you a simple example.

I read about California Closets in the late 1990s and wanted to have them deliver Buying Facilitation® throughout their franchises. I did some research, and found what I later discovered to be a ‘bad’ number – but at the moment I called, it turned out to be a lucky error. A man answered:

SDM: Hi. My name is Sharon Drew Morgen, and I’m an author and developer of a new selling model. This is a sales call. Is this a good time to speak?

EL: No. It’s terrible. But I’ll give you 5 minutes.

SDM: I can call back. It’s only a sales call and I don’t want to disturb you. We didn’t have an appointment.

EL: Let’s start now and we can finish later. I already like your style. How can I help you?

SDM: Thanks. And at any point you want to end, we can stop and pick it up at another time. I was wondering how you are currently adding new sales skills to the ones you’re currently training your sales people and designers.

EL: Are you using the model you’re teaching? Because if you are, I’m buying. I’ve been looking for a new model for 2 years, and from what I’m hearing, I’m happy. How ‘bout if I get the heads of Sales and Training on a call next week, and think about doing training, or training our trainers at the end of January. Call me in a week at this number: XXXXX. Nice job.

And he hung up. We’ve been working together since then. And this was a cold call. Of course, I did get a bit lucky. But if I had used conventional sales techniques, or twitter or facebook, these folks would not have been my clients – even if I had managed to get in front of them.

DON’T USE YOUR BODY AS A PROSPECTING TOOL

When I understand that my job is to be in a ‘We Space’ (the conversation was all about him) and truly serve by helping  prospects discover how to move toward excellence, it doesn’t matter if I’m in person or on the phone, because there is no manipulation or personal persuasion tactics. Also, the focus of the entire call at this early stage is about the internal issues they need to manage (that a seller can never be a part of) within their system. It’s not about their need, or our solution. Sales does that way too early.

In the Buying Facilitation® model, every interaction, every comment, is based on helping buyers traverse their off-line buy-in issues. I understand that my solution can only be purchased AFTER buyers have managed the needed buy-in. And the telephone is a very handy tool. Of course, once the buyer manages their off-line decision issues internally, and their decision team discovers it’s ready to change and add a new solution, it will need to know more about our solution. THEN we can go visit them, and the entire Buying Decision Team will be there, with us on it. Try it. You might like it :)

So focusing on each cold call as if it were a puzzle, and you are the puzzle master who is not in front of the puzzle, but whispering in the ear of the person doing the puzzle, you can have fun. You won’t have to try to get an appointment, you’ll save travel time and funds, you’ll find a whole lot more prospects, and when you do go to the client site, it will be to sign the contract.

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Learn Buying Facilitation® on your own with our Guided Study program, or with a training program from us.

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

Cold Calling Works – and it’s fun! 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

Buyers live in a ‘system’ that maintains their Identified Problem (or ‘pain’)  over time, creating work-arounds that become part of the system and, well, comfortable. Indeed, if the buyer really needed to make a change, they would have done so already. It’s only when a group of dedicated, internal  change agents are willing to push the river, that a purchase is even considered.

Before buyers can buy, there must be buy-in to the proposed change, a plan that minimizes disruption, and a way to foster agreement between the people, policies and relationships that touch a new solution. A buying decision is far more complex than just fixing a problem.

I’ve developed Buying Facilitation® – a decision navigation model that is an add-on to sales and helps buyers bring together the right people and issues - to enable agreement and ensure change procedures are  in place to make a purchase. Here are a few Buying Facilitation® skills to use with sales:

9 STEPS

Help the gatekeeper discover who your best point of contact would be.

Don’t try to ‘get through’ the gatekeeper. She knows the best person to connect you with. And don’t attempt to ‘go to the top.’  The top person usually delegates to the appropriate people. Ask for the CEO’s assistant, and she’ll get you to the right people. Question: who is in control of the conversation – you? or the Gatekeeper?

Use Facilitative Questions to get into rapport and have buyers begin to examine how/if/why they would consider changing their status quo.

Until or unless prospects determine to make a change and get all appropriate folks on board to buy-in to change and ensure there is minimal disruption, it doesn’t matter whether

• you can see their need,
• your solution is perfect,
• they think they need you/your solution,
• they love your solution, price, personality, etc.

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. Do you need to be working out more? It’s not about the gym.

Here is a Facilitative Question I use to start conversations: How would you know if it were time to add new sales skills to the ones you’re already offering your sales folks? This question helps them think about necessary steps and new choices they must consider.

Remember: discussing solutions and needs assessment are irrelevant at this early stage. Facilitative Questions help the BUYER see the whole picture of what is going on strategically and tactically. Until or unless they know how to manage their system first, they will take no action. This is where buyers go when you’re sitting and waiting.

Lead prospects/buyers through the systems issues they must consider in order to determine how any proposed change will disrupt their status quo.

Facilitative Questions and Presumptive Summaries are used to help buyers look at their status quo with an unbiased eye. No matter what their ‘need’ or ‘problem’  if they don’t think they can change in a way that maintains systems congruence, they will do nothing. Remember: the buyer’s environment/culture/system has lived with the Identified Problem until now, and can continue to do so. If they had known how to resolve it differently, they would have.

