I had so much fun with you all in April with my Steps to a Sales Call contest that I’m going to run another one. This time I’d like you to use your own words to define my concepts re helping buyers manage their behind-the-scenes decision issues. I’d like to either 1. use your definitions in addition to the ones I use, 2. help you correct your mis-perceptions, or 3. redefine terms the way you’re comfortable using them.

To be part of the official contest, please ’define’ at least 4 of the terms and start a public dialogue with me. I will send each participant one of my Dirty Little Secrets books.

Here’s the deal: without taking definitions from my books (you can use previous blog posts, however) write up some definitions to the following terms:

• Buying Facilitation®
• Facilitative Questions
• decision facilitation
• buyer’s buying decisions
• navigating the buying decision
• the system buyers live in
• the change management issues buyers must address
• the difference between buy-in and buying decisions
• Buying Facilitation® and Sales: how do they work together?

As you think about the definitions, remember this: sales handles the needs assessment and solution placement end of the buyer’s decisions, but does nothing to address their off-line, behind-the-scenes, private and personal dialogues, relationships/political issues they must address internally (and not problem/need/solution driven) prior to getting the buy-in necessary to choose a solution or vendor.

I know your definitions may be wildly different from mine – many of you are still thinking “sales sales sales.” But hopefully, through our dialogue, we can both learn: you can learn the difference between the solution sale and the pre-sale, private buying decision issues, and I can learn how to say the damn thing so more of you can understand what I’m talking about.

I’ll respond frequently to your comments and I’ll publish my definitions on May 25. Thanks, everyone. And make sure I have a way to reach you so I can send you a book!

If you would like to submit this contest to twitter, please click here.

CHOICES FOR SUBMISSION

1. Comment here: For those of you who want to just talk to me, or others in the Buying  Facilitation® community, this is the easiest route.

2. Blogs: If you find this exercise interesting, or like the thinking about decision facilitation, you could write a blog post, or I could do a visiting post for you.

3. Facebook: Can you do a status update: do your friends want to discuss how buyer’s buy with you? Do they want to learn how to manage the entire sale? If you can get something exciting started with lots of buy-in and discussion,  I’ll send you a Buying Facilitation® in a Box. Be sure to make your status update open to the public with the hashtag #SDContest.

And thanks for ‘playing’ with me.

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The Definition Game: name that concept is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Here are my choices, in the correct order, with an explanation under each. We can all discuss these. Submit your comments below.

First a comment: the sales model only manages needs assessment and solution placement. Unfortunately it acts as of their ‘need’ were a isolated event. It’s not. Buyers live in a ’system’ that holds their Identified Problem in place and maintains it over time, creating work-arounds that become part of the system. Before buyers can make a purchase, their must be buy-in to the proposed change, and the buy-in must manage all of the people and policies and relationships involved in the work-around the buyer has in place. In other words, a buying decision is far more complex than just fixing a problem. Buying Facilitation® is a decision navigation model that helps buyers recognize and make their internal decisions and bring together the right people and so they can make a purchase. It’s an add-on to sales.

Here are the steps in selling with Buying Facilitation® at the front end. The first phase helps decisions get made to promote buy-in, change, and recognition of what needs to be addressed. We usually wait for buyers to do this, but now we can help. Have a look at the steps, and see how you can add them to what you’re doing.

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

Do NOT try to ‘get through’ the gatekeeper. She knows the best person to connect you with – she is your friend. And do NOT attempt to ‘go to the top.’ The top person is rarely ‘the decision maker’ and almost always delegates to the correct people. Sellers waste so much time trying to get to the CEO. Instead, ask for the CEO’s assistant, and tell her what you need, and she’ll get you to the right people. Question: who is in control of the conversation – you? or the Gatekeeper? It’s a no-brainer.

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

Until or unless prospects determine to make a change, 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 and you’re giving them great service, etc. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. Do you need to be working out more? It’s not about the gym. Using Facilitative Questions, prospects can collect their unconscious previous choices, and determine how, why, if, when they would consider adding new choices – like fixing a problem or choosing a solution.

One of the Facilitative Questions that I ask (as part of a series and not asked alone) when placing a sales training is: 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 gets them to think about the steps they need to take, the new choices they need to make, and if they are getting what they want now.

Remember: solutions are irrelevant at this stage. Facilitative Questions help the BUYER see the whole picture of what is going on strategically and tactically in their company, family, or system. Until or unless they know how to manage their system first, they will take no action. This has been left out of sales.

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 will maintain 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 had known how to resolve it differently, they would have resolved it already.

