BUYING DECISIONS ARE BASED ON SYSTEMS AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT

We live in systems (My book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it explains a systems and how change and decisions take place.).

A system is a bunch of things that have agreed to operate together, using rules they all agree to. And systems don’t recognize one thing as ‘bad/needs help’ and one thing ‘good/leave alone.’ It’s all just stuff that keeps recreating itself daily – like our weight, or our relationships, or the way our teams/families function.

When a problem occurs within a system the system quickly creates a work-around so it can continue on it’s normal route. It doesn’t say, “OH. We need to make a purchase and get rid of the thing that’s problematic!’ It just does a fix and keeps going. It’s not until several parts of a system are ready to create a change and manage any resistance, that a change (or purchase) will take place).

One of the problems with the sales model is that it assumes when sellers ’understand need’ and move to introduce a ‘fix’, that the buying journey can be influenced. This is far, far from true (or we’d close a lot more sales). Until the system is ready to change without resistance, it will do nothing.

Here are the major systems issues that must be resolved before a purchase will be made, regardless of the type of size of the solution or the costs of the underlying need.

1. The Buying Decision Team must be formed – an interesting process in an of itself and takes quite a while.
2. The political infighting must be minimized. But oh, what a painful, personal process!
3. The familiar vendor must be checked out.
4. The recommended vendors must be checked out.
5. Everyone who will touch the solution must agree to change. This is a long, hard process.
6. The implementation/change management issues must be in place.
7. The management must be bought-in and know how to manage the change.
8. People have to be hired/fired/outsourced, or calendars scheduled to take care of the appropriate staffing.

Because we are not part of the system that buyers make decisions in – their relationships and their policies are idiosyncratic and not open to outsiders – using the sales model merely  manages the last stage of the buying decision, but offers little to manage the back-end systems piece and decision paths.

A NEED IS NOT AN ISOLATED EVENT CASE STUDY

When sellers notice a problem – and let’s face it: we’re hypervigilant around problems we can solve with our solution - we hone in on it as if it were an isolated event. And try to prove to the system that it’s wrong, and can only be ‘righted’ if it purchases OUR solution.

But that’s lunacy. Many years ago I was working with IBM. They were running Betas on a new system – AS 400 to replace the slower System 36 – and needed one particular small company to take the Beta as it fit the criteria for testing perfectly. They had 3 sales people attempt to offer the company the new hardware for free, and it was declined each time. They asked me to see if I could have better results. Here is how the conversation went:

SDM: Hi. I’m Sharon Drew Morgen with IBM. This is a sales call. Is this a good time to speak?

Owner: Sure. What are you selling?

SDM: Actually, I’m trying to give you a free computer cuz we’re doing a Beta test and want to include you. How is your computer working for you?

Owner: Um. It’s OK. Fine, I guess.

SDM: What’s stopping you from getting a computer that’s better than OK??

Owner: Dad.

SDM: DAD? What does that mean?

Owner: This is a Mom & Pop shop. Dad is the owner. He’s been around over 40 years, and he’s retiring in 2 years. He’s in charge of all technology, and I don’t want him to stress over trying to learn something new that will probably be beyond him.

And there you have it. The problem was not a problem at all, as a very slow computer was worth the systemic issues that held it in place. I must admit that I figured out a way to move ahead, though. But not by discussing the merits of the new computer or focusing on the need. I helped him decide how to take care of Dad.

SDM: I hear that until or unless Dad would be able to learn a new technology easily, and would be able to maintain it comfortably, you’d rather continue with your slow computer. What would you need to see from me to know if we could create a way to help Dad decide if he could handle it?

Owner: Are there any other Beta sites around here that you could take Dad to and he could see for himself?

He did, and it was fine, and they took the Beta.

Stop selling a solution. Until ‘Dad’ is aboard, the rest of the system will fight to maintain the status quo. Focus your efforts on helping the prospect figure out how and when and if and with whom to change and help them manage their decision paths. And then you can sell.

sd

Read 2 sample chapters of Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it, and Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions.

Hear Sharon Drew make live prospecting calls.

How do systems determine buying decisions? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

The sales model has taught you to uncover needs – to really, really understand needs – so  you recognize who is a good prospect and know the right way to pitch to that person. You finely hone your probing and questioning skills. You learn to hear a need from a mile off. You teach your staff to have great care and concern for a prospect’s problems. And you are almost willing to let go of a prospect if their ‘need’ doesn’t fit your solution.

What does all this activity get you? A 7% close rate. IMHO, that is ‘not working’.

So why are you still entering a sale that way? Why is that still your focus? When I asked someone that question recently he said, “Because it’s the only way I know how to sell.”

HOW DO YOU BUY?

Think about a situation you’re involved with in terms of how you decide to make a purchase. At what point do you need the solution data? And, where/how does the solution data fit in with the range of other decisions that must get made before you can buy?

If your spouse doesn’t want to spend the money for a new TV, do you need data about the latest styles?

If you cannot work out because you’re ill, do you need data about the new gym?

If you and your spouse can’t decide on where to move, does learning about the ‘perfect house’ available around the corner make sense?

Until or unless you recognize and manage all of the off-line, back-end, behind-the-scenes decision issues you must address prior to choosing to change their status quo, you will do nothing. Nothing.

And that’s why your prospects aren’t closing.

DECISIONS AND BUY-IN FIRST, SOLUTIONS LAST

The very last thing a buyer does is choose a vendor and solution. Before they do, they must:

• Get the entire Buying Decision Team on board – every person and every department that will touch the solution.
• Get buy-in for change from every person and every department – and a route forward through the status quo so there will be minimal disruption.
• Strategize the implementation of the new solution to mix the old with the new in an easy, simple way that everyone buys in to.