Facilitate prospect’s discovery of what sorts of strategic issues they must manage to get folks on board with potential change.

There are 3 levels of decisions necessary: systems, strategic, and tactical. Addressing them in this order is optimal  although it’s usually an iterative process.

Lead prospects/buyers through tactical issues they must manage before they can choose a solution.

Once they determine that

1. their system would be willing to shift to add something/change/resolve something,
2. their rules, relationships, people, are willing to change,
3. they know how to shift congruently to minimize disruption,

they will then be willing to bring in a new solution. Until or unless their status quo is reconfigured in a way that the insiders are willing to support, they will do nothing: the risk to their functioning is too high. Hence the longer-than-necessary sales cycle.

Buyers must do this with you or without you – so it might as well be with you.

Help the prospect choose the members of the Buying Decision Team.

Help buyers recognize the right people to include. Usually they don’t know who it will be until way down the road, much like you don’t know all the trials you’ll face before you start a move.

Discuss how your solution fits with the internal issues that they must manage.

This step is about melding your solution with the entire range of issues they have to manage internally, including the people, policies, and relationships.

Discuss/present your solution and show the prospect/buyer how it would fit with their need/problem.

Once they do all of the above and get appropriate buy-in to manage change, they will know how and when to buy, and you can discuss needs/solutions according to their buy-in issues.

Follow up to see if there is anything you can do to help the prospect/buyer decide to purchase.

This is part of a good sales job, of course.

SALES TACTICS THAT ARE NO LONGER NECESSARY

Make an appointment to get in front of the prospect

This is a hold-over from another era. Until buyers put together their decision team and figure out how to change without disruption, your bright shiny face and the efficacy of your solution is irrelevant. You can do all of the above without meeting a client. And then, when you get there, the entire Buying Decision Team will be there and you wouldn’t have wasted any time/visits.

Manage objections and differentiate yourself from the competition.

The sales model creates objections because it pushes data/solution info against a ‘closed system.’ When you hear an objection, it’s merely the system defending itself against change and nothing whatsoever about your solution. Once you teach the system how to manage buy-in without disruption, there are no objections.

80% of your prospects will buy within 2 years – but not from you. The time it takes them to manage the buying decision to ensure there will be no disruption is the length of the sales cycle. You can either sit and wait for them to do it, or you can learn Buying Facilitation® and become the GPS system to help them navigate. Would you rather sell? or help someone buy?

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Wanting to learn more? Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Check out the site for more details.

Or consider purchasing the bundle: Dirty Little Secrets plus my last book Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. In addition, you will also receive a bonus illustrated booklet.

9 Sales Steps that Influence a Buying Decision is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Until or unless the entire Buying Decision Team is in place, the buyer will not know how to hear you: until everyone who touches a solution has had their voice heard, and adds their choice criteria to possible solutions, a buyer doesn’t know what they need to buy.

Let’s say you and your Partner have a brief, rushed chat as you leave for work, about the possibility of moving. When you return for dinner, you tell your Partner you’ve got a surprise: You’ve bought a great house on the way home from work and you’re moving next week!

You would probably have a massive fight: there are too many private, behind-the-scenes decisions that must be made to manage each person’s criteria, feelings, future plans. Bigger house/smaller house. Leave the city/move to country. Move to a different state/different country. Near one kid’s school district/near someone’s work. Will your house sell easily? Do you need to call the bank and get a loan/financing if you don’t sell your house first? When to put your house on the market?

Let’s say instead of coming home with a new house, you called a friend and said you might move, and the friend called me since I’m a realtor. I call you up the next day to tell you about this fabulous house.

Do you want to hear about the house? Why not? You’re not ready: you won’t have made all of the decisions you’ll need to make to have the relevant choice criteria to even consider the house. It’s too early.

SELLING VS. BUYING

There is a difference between your solution and what a buyer needs/wants to buy/is able to buy; between your selling patterns and a buyer’s buying patterns. And buyers will only buy according to their buying patterns. If you use selling patterns, you are merely selling to those folks whose buying patterns are the same as your selling patterns.

Think of the telemarketing industry of a decade ago. Their solutions were fine. It was their selling patterns people objected to.

Until or unless buyers have all of their choice criteria ready, they won’t know how to hear you; won’t know the details to listen for; won’t know how your solution would fit. It’s like offering house details before they’ve decided to move. And they won’t use your criteria to make their choices.

When you contact a prospect, if you’re attempting to gather data about their ‘needs’ before the entire Buying Decision Team is on board, you are only hearing one set of possible buying criteria, from one person who may or may not be on the Buying Decision Team, and who probably doesn’t know the full set of criteria. It’s a waste of your time and theirs – hence, a tiny fraction will speak to you, and a smaller fraction of possible buyers will give you an appointment.

When you call just to make an appointment, you are getting rid of a minimum of 90% of your list because they don’t want, or aren’t ready for, or see no need for (whether they need your solution or not) a new solution. And those that will agree to see you are already in the market, so you enter in a competitive situation.