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. It’s important to note that things are rarely this simple: 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. that their rules, relationships, people, are willing to change; 3. they know how to shift congruently, 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.

You sit and wait for them to do this anyway. They must do it with you or without you – so it might as well be with you.

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

Through your decision facilitation process, help the buyer recognize the right people to bring in. Usually they don’t know who it will be until way down the road when they’ve stumbled across the appropriate job descriptions… much like you don’t know all the trials you’ll face before you start a move. Prospects haven’t ever done this particular change before, and it takes a while for them to get it right. We can either help them navigate through, or we can wait. They must do it.

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, they will know how to buy, and you can mention just those bits of data they need to know, to recognize how it fits within their entire picture. It’s not about the features and functions: How, exactly, will the Buying Decision Team know how to manage the new solution with their team, or bring one in so there is buy-in and nothing is disrupted.

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.

WHAT CAN BE OMITTED

Develop marketing materials to professionally represent your solution either on-line or in person.

When working with KPMG, they shifted from their half a million dollar wizzy presentation to a $35,000 presentation then down to nothing. Once a buyer and their team recognize and manage all of the internal issues they must address, a large presentation is rather moot. First of all, you’re material is on-line. Second of all, they already know who you are and trust you (you’ve been on the Buying Decision Team with them). Third, they already know how to manage their buying decision process and how, exactly, your product will fit with their strategic and tactical issues. So a formal pitch is often no longer necessary.

These are not necessary at all:

Make an appointment to get in front of the prospect

This is a hold-over from another era. If your job is to first help buyers put together their decision team and figure out how to make buying decisions, your bright shiny face 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. Once you teach the system how to manage buy-in without disruption, there are no objections.

That’s it, folks. Let’s start a discussion. Let me know how your thinking has changed. And if you want to learn more, read my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it in which Buying Facilitation® and the new decision navigation system is developed in detail. And thanks for playing!

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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. These books were written to be read together, as they offer the full complement of concepts to help you learn and understand Buying Facilitation® - the new skill set that gives you the ability to lead buyers through their buying decisions. In addition, you will also receive a bonus illustrated booklet.

The Steps of a Sale: from the buying decision to the close is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

That means your questions are biased, the answers are biased, and the data you get is such a small subset of the necessary data that precludes buying decisions that sellers end up making costly assumptions: they’ll close ’soon,’ the buyer is a ‘hot prospect,’ for example. It makes it so difficult for sales managers to predict the real pipeline, and for sellers to know who to spend time with.

Think about it: when your baseline assumption is that just because you’ve ‘uncovered a need’ that you have a prospect, you have no idea who is really going to buy, or you would have closed a lot more business.

WHY IS YOUR STATUS QUO YOUR STATUS QUO?

A buying decision is based on so much more than need. Do you need to lose a few pounds and join a gym? Why haven’t you? Do you need to end a relationship? Why haven’t you? Do you need to get a new car? Why haven’t you?

When we assume that a discovered ‘need’ is a plausible reason to persue a prospect, you’re wasting a lot of time. What will you see when there is actually a prospect? You’ll see this:

• prospects realize there is no internal/familiar resource that can resolve the Identified Problem;
• the Buying Decision Team is ready, willing, and able to go through some sort of change management routine in order to bring in a different X (your solution);
• the political, relationship, strategic, political factors that have created and maintained the status quo have a route to change (i.e. bring in something new) without disruption.

If your buyer perceived that an Identified Problem was important, they would have fixed it already. Indeed, they probably have – they will undoubtedly already have some sort of work-around (see my discussion re work-arounds in my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Think about this when you are doing lead gen, or using social marketing, or prospecting. Just because your solution matches a need does not mean you have a prospect or buyer. Buying Facilitation® is a change management model that helps buyers navigate through their behind-the-scenes decision issues. It’s not sales – sales comes afterwards. But it is a decision facilitation model to help influence just those things that buyers need to accomplish without you, and for which you sit and wait.

What would you need to believe differently to be willing to recognize that a buying decision gets made behind-the-scenes, separate from the match between your solution and their need? And how would you know that understanding their need is the last thing they need from you? Literally.

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Learn how to help buyers navigate through their internal decision issues.

A buying decision is based on more than need. is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Most of you would laugh, tell me I’m wrong, that the sales model has been shifting and that the Internet has ‘changed everything.’  But what, exactly, has it changed?

I believe that basically, sales has not changed since the beginning. Sure, the bells and whistles have changed: it’s far, far easier to get leads and interest; it’s much simpler to get your message out; it’s much quicker to find out whatever you need to find out about prospects. It seems to appear as if buyer’s buying decisions are different (they aren’t, we just know more).  But all of this leads to… leads to what?