Sales does not manage this. SEO does not manage this. Marketing automation does not manage this. Sandler, Consultative Selling, Question Based Selling, Relational Selling, Target Accounts Selling, SPIN Selling – etc – are all focused on uncovering the need and managing the objections that buyers give when feeling pushed. And none of them – none – help manage the back-end, private journey buyers take before they can buy. And you close 7% of your prospects because their final purchasing decision is not based on their need, or your solution, but how well the internal buy-in issues are managed.

You sit and wait for buyers to do this. Why not start the conversation by helping them figure out how to manage change? Why not be a true Trusted Advisor and help the buyer figure out how to shift into excellence – and get the requisite buy-in?

Your solution is the very last thing the buyer needs. You can either sit and wait for 7% of them to show up (or 1% of them using marketing automation), or you can be a GPS system to help the buyer navigate through their internal craziness so they can design a route to change. But sales won’t get you there as it is a needs assessment-solution placement model.

Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy. If you want to have someone buy, you must enter the call with a totally different skill set and goal. Have a look at Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it and see how to enter to serve a decision rather than sell a solution. And THEN you can place your solution – at least 400% more often.

That’s right: Buying Facilitation™ helps buyers make their off-line decisions, bring everyone and everything together quickly (you can get the entire Buying Decision Team together on the first call), and help them manage the change your solution would bring.

sd

To learn the decision facilitation model, take a look at:

• MP3 – audios in which I prospect, cold call, etc.
• Learning Accelerators – learn specific bits of Buying Facilitation™
• Guided Study – learn the entire Buying Facilitation Method®

Your solution is the last thing the buyer needs is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Because of this, um, ability, I was fired from every job I ever had before getting into sales:  After a day or two in a new company, I would explain quite cogently why this person should be fired, or that department should be melded with that other department. If I were wrong, they would have patted me on the head and told me to get back to work. But no: they fired me immediately. One guy said, as he walked me to the door: “You’re probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. But we can’t afford 2 CEOs, so you’ll have to leave.” And I never understood how I was asking the entire system to shift – just that it was necessary and fixable.

MAKING THE WORLD BETTER

Indeed, I actually get visions of how my ideas can help the world be a better place, and I proceed forward as if the world has asked for them. Which they haven’t. Sometimes I get lucky and folks are excited by my ideas and can use them. But when I come up against long-held beliefs, folks come after me – at which point I get confused because I’m ‘supposed’ to be putting my ideas into the world.

To be fair, my ability to make it scalable to serve others by helping them make  decisions based on beliefs and criteria is not a bad skill to put into the world. But in the main, the world doesn’t want this capability: folks are perfectly happy to work with the less-effective use of content as the driving force in the decision making process, and let the internal, unconscious belief issues remain, well, unconscious (even though they can be mitigated).

But my drive remains in my belly and in my heart. It’s part of my fabric. I never try to be smart, or rude, or pushy. But the ‘driven’ part of me assumes it’s my ‘job’ to put the ability to use that data into the world. It’s my life’s work.

But what if I’m wrong? What if I’m only supposed to be – oh, say, a dancer, or a ghost writer, or a home decorator? What if I’m following the wrong vision?

THE ARROGANCE OF THE STATUS QUO

The last few days have been filled with people who have had ‘issues’ with the change I was suggesting. A client who decided that canceling a program would be easier than changing – even though they would easily, easily have gotten over 800% increase in sales – sales now done in a way that is abusing staff and prospects. An alleged industry leader who decided I didn’t know what I was talking about, even though he didn’t take the time to understand what I was offering. The entire marketing automation industry that’s decided they are doing it right, regardless of the ease of adding something to the front end and creating much more success.

I don’t get it: why not add something new and have more success? Why not even THINK about it! Do people need to be right at all costs?

It’s exhausting – this ‘changing the world’ thing.

I’m going to be 65 soon. I should sell my house and enjoy the last third of my life sitting on a mountain top in Peru, or at a cafe in Paris, or on a water buffalo in India. All choices that would make me happy, would have no stress, allow me to think and dream, dance and write, and not have to deal with angry, abusive, or arrogant people. Life is too short. And I’m too precious.

The more I play with the idea of just retiring and leaving everything behind, the better it sounds. The only left over question is what happens to my ideas? And what do I do with this precious brain?

Anyone want twenty two years of out-of-the-box thinking? It must be worth something by now.

sd

What do I do with my brain? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

When we notice a problem we’ve got a solution for, and go barreling forth to make a sale, we’re forgetting that in the buyer’s environment, their problem sits within a system  - a system that follows the laws of science: systems maintain homeostasis – balance – at all costs. And no change can happen until the system figures out how to change in a way that maintains equilibrium.

Unfortunately, sales treats an Identified Problem as if it were an isolated event, and leaves the buyer to figure out all how to handle the people, and policies, and relationships, and initiatives that will end up being disrupted if a new solution were to enter. And the time it takes buyers to do this – and they do it behind-the-scenes – is the length of the sales cycle. Sellers wait helplessly: The sales model does not enter this end of the buying decision journey.