You are wasting over 50% of prospects by trying to get an appointment before they have determined their buying criteria. And at this point in their buying path, you can’t help them choose to see you, or decide to purchase, using the sales process.

YOU CAN HELP BUYERS BUY: BUY NOT WITH YOUR SOLUTION

The last thing buyers do is choose a solution. My latest book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it explains all of the off-line decision issues buyers must address before they have the full set of criteria to know what solution to choose.

Instead of calling them to ‘understand need’, call them to help them navigate their buying decision journey. Instead of trying to get an appointment, use your connection to help them figure out what Excellence would look like for them. And once you’ve helped them put together the full Buying Decision Team, then the whole team will be eagerly waiting to meet you.

Buying Facilitation® will give you a skill set to start your conversations differently and facilitate the buying decision journey. Use Buying Facilitation® first, and then they will be happy to meet with you.

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Sharon Drew is a contributor to the new Entrepreneurial Selling program by RAIN Group. Check out the free video series leading up to the program.

To learn more about Buying Facilitation®, read Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it, or hear Sharon Drew use the model with prospects.

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

Wait until the Buying Decision Team is in place to visit or pitch is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

They split the sales team into an Inside Sales group that makes appointments, and Corporate and Field Sales teams to close them. The structure, as well as the compensation, promotes failure: Inside Sales is paid per appointment (with a tendency to push for an appointment with whomever they speak with, regardless of their appropriateness); the other sales functions are paid based on how many they close.

It’s a perfect storm: inappropriate leads are given to sellers who spend gobs of time pushing a solution to whomever ends up agreeing to an appointment (who may not be appropriate buyers, and certainly don’t represent all those who might buy), and get a very low percentage of closed sales. So the company hires more and more Inside Sales reps to get appointments, hoping that a higher percent of the appointment will result.

DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A SALE OR AN APPOINTMENT?

My clients came to me complaining of a very low close rate. It never occured to them that just maybe there is a problem with their selling model; they manage the problem by adding sales reps. They believe success is at their fingertips by playing the numbers game!

There is a very large elephant in the room here: Before a buyer can buy they must manage the behind-the-scenes change management issues that address the disruption, the people, the relationships, the rules, that must be handled behind-the-scenes to get the buy-in necessary to bring in a new solution in. Sales enters at the point of  ‘need’… but that’s the tail end of the buyer’s buying decision path.

Our continued fascination with making an appointment as a precursor to making a sale is based on the belief that a buyer will buy based on the strength of the presentation. And although we get extremely low closing rates, we continue to do it and often throw more sellers at the problem, doing the same activity. That’s the definition of insanity!

Imagine if it’s possible to discover leads/prospects who can be made ready to buy without making an appointment!

Imagine if it’s possible to close the buying decision path gap in a fraction of the time and closing 5x more sales without introducing your solution – or pitching, presenting, or creating a proposal.

START WITH A DIFFERENT SET OF ASSUMPTIONS

Once you begin with the assumption that buyers just need to understand your solution and how it would benefit them, you’re a solution looking for a problem. Then your sales folks are order takers, or tele-sales reps, or consultants running around looking busy. But all sales – regardless of the industry - close between 2-7%. Where do the rest go? And why are you pitching, wasting time, or making appointments with, folks who will never buy?

You end up hiring more and more sales folks to close fewer and fewer sales… especially these days when Buying Decision Teams are more diverse in geography and function.

Right now you are paying your sales folks to find the low-hanging fruit: buyers who most probably would have found you and bought from you anyway.

Let’s compensate our sales folks for helping buyers navigate through the entire buying decision path and help buyers where they need the most help to solve a problem – managing the buy-in of all who will touch the solution - something sales does not do at the moment, as it remains focused on needs assessment and solution placement.

Once you add Buying Facilitation® to your seller’s skill set, you will be able to close much more business. Because now you’re spending far, far too much time following prospects who will never close and paying your sales people for the wasted effort.

I’ve heard sellers tell me that they didn’t need to learn BF because they earn 6 figures doing what they are doing badly. Imagine if you compensated your sales folks on an expectation that they close 40% of their leads. It’s very possible – my clients do that easily. Then, there would be no reason to hire more folks just to get the numbers you’re trying to get. And you would have a much higher ROI.

Stop compensating your sales folks on meager expectations. Stop having your sales folks set up appointments first. Start with the very first ‘Hello’ and teach them how to buy. Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy?

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Buy Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it and learn the difference between selling and managing the buying path.

Listen to Sharon Drew make prospecting calls on this MP3.

Compensating our sales folks is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

When I began using the terms in the 80s my meaning described a change management process to lead buyers through their non-solution/non-need-related, behind-the-scenes internal and political issues that enable all who touch the solution to buy-in. Lately I’ve noticed the terms applied to the sales end of the buying decision – that 10% of the buyer’s journey that manages the  pre-solution choice  behaviors, including  solution/vendor choice, time/money issues. In other words, sales.