At the end of the day, the buyer still has to buy. At the end of the day, until the buyer says ‘Yes’ and gives you a check, you haven’t made a sale. And all of your permission marketing, spin, digital body language, lead generation, and understanding of who and why and when and if a buyer buys,  does little more than find the prospect, follow the external activities of the prospect, and then hopes – yes hopes – that the buyer will come back and choose you.

What the sales model still does not handle at all is the How.

• How does the buyer recognize and manage all of the internal elements that must be addressed so s/he can get the necessary buy-in to make a purchase or resolve a problem?
• How does the buyer align the department heads with the budget issues and the partners?
• How do the old vendors get re-chosen or deleted?
• How does the prospect meld the old technology with the new, and ensure that there is still enough work for the tech guys, 0r make sure that the users still are on board when they don’t like the new software?

Because until or unless all of this takes place, until or unless there is buy-in, until or unless the buying environment is able to agree to bring in something new (a solution) and ensure that the ‘new thing’ won’t permanently damage their current working environment, they will not buy.

And there is no sales model that helps the buyer manage the off-line, behind-the-scenes decision issues. Because the sales model is perfect for understanding and assessing needs, digitally following the observable buying behaviors, and placing a solution. But it still, with all of our technology, cannot influence the prospect’s private discussions and meetings that greatly bias the buying decision.

As my friend Roger Cauvin says, “The pain is in the buying decision process.”

ENTER BUYING FACILITATION®

Until Buying Facilitation® there has never been a way to attend or have influence over the private ’stuff’ that goes on that we are never privy to. But make no mistake: the buyer has to manage these internal issues, these relationships and political mine fields.

Just like you couldn’t walk by a great house and walk in and buy it, and then go home and tell your spouse that you just bought a house and now you’ll be moving, buyers can’t just recognize a great solution and bring it in. People must buy-in. Technology must work around it. The work-arounds that hold the current problem in place must be re-directed. Sales doesn’t do that. You can’t do that. But the time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers is the length of the sales cycle. And you asking them how it’s done, or who decides it is still acting from a needs analysis/solution placement head set: even if you know how it’s done (which even the buyer doesn’t – read my newest book Dirty Little Secrets), or who the decision makers are (which the buyer doesn’t know at first, and an outsider could never influence), it won’t affect the route the buyer takes off-line.

Take a look at adding a new set of skills to what you’re already doing. It’s an addition to sales, but not based on needs analysis or solution placement. We wait while buyers do this anyway. Why not help them and be part of the solution?

Using Buying Facilitation® you will be able to get onto the buyer’s buying decision team on the first call. Yep. Once you stop attempting to understand their ‘pain’ and place your solution, there is a whole different set of possibilities.

How is the prospect managing their issues? How will they know if it’s worth it to seek a solution that might work better? How will they know that one solution over another will fit within their environment? What has stopped them from seeking a solution until now? How will they ensure that the new management will have their interests at heart? These are just a tiny fraction of the questions buyers must answer before they make a purchase. And sales does not help them address these issues, nor does your charming personality and fabulous solution.

Those are a few of the questions buyers must manage. Do they sell your product? Well, yes and no. Not specifically, but until buyers manage some of these issues, they can’t buy anyway. Your choices are to act as a neutral navigator and help them walk through their decision issues (with no bias or solution push) or sit and wait til they’ve done it themselves.

So – would you rather sell? Or help buyer buy?

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The Basis of Sales Has Remained Stagnant is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I just bought my first Mac. I thought about buying one for years before I actually bought it. Lots of reasons, and they all made sense at the time. 1. I love love love (and still do) my IBM ThinkPad; 2. my ThinkPad works well, is very comfortable, and it travels well; 3. I don’t make largish business purchases until the end of the year when my accountant tells me I need to spend money – or not; 4. I don’t like to change what I’m used to if there doesn’t seem to be a need to.

I like cool technology as much as the next person. I bought the first writing-pad/computer pen (logitec – and it didn’t work). I bought Simon (remember Simon)? I actually have a drawer full of cool technology that has gone the way of the LP. But because I started with a PC, I had been scared that I couldn’t transfer my bazillion files over.

But now, with so many out-of-country clients and coaching clients and licensees, I find myself on Skype all of the time, and had to buy a cam-corder so folks could see me (Why is that important when the folks at the other end of my national calls don’t need to see me??). And the video cam on my PC sucks. And I travel a lot and can’t take the damned thing with me. And, the biggest reason of all for which I need no rationale, I need to spend some money for my end-of-year, or pay Uncle Sam, and I’d rather pay myself.

