RSSGet onto the Buying Decision Team on the First Call
Feb 22, 2010 Sales Related
When I tell sales folks their sales cycle is double what it should be, they assume I’m lying. But I’m not. I’m just using a different model than sales to being my client contact: Given that the typical sales model builds in time delays and leaves the seller out of the behind-the-scenes discussions going on, there is no way to get onto the Buying Decision Team on the first call.
My clients consistently close sales in a minimum of half the time it used to take them. Why? Because Buying Facilitation® gets them onto the Buying Decision Team on the first call, and they immediately being helping navigate the buyers through their often unknowable internal decision issues.
It’s not rocket science: the sales model pushes against the status quo, causing the status quo to defend itself. Sales treats a buyer’s alleged need, or ’problem,’ as if it were an isolated event; it has no capability to support buyers as they discover and manage the off-line change management issues they must address internally and privately prior to making a purchase. Indeed, the buyer’s internal system fights any chaos that would take place if the new solution entered too soon, and thereby rejects outside influence.
Think about coming home with a brand new luxury car before discussing the purchase with your wife or managing the budget or garage space: just because the family might need a car, until or unless all of the internal factors are managed, no change can take place without chaos.
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Tags: Buying Decision Teams, Buying Facilitation®, Facilitative Questions, partners
The Arrogance of Sales
Nov 2, 2009 Sales Related, Top Posts
Sales professionals face a lot of failure. You work very hard to discover plausible opportunities, understand needs, respect and care for prospects, and position your products so prospects recognize how your solution manages their need. You are good. You are professional. You are conscientious. Yet you only close a fraction of your sales; you seem to have no idea who to spend time on, who to let go, who will be able to buy, or who will have no ability to buy (even though they act like prospects), regardless of the fit between their need and your solution.
You end up wasting a lot of time, being annoyed, and facing far too much rejection. Where do seemingly appropriate prospects go? How can they choose a different vendor after all you’ve done for them? How can they take so long when it’s so obvious what the answer should be? Why do people treat you so badly when you really want to serve them?
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Tags: arrogance, buyers, Buying Decision Teams, failure, prospects, rejection, sales, solution, vendors
