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 Basis of Sales Has Remained Stagnant
Feb 15, 2010 Sales Related, Top Posts
Did I get your attention? Good. Because I’m serious.
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?
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Tags: buyer, buying decision, Buying Facilitation®, sales
Wikipedia: a blessing and a curse
Jan 19, 2010 Favorite URLs
Sometimes being a thought leader is frustrating. OK – it’s often frustrating. I usually know how to be patient, or recognize what is happening so I can make some sort of sense of stuff going on. But this time I’m stumped. This time Wikipedia has me totally flummoxed.
Given that I have developed a decision facilitation model that is being used in sales called Buying Facilitation®, and that people are starting to use the phrase regularly, I kinda thought that putting up a generic page of text about it would help folks define it properly.
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Buying Facilitation® for Fundraising: it’s much easier than sales
Jan 18, 2010 Sales Related
I know of a few local groups raising money for the Haitian earthquake victims. While I’m pleased they are doing this much-needed service, I wish I could help them influence folks to give more, differentiate themselves from other equally worthy fund raisers, and figure out how to help people who don’t often donate funds decide to give at all. Indeed, I have a special offer at the end of this post for just such groups. But I digress.
As I’ve said so many times, the sales model will not help this happen: the selling/fund raising model used by organizations dependent on raising funds will only find those folks who are already prone to donating and in the same approximate amounts as they have done historically.
What about those untapped people who rationalize why they don’t need to donate? Those hapless folks who think that because they pay taxes, or because they donate to the Salvation Army during Christmas they are spiritually ’covered.’ How do we help these folks decide to donate? Or help those folks who traditionally donate, say, $1000, that it’s necessary (and certainly possible), to donate more?
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Tags: Buying Facilitation®, charity, decision making, donating, fundraising, Haiti
Buying Facilitation® is not sales; it is a spiritual practice and leadership model
Jan 15, 2010 Sales Related
My friend Martin Rutte recently wrote to a friend of his about my work. He said:
‘Sharon Drew Morgen is doing some amazing things on selling…..she thinks of selling as a spiritual act. She’s also discovered an entire new way to get at what I call the ‘backstory’ (what’s going on behind the scenes) in a sale.”
I suspect if Martin – who has read a few of my books, and taken a program with me years ago – believes this is true, or if he doesn’t know how to say it better, it’s time for me to correct a few misconceptions.I think my new book Dirty Little Secrets addresses this topic thoroughly, but for those who haven’t read the book and who recognize that I’m the thought leader behind decision facilitation as an additional skill set for selling, let me take a few moments to explain.
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Tags: back story, Buying Facilitation®, facilitator, sales
Buying Facilitation®: what is it? and how is it different from sales?
Jan 11, 2010 Buying Facilitation®
I’m so pleased that my trademarked model Buying Facilitation® is getting acceptance in the sales field. I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce folks to my definition of it, to ensure that when they use the term they don’t confuse it with sales.
Here is the definition, how it differs from sales, and why we get such different results when we use it.
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Tags: buyers, Buying Facilitation®, Decision Facilitation, model