SALES ONLY HANDLES A TINY PIECE OF THE BUYING DECISION

Sales only focuses on one aspect of the buyer’s Problem Space. Yet buyers (like anyone considering change) must, must make sure there is buy-in and appropriate change management before they make a change to buy something. And so you sit and wait — or, in the case of many sales folks I know – find ways to try to manipulate your way in, attempt to ‘meet’ the ‘influencers’ (wrongly believing that if you have enough people who like you on the Buying Decision Team that you’re going to close more. And how’s that working for you?), find ways to drip/send/nurture, consult, or advise so you can be top-of-mind…

Do you see a pattern here? It’s all about the seller pushing their way in, trying to sell a solution, assuming (wrongly, 93% of the time) that because there appears to be a need, that the person must be a prospect…. Where, might I ask, is the buyer in all this? I’ll tell you where. They are:

• attempting to find the right people to be on their Buying Decision Team;
• attempting to herd cats and get everyone to buy-in to some sort of change;
• figuring out what areas of their company are going to touch a solution and therefore be discombobulated;
• deciding what to do with the old vendor.

and you’re pushing/nurturing/sending, assuming that with the right data sent at the right time, knowing the right people, you’ll win. But you don’t. You are actually creating your own objections.

Instead, why not add another skill set, and instead of pushing, or trying to sell, or do needs assessment too early, use Buying Facilitation™ to help the buyer navigate through their internal decision elements. And then, then, you can gather data to understand needs and offer your solution.

Buyers have to do this anyway. Instead of learning objection-handling techniques, or attempt to use marketing automation and sales enablement strategies – all of which still push the solution at inappropriate times 90% of the time – why not learn a new skill set, help facilitate the change, and become part of the Buying Decision Team because of your true consultative capability.

Buying Facilitation™ + Needs Assessment + Solution/Vendor Choice = Purchase.

You can either sit and wait for buyers to do this on their own (as you have been doing for decades) or you can learn a new skill set. Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy?

sd

My newest book, Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it, discusses this in detail, complete with a case study that shows how Buying Facilitation™ is used in conjunction with sales.

If you’d like to learn Buying Facilitation™,

1. Learn through a Guided Study program;
2. Listen while Sharon Drew makes Buying Facilitation™ calls;
3. Buy a Learning Accelerator.

But whatever you do, if you want less pushback and more buy-in, move beyond selling.

Managing the pushback we create is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Let me pose a few questions for you to help you think through the issues you should be thinking about now.

Is your branding and marketing being done in a way that the buyer can make sense of — their way (not your way)? How do you know? What flexibility do you have to make the necessary changes?  And how will you choose the right changes to make – and know they were the right choices (and if not, make changes quickly)?

What sort of model do you have in place to help sellers and buyers collaborate around the sorts of issues buyers have to manage behind-the-scenes?

What’s the difference between what – and how – your buyers want to buy vs. what – and how – you are selling?

How is your sales effort enabling the buying decision process rather than just pushing solution?

How are you positioned to enter the buying decision issues earlier in the buyer’s journey – you know, that human side of decision making that sales doesn’t handle very well?

How accessible are you – or do you have one of those gated community/sites that no one can get through?

How are you serving your prospects in a way that makes you THE solution choice over your competitors – and not just because of your solution?

How are you enabling the Buying Decision Team to work with you to help them get the buy-in they need to move forward (Hint: giving them data about your solution does not work here).

If you start by answering these few questions, you’ll have some idea of the position you are in to move forward and be flexible during these interesting times. There is plenty of opportunity for creativity here. So enjoy.

sd

And for those wanting more information about the Buyer’s Journey, listen to me and Mark Sellers on a live webinar on August 19.

Change, change, change is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Unfortunately, the same thing is happening with our sales jobs. With a focus on

• understanding need and placing a solution,
• attempting to understand what’s going on so you can place your solution, and
• handling objections, pitching solution, and overcoming objections,

you’ve lost the real nugget of what is possible in the role of a seller: true buyer support, time savings so buyers can fix problems sooner, and supporting them through the change management issues they struggle with internally.

By helping buyers navigate through the off-line, behind-the-scenes, political and relationship-based issues they need to handle amongst themselves before they can buy anything, you’d be a real asset to the buyer.

Right now, they muddle through this alone, and doing it with you would put you on the Buying Decision Team and obviously make you a Trusted Advisor. And it’s something the internet cannot do. And it’s the aspect of the buying decision journey that sales has never been privy to.

Here are some questions I have for you:

As part of your sales job, do you keep trying harder and harder to understand — understand what? You can see what the prospect needs. They know they have a need. So why haven’t they bought yet?  Do you know the answer?

What is stopping them from buying? What’s taking so long? Do YOU know? And does understanding their problem help?

What do buyers have to do to get all of the right people on their buying decision team? And what happens when/if they don’t?

Today’s final podcast in the series Keeping Sellers Relevant will focus on how you can enter the buyer’s decision journey far far earlier in their buying decision process. Last podcast I explained the buyer’s journey. This one I go into detail and explains how you can be involved in each step of their buying decision process.

It should open your eyes to a world of new possibilities. Please note that if you want to learn more than I can offer in a 15 minute podcast, please consider purchasing Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. I’ve also developed some Learning Modules to help you actually learn the new skills. And for those of you who want to study with me, I’m running public trainings in Austin and Boston in mid September.

It’s important at this time in history that you recognize that the sales model is incomplete, and you can be far more successful if you can enter the buyer’s journey earlier. Not as a sales person or a solution provider, but as a Change Agent and Coach.

Buyers have always gone through this journey without us, causing us to lose most of our prospects. We’ve not taken the challenge to learn a new skill set. But now your choices are limited. Either add a new skill, or become obsolete. Because like it or not, technology can do a lot of your job.

Enjoy. For those wishing to hear the three podcasts in the Keeping Sellers Relevant series, here is the MP3.