But let’s stop a moment: We don’t buy this way.

HOW DO WE BUY?

Here’s is a case study to offer an example of how we actually buy.

Pretend you are the VP of Client Services of a $15 Million company, considering upgrading your website; you don’t like the job your internal tech folks have done. What needs to happen for you to get a site you need? Get your own guys to work better/smarter? Bring in a new vendor to fix the one you have? Let’s look at the actions you must take prior to moving forward.

1. start a conversation with a colleague/friend to discuss ideas about the status quo.
2. if the idea has merit, see if there is interest from the VPs of Sales and Marketing as they’d need to share budget with you.
3. go on line and do some research to: look at several possible solutions, see how your competition is managing it, and call colleagues for vendor possibilities.
4. talk with the internal Tech guys to discuss your displeasure and see what they’re willing to do differently, closer in line with what you’ve learned.
5. have a meeting with VPs or Sales and Marketing to get the lay of the land, share some new ideas, gather their thoughts, discuss options to move forward with their support. This is the foundation of the Buying Decision Team (BDT).
6. contact a few local vendors to ask them to give you a presentation so you can better understand what they do and what’s possible.
7. attend vendor presentations that focus on strength of design, strength of technical and programming skills.
8. meet with the BDT to discuss your take-aways from the vendor presentations. Everyone wants to do more research. Sales and Marketing  folks not talking with each other, and each want to take this in different directions.
9. meet with CFO who manages the technology department. She wants to keep all work inhouse.
10. meet to discuss with Sales, Marketing. Invite Technology folks, but they don’t come. Sales and Marketing must learn how to get along as they have a similar focus and don’t like the work the Tech team does.
11. decisions must be made as per changing mind of the CFO. Group decides to look at vendors again and gather different sorts of data to offer proof to CFO.
12. same vendors come in to do a presentation to you, Sales, Marketing. Tech folks refuse to come.
13. group decides to use vendors rather then tech team, but must find a way to get buy-in from CFO.
14. group writes a paper to convince CFO to use outside supplier. Head of Sales is chosen to get Tech folks on board.
15. meeting set up with Tech VP, CFO, heads of Sales, Internal Consulting, Project Management, HR (to manage any outsourcing) Marketing, and you – the complete Buying Decision Team. All decide to use the Tech team to do the programming; vendor to do the design. You all decide to take a look at the vendors again to see who would be most capable of collaborating as well as designing, as they’d need to hand over, and work with, the tech folks.
16. vendor meeting #3. The vendors with the slide about collaboration was chosen (that buying criteria was not even discussed with the vendors during earlier conversations or needs-assessment conversations).

This is a very very simplistic decision path during a year’s worth of meetings: there are only ‘people’ variables, and not any policies, internal politics, initiatives, etc.

SALES FOCUSES ON NEEDS AND SOLUTION PLACEMENT

In this situation, the sales model would have the potential vendors gather, and assume that the ‘need’ was for web design, rather than collaboration skills AND web design. And, the assumption would be that the entire Buying Decision Team – not fully formed until near the end – is already on board.

In this instance, you’d become involved in steps 6,7. You’d give a great presentation, recognize a need, get along well with your contact, and assume you were ‘in.’ When you didn’t hear back for a while, you’d start calling. And when you got your second presentation appointment, you’d assume you were in. And the rest is history.

If you were using Buying Facilitation® all of this would have been avoided for both you and your prospect. As the vendor, you would have helped the buyer recognize the problem lie with the CFO on the first call, helped design the make up of the full Buying Decision Team, and not gone in to do a presentation until there was agreement to have a vendor do some/all of the work. You’d go in only when the VPs of Sales, Marketing, Tech, and the CFO were present in the room. And it all would have taken a month or two.

If you want to learn how to do this, start by reading Dirty Little Secrets. Then get the Guided Study program and begin learning Buying Facilitation®. Or call me and we’ll discuss training.

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Start the journey to help sellers get the skills they need to manage both ends of the buying decision journey – the off-line political and relational buy-in as well as the solution choice. Read Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Listen to insights and illustrative examples regarding: what change is and why its fundamentally the same regardless of industry or organization type, what systems are and their role in the change management process.

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

How do you buy? Steps in a buying decision is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

This one person starts with with no buy-in and no buddies, and cannot initially know the full description of the problem/need or ramifications of the possible change. And certainly will not have the complete descriptors with which to choose a solution until much later in the cycle when all appropriate voices are brought in and the change management issues are recognized by everyone who will touch the final solution.

Before that person gets from here to there, there are many steps along the way, starting with putting together some personal thoughts through research, through discussions, to private think time. Then come a few friends and colleagues who lend a brain and an ear – friends who also want Excellence and are willing to put in time, put their jobs on the line, and be willing to stand up to resistance and the status quo to get something new brought into the environment.

That’s where the buy-cycle starts. There are actually 13 unique steps from the first thought to a purchase.