So I bought a Macbook Pro. I’ve had it a week and don’t even like the thing yet – my IBM keyboard is certainly more comfortable on my hands, wrists, and fingers. And the keyboard is missing stuff that I like and it’s not really a good tool for writers. But I bought it because I needed to spend some money and I figured the internal camera and great Skype set up were a good rationale. Period.

What is the point? The point is that my decision to purchase had nothing much to do with the Mac. Certainly, if  I didn’t need to spend some money (after all, my clients have managed to work with me for all these years without seeing me), I would never have bought one.

SALES ONLY HANDLES THE SOLUTION

Given the yada-yada’s of a Mac (and I’m told there are many), I wouldn’t have bought one if not for my accountant. The cost to my ‘internal system’ have been high. A session at the Apple store so I could figure out how to use the damn thing (my IBM works just fine, thank you), a whole day with my techie as he customized everything I needed done (this, after the Apple folks transferred data but made a mess of my desktop). I’m still making lists as to what is wrong with the new Mac and Shawn, my tech guy, is patiently fixing stuff and teaching me stuff. Gruesome, really.

Here is the bottom line: Buyers never buy because they have pain (which they would have fixed already if there really was pain) or because they have a need. Buyers buy to resolve a business problem. In my case, my business problem was that I earned enough money this year that I was going to have a tax problem if I didn’t spend money. My ‘problem’ had absolutely nothing to do with needing a new computer. And until or unless I was ready to go through the drama that bringing in a new solution would create, and until or unless I was willing to have my tech guy spend a day fixing Mac stuff rather than doing the real work I need him to do, and until or unless I was willing to take the time I needed to take to learn and be frustrated (I certainly had to wait until my new book was completed) I wouldn’t have made a purchase when I did.

You can see from my example what goes in to a buying decision. You have this happen in your life all the time. Why do we treat a purchasing decision as if it were an isolated event, and forget that there is an entire system that holds the status quo in place, and would have to be re-organized efficiently before being ready to make a change?

Before buyers can buy, they have to figure out how to manage their internal, behind-the-scenes systems issues, and make sure any purchase/change fits into the system without major disruption. Take a look at Buying Facilitation® as the model can help your buyers recognize and manage their decision issues – and THEN you can sell more, quicker, and without objections. Truly.

Think about this. Have a look at my new book that introduces you to the change management and decision making issues that go on, and see how you can add some new skills to help your buyers buy. Dirty Little Secrets

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Why can’t a buyer make quicker buying decisions? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

As fate would have it, we ended up being on a panel together called something like “Meet the Gurus.”  Before the session the moderator had us all introduce ourselves to each other, and asked if any of us knew each other beforehand. Neil genially spoke up: “I know Sharon Drew. She wrote a book that referenced me in a very unkind way.” Oops.

But then he smiled and his eyes twinkled mischievously. He is Neil, after all, and he’s got a wicked sense of humor. Not to mention that the small stuff never bothers him. But he sure gets the big stuff.

Neil and his partner Jason Jordan have a newish consulting company that specializes in helping sales teams be successful (at the solution-sale end of the spectrum. I’m hoping they will round out their tools and use Buying Facilitation® to help buyers manage their off-line buying decisions). So simple, yet so challenging.

Here is a blurb from their site:

“Are you targeting the best Customers or market segments? Can your Channels reach these customers, and are they capable of selling your products? Are your Products or solutions configured to meet your customers’ needs? Do you have clear and compelling Value Propositions that will resonate with prospects?

“Whether you are launching new products or targeting new markets, we solve these riddles with thought-leading expertise and rigorous market research. We replace assumptions with data, intuition with analysis, and uncertainty with confidence to ensure that you have the right products, channels, and value propositions to sell to your most desired customers.”

In other words, at the sales end of the buying decision, their work with clients ranges “from full-scale channel strategy projects and complete sales force transformations to more contained projects that solve a specific problem facing a channel or sales manager.”

I know that most of my readers want to know about Buying Facilitation(R). But don’t forget that once the buyer recognizes all of the internal issues they need to manage, and how to help their Buying Decision Team address all of the elements that need to be handled so a new solution won’t cause internal disruption, they need to choose a solution. So there is still a place for sales.

And I can’t think of anyone better to help with strategy, metrics, understanding target markets, and managing Key Account strategies. Have a look at their site. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have Neil show up and give you that infamous twinkle. But if not, you’ll be doubly blessed to have Jason come in and roll up his sleeves and help you get the success you deserve.

Go To Market Partners

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Go To Market Partners Helps Consultative Sellers Sell is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com