And, Mark Sellers (of the BuyCycle Funnel) and I will be doing a live webinar on August 19. Registration and details.

sd

How sellers must change to remain indispensable – Podcast 3: Keeping Sellers Relevant is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

This one starts, like DLS, with what a system is. Our buyers, our colleagues, our clients, all operate as part of a system, and the system is what resists change. Once we understand the makeup of a system, we can move forward with helping the system manage change.

Part 3, to come out in a couple of weeks, is about resistance and bias: why do people and systems resist change, and how do change agents bias the results, actually creating resistance.

For you sales folks reading this, the exact same issues apply with buyers: buyers work in a system of rules, relationships, politics, tech folks and engineers – and this system will fight to maintain itself rather than bring in a different solution. So in addition to listening to my Podcast series on Making Sellers Relevant, you may enjoy this series also.

For those of you who have missed Part 1, here it is.

To join a conversation about change, buy-in, and systems thinking, visit my new site: Facilitating Buy-In.

Part 2 of Making Change Work

And when you are done, Part 3 of Making Change Work.

sd

Making Change Work: Part 2 – What is a system, and how does change happen? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

While their capability to attain data, or make the actual purchase is much easier, is their route to their buying decision different?

Do you know that point in a buyer’s decision process that they seek this information? And is there other material we could be offering at other points in the buying decision process?

DOES OUR SOLUTION DATA DRIVE THE BUYER’S DECISION?

Does our carefully branded data drive our buyer’s buying decision?

Well, yes and no. Obviously buyers must ultimately know if your solution fits their needs. But this is the last, the very last thing, that they need before they make a purchase.

Think of a house purchase. The very last thing you need is information about the house. First you need to decide to move – and your family might have some really interesting conversations before that decision is actually reached. Then you have to figure out the criteria – neighborhood? school district? travel time to work? /affordable mortgage/price? It’s only when all of purchasing criteria are lined up that you know where to look for a house, the sort of house you need, etc.

Think of losing weight. The last thing you need is to know membership prices for a gym. First you need to decide to be a healthy person, change your eating habits, decide to change your schedule – which might involve several family members and the family dog.

Before any purchase gets made, an unknown number of internal, private, behind-the-scenes decisions and considerations must be resolved first. And make no mistake: until or unless they are dealt with, the status quo will prevail regardless of the efficacy of the new solution. Indeed, the status quo has been ‘good-enough’ until now, and far easier to maintain than going through whatever change must happen when something new is adopted.

THE CRITERIA UNDERLYING THE CHANGE

When a consumer wants the new iPhone, is it about owning the newest MAC product?  Then that person is someone who is an early adopter who has ‘time’ and ‘wizzy factor’ as their major criteria. If someone’s criteria for purchasing a phone is usability, then their 3G phone may suffice. Same product (phone), different criteria, different buying choices. Different information needed.

People never, ever, make choices that lie outside of their values or criteria. The pain involved with living with the results of shoving an incongruent element into a working ‘system’ - into accepted beliefs and values, into people’s jobs and relationships and habitual daily activities - is greater than any noticeable need or problem to be resolved. Not to mention that the choices they’ve already made has created their status quo, which has been ‘good enough’ and most likely not facing an emergency situation to change immediately.

So while it’s easier, these days, to actually make a purchase, and easier for buyers to get whatever – whatever – data they may need as a way to meet their final choice criteria, all of the new sites, posts, clicks, links, that help the purchaser buy only address that portion of the population just beginning to consider a purchase, or those who have already make their foundational decisions to change and are just needing those final detailed bits.

INFORMATION DOES NOT CREATE A NEW DECISION

Our current buying support options do NOT address the making of the foundational change/criteria/values decisions. In other words, just because people like your solution and it’s easy to purchase, doesn’t mean they have garnered all of the internal agreement necessary to purchase. [I have written a book about this: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can't buy and sellers can't sell and what you can do about it.]

And herein lies the problem: until or unless buyers navigate through all of their decision criteria, they will not buy regardless of their need or ability to press a purchasing button. All of our lead generation is rendered useless if there is a political issue going on between two departments, for example.

It’s time to add a new skill to augment the sales process. I know, I know, I’m a hammer running around seeking a nail. But really: would you rather sell? or have someone buy?

sd

Take a look at my new learning Modules, and stick your toe into learning bits of Buying Facilitation™. Also I’ll be up in Boston in mid September running a tiny public training (pdf) for those interested in studying with me personally.

The New Buying Habits of Buyers: Does solution data drive a decision? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Where did they go?

They went off-line. They went back to their old vendors and their internal solutions. They decided not to resolve the problem now. A new partner showed up with a fix that kinda resolved the problem. They decide to hire a new staff person with the funds they were going to use to pay for your solution. All or none of the above might be true. In fact, you have no idea where the prospect went.

I’ll tell you where the buyer went: They went to that place where you can’t go, to that private, off-line place that sales doesn’t give you skills for. They made their decisions to buy – or not buy – based on criteria that you were not involved with.

But it’s not your fault.

SALES ONLY MANAGES A SLIVER OF A BUYING DECISION

Sales is a needs assessment and solution placement model. Everything you do in your job, everything you say, every problem you have with prospects, every objection you handle, is based on that one factor. In fact, the model of sales – whether you use Sandler or SPIN or Richardson – is based on finding a need and getting the folks with the need to choose your solution to resolve it. And unfortunately, sales treats an Identified Problem (or need, as you may call it) as if it were an isolated event – rather than the need sitting comfortably within a ‘system’ of relationships and rules, people and policies, vendors and partners, that maintain it daily.