STARTING SALES TOO EARLY

Sellers show up early in the cycle, discussing needs, money, value and ‘deep understanding’ – the buyer’s last 2 steps. But the early portion of the journey – the 11 behind-the-scenes, private, idiosyncratic, and highly personal steps that buyers and their Buying Decision Teams must take along their path to purchase – is not handled by sales.

There is so much more we can do to help buyers maneuver from the first idea through their decision path.

Are we willing to add new skills, new technology, to what we’re doing now, both in marketing automation, inside sales, outside sales, telemarketing, and nurture marketing? Are we willing to add new skills that are not sales skills, nor influencing skills, nor negotiating skills? Are we willing to help manage the change? If we aren’t willing, we will continue to close a fraction of what we can be closing as we sit and wait to close the low hanging fruit.

All sales activities – marketing automation included – are needs assessment/solution placement focused. The underlying belief is that once we understand the buyer’s needs, or know their friends, or play golf with them, or network with them, or know who the decision makers are, we will know what, when, how, if to place a solution.

Yet only 7% of buyers buy through normal sales channels, and less than 1% through marketing automation channels. And – here is the kicker – 80% of our prospects (whom we followed and called and contacted and nurtured) will buy our solution from a different vendor within 2 years of speaking with us.

In other words, even though there is a need, and it appears that our solution matches, something is stopping the buy-cycle.

WHAT IS A BUY-CYCLE

A buy-cycle is an entire set of change management and buy-in issues that buyers must manage internally, behind-the-scenes, to get agreement from people and policies in order to make a purchase.

The buy-cycle starts with an idea, and ends when the entire Buying Decision Team is on board (no mean feat) and everything that will touch a new solution knows how to manage the change that the new thing will create.

The buy-cycle is 90% complete by the time the buyer is considering one solution over another. Until then, buyers must get all of the right people to agree (hah), make sure technology will not crash, ensure people can work together, change job descriptions, bring in outsourced folks to help with implementations, ensure the new works with the old….

The buy-cycle does not start with a seller understanding needs and matching a solution. That’s the last thing that happens. Note: the fact that a seller can recognize a need means it has been there for a while … and nothing has been done about it. So the system it lives in is willing to maintain the problem.

Here are a few thoughts that are important to remember:

• If the buyer needed to fix their problem they would have done so already.
• The time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers and figure out their internal change management issues is the length of the sales cycle, independent of their need.
• A seller (the outsider) will never, ever, ever ‘understand’ the political, relational, personal, or historic issues that buyers must manage. It’s necessary to understand the full need, however, and that can occur once the entire Buying Decision Team is in place.
• Information does not teach a buyer how to buy. They must manage their internal, off-line, systems issues.
• The system is sacrosanct: buyers will maintain the integrity of their system at all costs, regardless of their need or the efficacy of your solution.
• Something new threatens the integrity of the existing system.

If you are selling technology, the buy-cycle must include buy-in from whoever will use it, plus a set up for the change implementation, plus a relationship with outsourcing groups, plus a way to ensure the new will meld with the old, plus some sort of project leading component.

If you are selling training, the buy-cycle will include buy-in from those who will take the training, internal trainers, matching the new program with the existing material, change of materials/software to match the new skills, plus buy-in from, and a working relationship with, the internal training department with a knowledge of maintaining the new learning over time.

For small, inexpensive solutions, possibly one person has to discover how the new solution would disrupt the system and figure out how to re-arrange, or shift technology, etc.

The buy-cycle is not about our solution. It’s about the buyer making sure that at each step there is agreement and change management and buy-in to ensure all of the right people are on board and willing to allow an addition to the status quo. The reason we lose sales is not because of our solution, but because the Buying Decision Team hasn’t figured out how to bring in change without disruption.

Ask yourself this, and answer honestly: do you really, really want to begin selling at the beginning of the buy-cycle? I can teach you the skills and give you the technology for this to happen. But you’d have to add something to what you’re doing – i.e. change.

How would you recognize, upfront, who would need to be included in a decision to change? How would you know that Buying Facilitation® will give you the results you deserve BEFORE you begin the change? What would you need to do differently to get the buy-in you’d need?

I can help. I can offer you Facilitative Questions to share with teammates to help them decide. Or you can listen to podcasts and watch webinars that I gave to explain Buying Facilitation®.

For those of you who recognize a problem, and want help navigating through the entire change management journey to get buy-in to add new skills to your sales and marketing, contact me. I can help you walk through the entire route with a minimum of disruption.

I just need to speak with one person with a hope for something better.

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Listen to these podcasts;

watch these webinars;

read this book – 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®

Where does the buy-cycle start? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I believe we are currently paying our sales folks to waste 90% of their time. They are spending time  pushing solution information to the wrong people at the wrong time, and have no idea who will actually close until, well, until they don’t.

With its focus on placing solutions, the current sales model (including marketing automation) has no way to manage the natural resistance of groups while they figure out their pre-purchase change management strategies. Sellers merely catch the low hanging fruit and the sales model does not faciliate the buyer’s complete – and confusing - decision path.

If we were paying sellers according to what  they SHOULD be closing they’d be earning a fraction of what they are earning. In reality, we can  close twice as much business with half the sales force.

EXTENDING EXPECTATION: SELLERS SHOULD BE CLOSING MORE

Unfortunately, we start off by assuming that if we find folks who COULD buy our solution, and have a recognized NEED, that they are prospects. If this were true, we’d be closing a helluva lot more sales.

Sellers spend 90% of their time attempting to close sales that will never close. The sales model doesn’t offer a skill set to help buyers with the part that keeps them from buying: they must manage their confusing, political change management issues along their decision path. And yet the field resists learning Buying Facilitation®:  As someone recently said to me: Why should I bother learning how to help buyers manage their change issues when I already make a good salary closing the paltry sum I’m closing?

According to Forrester, 80% of our prospects buy a solution similar to ours (or ours) within 2 years of having contact with a sales rep. What does this tell us? The time it takes buyers to get their ducks in a row to get internal agreement to buy is the length of the sales cycle. We must add a skill set to help facilitate the buy-in journey and actually teach buyers how to find their ducks and get them quacking.

EXPAND THE SALES JOB TO ENCOMPASS THE ENTIRE DECISION PATH

Our prospects aren’t buyers. Typical closing rates are  less than 10%  (7% in conventional sales; less than 1% from marketing automation; 2% in banking and insurance). When we close,  we are merely showing up around the time the buyer shows up with their checkbook and have already done their behind-the-scenes work.

The statistical average of closing a sale by following each prospect with an apparent need (15 calls over 9 months) is greater than what we’re actually closing. By containing our sales activities to the solution choice, we fail to close all those who will buy once they get their internal buy-in.

A seller’s performance and pay is currently dependent on whether or not a buyer is ready, willing, and able to buy AT THE TIME THE SELLER IS FOLLOWING THEM.  Using the sales model, we have no idea who is going to buy at the start of the  sales journey.

Apparently, companies assume

• there is no way to tell who will buy,
• it’s not possible to enter the private world buyers live in to  enable them to manage, their decision path more quickly,
• buyers are stupid or they’d buy more/better/faster,
• it’s not a sellers fault if prospects they have been following (and are most probably in the pipeline) don’t buy.

Why not assume that the performance of the sales folks is poor because of  the sales model itself. By merely addressing the last 10% of  the buyer’s decision, and with no skills that would  faciliate the entire buying journey, starting with the buy-in, change management, political issues buyers must manage before they can buy, we are not making it easy for buyers (who need a solution to manage merely a portion of their internal problems). Indeed, adding Buying Facilitation® to the front end of sales skills mitigates the buy-in issues by adding facilitation skills.

BUYING FACILITATION® FACILITATES THE BUYING DECISION JOURNEY

Imagine if the sales job was to first enter the behind-the-scenes buying decision path and help buyers navigate through all of the non-needs-related decisions they must make and buy-in they must get (focusing on internal relationships, politics, strategies, etc) en route to choosing a solution. Then they would collapse the time it takes for buy-in to happen by half, and triple the number of folks who buy.

Imagine if sellers were paid only on closed sales (rather than spending over 90% of their activity on chasing leads/prospects who will never close) with an assumption that it’s possible to close 5x what they are currently closing?

Imagine if sellers started a conversation by helping manage buy-in. They’d know, from first call, exactly who would close and only spend time on buyers.

Sellers can increase their performance by at least a factor of 5. Knowing this, would you still keep paying them the same base salary? or continue hiring more sales folks to get the sales you need?

Is it worth a test to trial Buying Facilitation® to a pilot group and see the difference? Call me and we’ll discuss options. Then you can pay your sellers what they are really worth — a lot.

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Start the journey to help sellers get the skills they need to manage both ends of the buying decision journey – the off-line political and relational buy-in as well as the solution choice. Read Dirty Little Secrets; get an MP3 to hear Sharon Drew using the model; contact us to learn about training your sales folks.

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

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

What are we paying our sales folks to do? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I originally labelled the trip through the behind-the-scenes issues buyers must contend with (those political, relational, strategic issues that will be touched when a new solution enters) ‘navigating the buyer’s decision.’

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SELLING AND MANAGING OFF-LINE BUYING DECISION ISSUES

Historically, sellers have mistakenly assumed I focus on decisions related to the purchase and the need. In fact, folks have had a real hard time understanding my intent: some sellers, regardless of illustrations, or webinars, books or speeches, assume I mean what every sales person must do: help buyers

1. figure out how to purchase the right solution for their need,
2. get the funding to pay for it,
3. understand all of the choices that would be a plausible solution,
4. choose the right vendor.

Smart, savvy business folks and entrepreneurs still believe that’s my message or have just defined the term to fit their comfortable level. Regardless of what others say, it’s important for me that it’s understood that my work is not meant for the solution-placement end of the buying journey, but for the non-needs-related set of activities buyers must handle amongst themselves to

1. find the right set of people for the Buying Decision team as they begin consideration to make a change,
2. make sure that every department, job function, existing solution, and political relationship that will touch a new solution gets managed appropriately to ensure minimal disruption to the status quo,
3. get the appropriate buy-in so folks work together to design a way for the new solution to fit.