Buyers don’t buy the way you sell – except the small percentage that do. And the sales model merely manages a tiny sliver of a buyer’s buying decision – that very last piece that includes choosing a solution. That’s right: sellers enter far too early in a buying decision cycle, and buyers have to go back – after they’ve already met you – and manage the behind-the-scenes, private, internal stuff on their own. And this stuff (that we can never understand because we don’t ‘live’ there with them) is often unconscious and hard to get to, even for them.

Sales ignores the subjective, idiosyncratic place where buyers go and figure out, amongst themselves, all that they have to figure out. As a seller, you don’t sit at the table when your prospect is at a meeting about next year’s initiatives. Sales doesn’t give you the skills to help your prospect with the new business partner who shows up with a partial solution and cuts you out of the picture. Sales doesn’t help you convince buyers that the tech team cannot resolve the problem in the same way that you do – but they are cheaper, and know the users, so they appear to have a huge value add. Sales will give you the tools to understand the Identified Problem and present your solution effectively, but not manage the fight between your prospect and their Board. So you sit and wait, and hope that the buyer comes back after they’ve said the magic words: I’ll Call You Back.

That’s right. You sit and hope. Because you have no control over it. Because sales doesn’t handle that end of the buying decision. You are out of the loop until they come back. And by then, they might not come back. You lose approximately 90% of your prospects.

THE SALES CYCLE IS DELAYED BECAUSE BUYERS MUST MANAGE CHANGE FIRST

We are now bringing in more prospects than ever. We have no idea of the real potential of each lead generated, but it’s highly likely that we are wasting valuable leads when using conventional sales skills on them. Did they have a real need when they responded on line? Were they just curious? Can they be converted to a closed sale? By using conventional sales models, you will only close the same percentage you closed without doing lead gen, and take more time doing it.

Let’s think about what’s going on inside: If you were overweight and could seriously use a gym, would knowing details about the nearest gym help you decide to work out? Hardly. You would belong to a gym already if you’d figured out that you needed one. To make a different decision than the one you’ve already made (i.e. not join a gym), you’d first have to decide to lose weight or be fit, ask your spouse if s/he minded getting rid of the nightly pasta, wake up at 5:00 instead of 6:30, etc. The seller of the gym membership sees the pot belly and assumes the need and problem and voila! has the solution.

A seller actually has no idea what a solution should look like because only the people inside the system know all the ins-and-outs of what’s going on. And herein lies the problem with sales. It causes unnecessary delays, needless objections, irrelevant price discussions because we are outside providers with unfamiliar solutions, pushing into a ‘closed’ system, and not having an additional tool kit to help buyers navigate their behind-the-scenes decision issues.

The time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers is the length of the sales cycle. They need to do this anyway – they will do this with you or without you, so it might as well be with you.

Frankly – and this is scary but true – buyers don’t have the skills to efficiently figure out how to go about managing the change that a new solution will entail. They can’t end up with department heads not speaking to each other, or a software solution that the users won’t use, or training that is ignored. Bringing in a new solution and ensuring that everyone and everything buys-in to the change, how to use it, ensuring it fits with everything else (all change is a systems problem after all) is an unknown. And so they fumble around and take forever. But the risk of them doing nothing and maintaining their status quo is much smaller than the risk of bringing in the ‘right’ solution and upsetting their policies and relationships. Buyers often do nothing rather than risk creating an internal mess.

DECISION FACILITATION IS THE NEW VALUE ADD

Buyers need your help. By adding a new decision facilitation skill to the front end of sales that leads buyers through the ins-and-outs of their internal issues (much like a GPS system leads drivers without bias or knowledge of content), and delaying the needs assessment and solution placement until the buyer has figured out how to manage the internal change, it’s possible to help buyers maneuver through their off-line buy-in issues – and THEN you can use sales.

Buying Facilitation™ is a decision facilitation model that can be added to the job of sales. By helping buyers get the approval they need, get the boss to free up the budget, have the tech team bring you in to work with them and, in general, manage all of the behind-the-scenes rules and negotiations and politics and change that must take place before buyers can by, the job of sales changes. The sales cycle get cut in half; money objections disappear; competitive issues and differentiation issues disappear; objections disappear. This way, you can actually help buyers buy – you can even be a part of the Buying Decision Team from the first call by helping them figure out their own next steps. But you have to be willing to add a new skill set to sales.

Once you have helped the buyer figure out how to elicit buy-in and manage change involving the internal politics, the management issues, and the partner relationships, and they know how and why and when they are ready to buy and have all of the necessary people on their Buying Decision Team, THEN you can sell!

Why Sales Fail is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Recently, a student of my Guided Study program thought that her clients – franchisees who sell her product – might do well to add Buying Facilitation™ to their sales skills so they could close  more sales.

I sent a couple of blog posts for the folks to read, and then had a phone conference with them. My job was to help them understand more about the model, and to use Facilitative Questions on them to not help them decide if adding new skills would help them sell better, but actually give them the ‘feel’ of how helping manage the buying decision worked.

What happened during our meeting is something that occasionally happens when sales folks first consider working first with the buying decision: they defend their status quo.

With a close rate of well under 10%, these folks defended their current skills: by any rational standard they rejected the possibility of being more successful, preferring to maintain their status quo. Are they being irrational? We generally think our prospects irrational when our solution can solve their problem and they don’t choose us, don’t we?

But I do not believe in the words ‘irrational’ or ‘rational.’ Like all decision makers (yes, even our buyers) these folks have made the best decision for themselves at this moment: they are being totally rational – within their unique system.  These folks are more comfortable with their status quo, regardless of their success rate, than they are with the prospect of change, even at the expense of more money and more clients.