It’s the stuff buyers must do before they buy. They do this without us. And we sit and wait, because sales doesn’t handle this portion of the buyer’s journey.

BUYING FACILITATION® AND SALES TOGETHER

Just to clarify: sales manages the needs assessment and solution placement end of the buyer’s journey – the last 10% of their activity. Because

• if the tech guy doesn’t want the new solution and won’t free up people without a fight,
• if the user group doesn’t want to take training,
• if the company is going through an M&A,
• if the regular vendor can handle a portion of the need,
• if the tech person and the marketing person are having a turf war,
• if anything that affects the status quo cannot make the necessary internal changes to handle a new solution,

the buyer will take no action, regardless of their need.

And that’s why 7% of your prospects buy now, and 80% of your prospects will buy within 2 years, and from someone else: the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle.

With my Asperger’s systems-thinking brain, I’ve actually coded the change management issues buyers must handle before buying: Buying Facilitation® is based on how systems work (and sales treats a ‘need’ as if it were an isolated event – it’s not), and how to maintain homeostasis as the system faces change. It teaches sellers how to put on the hat of a change agent and help buyers navigate through all of their idiosyncratic and people/policy issues. It  includes using Facilitative Questions, Systems Listening, and Decision Sequencing, all designed to lead buyers through their internal issues to make the right decisions that will leave their system intact and better than when it started.

It’s not sales. But it collapses the decision cycle and helps folks come up with their unique criteria for buy-in so they’ll take action. It’s great for coaching, negotiating, leadership, and personnel issues.  All marketing automation technology should add Buying Facilitation® to their contact sheets, and to their telemarketing scripts and lead scoring.

FACILITATING THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

Finally, around 8 years ago, I coined the term Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey, thinking that I finally ‘got it’.

Except the term is so terrific that it’s been co-0pted by the sales field which  is REdefining it to  fit into ‘sales’ and solution choice.

Now I’ve got a quandry: if the term ‘facilitating the buyer’s journey’ gets co-opted into the conventional sales thinking, we all run the risk of losing the intent, the model, the brand, the powerful methodology that actuallys help the buyer manage change. If I start writing a lot about MY definition, I run the risk of being a johnny-one-note.

Of course, this is journey of all new ideas: the originator finally learns how to say it, and then it gets stolen and co-opted by the mainstream. And the originator dies with one ear, in poverty. And the original idea get subsumed. We don’t see many geodesic domes; thankfully impressionism was picked up by others besides Van Goch.

My biggest fear is that we’ll lose the original intent and fail to learn a new skill set.

So I’ll leave the choice up to you: would you rather sell? Or have someone buy. Because if you’d rather sell, you can shove ‘facilitating the buyer’s journey’ into sales, and probably not notice there is a far, far more successful way to help buyers buy. If you’d rather have someone buy….. have I got a term for you! :)

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Come to my loft in Austin and learn Buying Facilitation® with me or send a trainer to learn to train your folks. Buying Facilitation® licensing program that includes Facilitating Buying Decisions: July 2-8, 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®

Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey: a definition 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

Before a buyer buys, or a decision gets made, all of the elements that will be changed by the new solution must buy-in. This includes getting the right players on board, managing old vendors, insuring new solutions meld with current ones, managing internal politics, matching strategic needs with initiatives over time, etc. It’s very difficult for sales folks to understand that there is a gap between the need and solution, and the buying decision that must include all of the pieces that touch the solution and might experience change with a new solution.

The time it takes this buy-in to happen is the length of the sales cycle, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution. And when something new is forced into the system without systemic buy-in, as sellers do when attempting to place a solution before the buyer has gone down their full buying decision path, the system will resist. Hence, we get long delays and objections when it appears clear that the buyer has a need we can fulfill. And we think there is a buyer when there is none because they cannot get the necessary buy-in to purchase.

SELLING VS BUYING

The sales model is a solution-placement model that ignores the behind-the-scenes, non-need-related issues that must be managed internally before a purchase can occur. We end up sitting and waiting, and pushing, and waiting, and pushing, and hoping until all of these activities take place, and then close the low hanging fruit. And we have no idea where the other prospects go.

Buying Facilitation® has a different outcome and unique skill set: Its job is to lead buyers through their entire decision path to recognize and manage all of the elements that must be handled.  It’s a change management/buy-in model (that uses NO sales techniques or strategies) that actually teaches buyers how to be ready to buy, and folds in the purchase/solution as a part of the decision journey.

Used in front of sales it:

1. closes sales in 1/8 the time;
2. recognizes who is a buyer and who isn’t, on the first call;
3. helps buyers collect the appropriate Buying Decision Team on the first call and has them available for a meeting or conference call soon after the first call (even if it’s a cold call);
4. helps buyers recognize and influence all of the people, policy, vendor, budget, time, relationship, and political issues they must include in so that a purchase can enter the system without disrupting the status quo significantly;
5. gets everyone who will touch the solution on board within 2 calls, and work with their buy-in issues to move the sale forward, or end the sales relationship immediately.