WHAT IS CHANGE?

For those of you interested in deeply exploring change and how new decisions get made, my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it minutely depicts how people make the internal decisions necessary for changing congruently - and making a buying decision is more of a change management problem than a problem resolution issue: until or unless the status quo gets buy-in from the appropriate people and policies, the risk of change is greater than the risk of doing what they’ve been doing (the results of which are already built in to the system).

Suffice it to say, that change isn’t just a matter of having a new thought, or adding a solution. The reality is that if we really, really thought there was something THAT wrong we would have changed already. The fact that we (and our buyers) are in the environment that we’re in, is a testament to the decisions that have already been made: the status quo is a sum total of all of our decisions to date.

When it’s time for us to change, we must make sure that we somehow integrate the new with the decisions and behaviors we’ve already created and maintain daily. Until or unless we are able to figure out how to reconfigure our rules and roles and relationship and ego issues, we will take no action at all – even if it means sticking with something that’s less than successful. That’s right: even with a 7% closing ratio, many many sales professionals would prefer to continue doing what they are doing rather than change and mess up what they have grown accustomed to and have rationalized and internalized.

THE SALES MODEL IS BROKEN

But the truth is, the sales model is stupid, not our buyers. It only manages the needs assessment and solution placement end of the buying decision, and leaves the buyer to manage the hard part alone. So I can sit and listen to how inefficient a prospect’s sales model is, and I can have the absolute perfect solution (and I DO, I DO), and they won’t/can’t buy. Because until or unless there is buy-in throughout the relevant parts of the system, the buyer CANNOT take action.

Sales does not handle this dilemma. But it’s possible to work first with the decision making/change issues that buyers must manage before they can even begin considering a solution.

Before you decide on learning Buying Facilitation™, or adding it to your current skill set, answer the following Facilitative Questions:

• What would you need to know or believe differently about what you are doing to be able to know when it would be time to add a new skill set?
• What is it about your current skills that you’d like to maintain so you can ensure that anything new wouldn’t destroy what you already do successfully?
• How would you know that Buying Facilitation™ could fit with your current skills in a way that would maintain your personal integrity and beliefs about who you are as a sales professional?

Because until or unless you can be assured that you can make a change that is integrous with who you are, you will do nothing.

Are you willing to help your clients work from inner choices rather than need/solution, so they won’t resist?

sd

Microsoft is putting on a virtual event that you might want to be a part of. They are going to be discussing how to improve your sales organizations, through briefs, presentations, and forum discussions. Also, as an added bonus, another one of the Focus Experts (I’m one as well), Dave Brock, will be giving his thoughts on high performance sales training.

http://crm.dynamics.com/DynamicsBusiness

Resistance to change: inexplicable, irrational, and real is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Because we continue (against any rational measure) to focus ‘sales’ on solution placement (yes, yes, that includes uncovering needs and understanding buyers) when we have all of the data we need to understand that 1. we close a small fraction of our prospects; 2. we waste a huge amount of time for the relative success we get; 3. buyers who need our solutions do not necessarily buy.

SALES RESULTS ARE THE SAME ACROSS DECADES AND SALES MODELS

Yup. With all of the new bells and whistles, the new funnels and influencing models and questioning models, the percentages we close remains the same as it did decades ago. And we actually throw away prospects we can be closing because we don’t have an additional skill set.

I recently spoke with Graham Yemm, a man in the UK who has been talking about the buying side of the seller/buyer equation for about 20 years. How are people there accepting his ideas? Slowly, he said. That’s a sad commentary on sales.

When I train folks in Buying Facilitation™ and we get 200, 500, or 900% increases over our control groups that are using the group’s regular sales models, we get told that we cheated, that it’s not possible. And, I agree: using conventional sales you cannot get any more than a 30% overage when you use questions optimally (this number comes to you from my friend Neil Rackham).

But that resistance and doubt is based on the sales model. And sales merely handles the need/solution part of the buying decision – the very very last thing that the buyer does.

What sales totally ignores is that the ‘need’ sits in a system that not only has created the ‘problem/pain,’  but maintains it daily. The buyer’s problem is actually part of their daily operations (those of you who understand technology know that you cannot just pull one line of code and replace it with something different without affecting the rest of the system, without somehow addressing other lines of code). In other words, nothing exists on its own. And sales does not address the intricate, intimate issues that must  be shifted in order for something new to come in.

A NEED IS NOT AN ISOLATED EVENT

Sales treats the problem as if it were an isolated event, not realizing that it is one of a myriad of things that work together to keep the company (or any environment you are selling into) going along comfortably.

Sales doesn’t handle the change management issues buyers must go through before bringing in a new solution. Imagine serving your family a raw food dinner, and telling them at the meal that from now on all of their food will have to be raw. Imagine coming in to work and telling your team that tomorrow you’re going to be transferring everyone to a different location 2 hours away.

Of course you can’t do either of these things: there is a system – a set of givens, of rules and expectations – that everyone operates from, and when something is going to be changed, the system must have time to regroup, rethink, reconsider, and buy-in to the change or the change will be sabotaged. It’s the same with any new solution a buyer brings in.

Sales skills include gathering information, understanding need (as much as it’s possible to understand a problem from outside the system and asking biased questions), introducing and placing solutions, and managing the sales process issues (objections, closing, etc) that occur because the sales process ignores the systems issues.

Think about it. You know this is true, yet you are comfortable doing what you’re doing and don’t want to change. I have some Facilitative Questions for you:

How would you know when it’s time to add another set of skills to what you’re already doing?

What would you need to know/understand/believe differently to recognize that buyers must manage their private, internal change issues before they can buy, and sales doesn’t address this?

What would you need to know about Buying Facilitation™ to know if it would fit on top of what you are doing now and help you be successful?

What would you need to believe to recognize that it is indeed possible to double or triple your sales by adding a decision facilitation skill to what you are doing?

What would you need to see to believe that you could close a lot more sales a lot faster if you had the skills to help them manage the internal decision issues they must address before they can buyer?

Get ahold of my new book Dirty Little Secrets and it will explain all of this for you. Or keep doing what you’re doing if you are happy with your results.

sd

For those of you who are interested in learning about book publishing, go to my new site: www.publishingchoices.com

Sales is resistant to change is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

It’s a myth that change is difficult. Indeed, it’s not the change itself that’s difficult, it’s the underlying systems issues that balk, not the new idea or request. Here is why – and there is a very specific reason.

Systems – those interdependent rules, roles, politics, assumptions, and relationships, that make up the teams and families, companies and groups that we each belong to – are designed to operate as a whole, with all moving parts bought into the idiosyncratic rule that govern that entity.

To do that, it’s necessary for these systems to bond/work together like cogs in wheels. In fact, when any part of a system is out of whack, the entire system has to focus on, manage, and work-around that problem as it becomes a glitch in the system. Think of a time when a family member is ill, or someone on the team gets fired and there is no replacement… or a bad one.

Any time something is added or subtracted, a system will fight to remain stagnant, otherwise the entire reason for the system is in question. That means, any sort of change, whether a new product/solution, a new member with different beliefs of skills, a new rule, a new strategic plan, will put the entire system into some sort of defense. After all, the status quo is what ‘IS’ and the system will fight to maintain congruence. No matter what the reality is.

The problem with sales – and negotiating, and coaching, and advertising, and marketing – is that it pushes new solutions  (i.e. change) into an existent system without helping manage the elements that will need to change before the ‘new thing’ is accepted. So the system pushes back, even if it needs the new thing and is broken without it (don’t forget that the ‘need’ is already imbedded in the system and part of its daily functioning).

As we go through these ‘interesting times,’ let’s start thinking about the process of change. Current change management models are based on the details of the need and the efficacy of the solution. There is a lot of data gathering (generally biased) so the initiators ‘understand’ the need or the environment. But can an outsider ever, really, understand an environment – a system – that they are not part of? Even those involved have a hard time understanding themselves! Would the owner of a gym benefit from understanding why you don’t go as often as you should? Would you? Understanding a ‘need’ or offering a new idea or skill does not teach the system how to change. They are two different things.

Imagine if you had the skills to actually lead the systemic elements through their own change issues, so they can change from within, according to their own nuanced values, beliefs, rules, politics, and relationships; not as a provider, but as a change facilitator. It will actually give you more control, and truly help manage the change process.

Take a look at my Buying Facilitation™ method. It is not a sales tool but a decision facilitation skill to help achieve buy-in. It is used to help meetings run smoothly, help work through fights or team problems or leadership issues or customer service problems. It can be a change management tool, a coaching skill, and a negotiating skill — all because the premise is systems based; until or unless an underlying system of any kind, will open for, and accept change, it will close ranks and maintain the status quo.

Let’s learn how to help real change happen. The interesting times we are now facing needs the help.

sd

Change is necessary. How can we make it fun? 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

sd

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

Do you remember, back in the day, when docs said that women suffering from PMS were hysterical and they needed to have a hysterectomy (that’s where the word ‘hysterical’ comes from btw)? They didn’t understand the physiology underlying the physical issues, and relegated the problem to emotions.

My son has a neurological disease called Dystonia. There is no physical/medical test for it (although it’s very obvious what it is if you are familiar with it), and for many years people suffered with it and had to go to mental institutions because it was called an ‘emotional’ disease. In fact, when I lived in London and my son needed his perscriptions filled from our NY neurologist, our ‘surgery’ doc (the UK medical model) told us he needed a psychiatrist, not meds for his uncontrollable spasms.

Historically, when we don’t understand the roots of something we assume there is an emotional component, with the underlying belief being that there is something ‘not quite right’ with the person experiencing what is outside our comfort zone.

BUYER’S PURCHASES MUST COMPLY WITH THEIR SYSTEM

Because buyers take actions that sellers regularly believe to be ‘irrational’, we say that they are either ‘stupid’ or making an ‘emotional’ decision. Neuroscientists calls these decisions irrational or emotional as well. But we – sellers and neuroscientists – are rather biased: we see a problem, believe we know the solution, and consider our solution to be the best because it’s the most rational. We forget that every person, every group or family, every system if you will, has a very unique and idiosyncratic set of beliefs and criteria that determine their choices. And what may look irrational from the outside is very very rational on the inside, even if sometimes unconscious.

Indeed, before anyone makes any decision, they consider it against their own beliefs. Would you walk over to a stranger in a park and harm him? No? Why not? That would be an emotional, irrational decision. But you wouldn’t do it because you have internal, unconscious beliefs and values that wouldn’t allow you to harm another person – especially a stranger.

No one makes decisions outside of their beliefs. The internal, private ‘system’ that makes up our functioning rules (as individuals or groups) is sacrosanct, and if any decision might render the system useless, or ‘less-than,’ then another decision will be made. And outsiders cannot understand what’s going or become a part of that decision becasue, well, because they are outsiders.