In other words, by the time the ‘sales’ process begins, the full Buying Decision Team is in place, have offered their needs and concerns, know exactly their next steps (and yours), are eager to fit your solution into their status quo, have no objections (money or otherwise) and are ready and able to buy-in to a purchase. All in a collapsed schedule.

With a $50,000,000 solution, working with Buying Facilitation® KPMG turned a 3 year sales cycle into a 4 month sales cycle. IBM was selling a simple software solution: we turned a 6 month sales cycle into a 3 call close. Kaiser went from 110 visits and 18 closed sales to 27 visits and 25 closed sales. In each instance, we were able to not only collapse the sales cycle, but teach the buyer how to make the requisite changes congruently, in accordance with their internal rules. In other situations we got rid of inappropriate prospects on the first call, or enabled folks we didn’t think were prospects to recognize their need for a new solution.

HOW SALES DOESN’T WORK

Using sales or marketing automation, you are finding people with a possible need, but merely putting great data in their reach – and assuming that the data will  influence a buying decision. But:

1. your data doesn’t necessarily reach the right people;
2. your data might not address the full range of solution issues (and that you can not know about as an outsider);
3. your solution might run counter to how their current vendor is managing things;
4. your solution might not fit comfortably with their current solution and they haven’t yet decided to get rid of it;
5. the Buying Decision Team hasn’t been formed yet and until it is they can’t buy (Hint: buyers aren’t aware of who needs to be on this team until well into the purchasing discussion);
6. we are pushing our solution against a ‘system’ that has maintained homeostasis for some time and would be disrupted if something new entered (The system is sacrosanct: until buyers figure out how to make sure the system is not adversely affected if they were to buy something, they will take no action.);
7. the appropriate buyer but can’t get the requisite buy-in to make a purchase (hence the 80% of your prospects who will buy within 2 years, but not from you.).

Buying Facilitation® – which employs a very unique skill set – has been used to run meetings, help “C” level people set strategy, negotiate, manage, supervise, and coach. It can be used to design scripts for telemarketers, or upfront as part of a software tool for change management. It is a decision facilitation model based on systems thinking, servant leadership, change management, and the ability to serve others. I call it a GPS system to lead folks through their decision making criteria. I’ve also developed a new form of contact sheet for marketing automation, to truly follow the buying decision path and offer the right data at the right time.

Learn Buying Facilitation® through an in-house training or a self-guided study. You can start with my 2 latest books: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it; and/or Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. But stop selling. Add Buying Facilitation® to your great sales skills.

Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy?

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

3-Day Public Training in Austin  June 14-16 Syllabus | Registration

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

The results of using Buying Facilitation® is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

SELLERS ENTER TOO EARLY

We fail to realize that we are only being brought in when they have all of their internal ducks in a row and are ready to bring in a change.  When buyers are

• considering all options and face confusion and internal politics,
• recognizing a problem and the timing on fixing it,
• doing research into possible vendors or solutions,
• figuring out which problems to resolve in which order,
• understanding how a new solution will create shifts in their culture and technology,
• figuring out who needs to be on the Buying Decision Team, the prospect isn’t ready to buy.

As sellers, we don’t realize that buyers have an incomplete understanding who to invite on the Buying  Decision Team when they begin their process (I write about this in my latest book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it). The entire buying path is largely unknown up until close to the end of their decision – and until it is, they cannot make a purchase.

In fact, there are so many human issues that rear their ugly heads that a buyer really has no idea at the start who to involve, what the buy-in problems will be, nor what personal, corporate, or market issues will have to be resolved prior to making a purchase. And until they figure this out, they cannot buy, regardless of the efficacy of our solution.

SALES IGNORES THE BACK-END, NON-SOLUTION-RELATED  DECISION PATH

Sales gives us no skills to help with those back end decisions as they are not needs/solution-related. And we sit and wait while buyers figure it out. But Buying Facilitation® does: it’s a change management/decision facilitation model that gives you an additional skill set to lead buyers through their private issues that we’ve always sat and waited for them to complete.

No, it’s not sales, and it’s not solution-placement or needs-assessment — sales does a wonderful job of doing that. But add Buying Facilitation® to your sales skills, and enter the buyer’s decision path early and become a very active partner. You will:

• close 8x more sales;
• halve the close time;
• understand who is not a prospect on the first call;
• only go to meetings when the entire Buying Decision Team is involved (and you’ll help get all of the members included);
• rarely need a proposal, or be in a competitive situation.

Would you rather sell? or have someone buy? They are two different activities. Sales will only help you place your solution. Buying Facilitation® can lead the buyer through their decisions. Call to discuss how to become a part of the buyer’s buying journey.

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• Guided Study program for individuals or teams
• Learning Accelerators
• Buy the MP3′s of Sharon Drew making live phone prospecting and qualifying calls.

3-Day Public Training in Austin  June 14-16 Syllabus | Registration

Make the vendor an active partner from early in the buyer’s decision path is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com