Ever wonder why your friend stayed with her/his spouse? You’ll never understand. But it’s not irrational to him or her; it meets a need of some sort. Indeed, why haven’t you lost those ’5′ pounds? And why don’t you eat healthier, or work out more, or spend more time with your kids, or or or or. It might look irrational to me, but you have a very unique, idiosyncratic set of internal beliefs that kinda fit together and make up who you are, and if you try to change one piece of this, the rest of the system has distress.

If you were going to start working out daily, you’d have to either get up earlier or move something else in your schedule around. You’d have to probably start considering to eat healthier, and maybe stop having so many beers. It’s not about the gym, or about the weights; it’s about your system and how it’s willing to change so it all becomes a seamless whole that operates in tandem to serve you.

Buyers live in a unique system of rules and roles and relationships, history and initiatives, feelings and vendors and budgets. Change anything and everything else gets touched in some way. Before buyers buy, they must figure out how to manage all this so it ends up butter-side-up; understanding their needs, doing SPIN or Sandler or Relationship sales, or or or, only manages the problem end of the buying decision – the very very last action that buyers need to take – AFTER they’ve managed their systems change bits. And again, no matter what we ask or what we are told, we can never, ever understand someone else’s system, just as they can’t understand ours.

My new book discusses all of this in detail, and explains what’s going on behind-the-scenes, and why. And it teaches how to help buyers discover and address all of their unconscious issues so they can make a congruent decision. Think about it. Think about your decisions and how you make them, and the beliefs you must consider first. Then apply the same beliefs to your buyers.

sd

There is still time to get the freebies for: 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. You still get the freebies with the bundle order.

Decisions are Never Emotional is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

An answers for those of you who have asked how this book differs from some of my other books, and then I’ll give you 3 more ‘secrets.’

This book is very very different from Sales on the Line, Selling with Integrity and Buying Facilitation™. While those books talk about the buying decision process as being separate from the sales process and introduce some new skills, none of my previous books delve into exactly, EXACTLY what happens behind the scenes. I have thoroughly explained

• how systems maintain dysfunction and don’t want to change – and what they need to do to unlock possibilities (and how you can help);
• how the behind-the-scenes political and relationship issues are a far bigger indicator of purchasing p0ssibilities than need;
• the 10 steps to a buying decision (any kind of decision for that matter), and how to help influence them as an Outsider;
• the three phases that all decisions go through.. proving that buying is NOT an emotional decision but very very rational (even if we don’t agree with their decision);
• the problems closing sales using Sales 2.0 and how to mitigate them;
• the new Buying Facilitation™ model (you might want to get the bundle from my site and buy this book as the companion to the new one - www.buyingfacilitation.com), how it differs from sales, and the new skills and tools to tack on to sales to help influence the buying decision;
• very details Case Study that shows the behind-the-scenes details of a purchasing decision, and how to move a buying decision from a 36 week close to a 12 week close – and be part of the Buying Decision Team.

Now: here are 3 more ‘dirty little secrets’ from my new book. Enjoy. And BUY IT TOMORROW!

11. Information doesn’t teach people how to make a buying decision. Learning details of our solution is the last thing buyers need.

Sales has focused on having the solution to meet the need. As a result, sellers spend time and effort honing the appropriate messages for their pitches, presentations, and marketing. But buyers don’t know what to do with the data that early on in their decision process because they haven’t managed their buying criteria yet.

Now we can help buyers discern all of their decision criteria and buying criteria. When it’s time to pitch or present, we can massage our message to fit with the buying criteria and values.

1. Sales focuses on solution placement and has no skill set to help buyers maneuver through their off-line, internal, behind-the-scenes planning and decision making that must take place before they can buy.

It is impossible for any change to happen (including a purchasing decision) unless a system has identified the elements that need to buy in to the change. Our current sales model has ignored this invisible challenge since its inception. Rather than realize that a piece was missing, it instead builds in assumptions that maintain its status quo, provides work-arounds to manage the fall-out of the onedimensional approach, and accepts low close ratios.

Now we know all of the elements involved in how buyers buy, and can help them manage both ends of their decision making and change management. We can close sales in half the time since we will be severely shortening the buying decision cycle.

6. Until buyers have managed their internal systems, they have limited ability to use the solution information you would like to give them.

We’ve never been taught all of the issues that need to be managed before a buying decision can happen. Our buyers haven’t known that either. As a result we have unwittingly focused on solving their problem, giving them vast amounts of data about our solution, and have not realized that buyers haven’t known what to do with that data until later on in their buying decision process.

Now we can help buyers discover their systems and change management issues, and help them figure out their buying criteria that will match the values of their system.

8. Helping buyers maneuver through their buy-in and systems issues require a different focus and a different skill set from the one sales offers.

The typical sales scenario overlooks the systems issues that must seek homeostasis. Focusing on our solutions, we’ve created the rejections, the objections, the long delays, and the ‘dumb’ decisions. Not to mention the abysmal closing ratio of under 10% (from first prospecting call).

Now we have the skills to enter the buying decision end of the equation without bias and as a decision facilitator. We can help the buyer focus first on finding all of the right people, discovering the historic precedents, changing the rules, and getting buy-in so they can all figure out what needs to happen to achieve excellence.

——

Did the book provoke you? Excite you? Anger you! Cool beans! Let the discussion begin!

sd

Listen to Sharon Drew Morgen speak on MaestroConference on Oct. 14 at 12P.M. PST

Check out my new book coming out October 15: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Read two free chapters. Pre-purchase the book or buy the bundle.

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.

“Dirty Little Secrets” launches tomorrow: 3 more secrets unveiled is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com