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

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SELLING AND MANAGING OFF-LINE BUYING DECISION ISSUES

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

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

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

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

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

BUYING FACILITATION® AND SALES TOGETHER

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

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

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

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

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

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

FACILITATING THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

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

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

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

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

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

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

sd

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

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

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

Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey: a definition is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

But what, exactly, can you be in control of? You are in control of the details about your solution, and how it’s used in a particular setting, and the data you seek from prospects. You certainly have control over how you enter, and maintain, the relationship. But that is the sum total of what you’re in control of.

Obviously it’s easy to spot a need that matches your solution. But the number of buyers who buy is much, much lower than those you’re following, or those who really have a need that your solution will support.

In fact, most of your time is spent selling to folks who won’t buy. And then when the phone rings with a closed sale, it’s a surprise: you have no idea which of those to whom you are selling will be buyers. In fact, all your prospects seem like buyers. But they’re not. And you don’t know the difference until – well, until they don’t buy.

So it’s obviously not a direct match: need does not equal purchase; time selling doesn’t equal a closed sale. And therefore, ultimately, you are out of control of the actual buy.

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

Buyers don’t know what issues they must confront in order to get the appropriate buy-in to make a purchase. There is so much more going on behind the scenes than you can ever be aware of or have control over, and almost none of it is needs-related, thereby leaving you out of control when it comes to when, or how, or why, or if, a prospect will buy.

Until or unless the prospect (or lead) gets the appropriate buy-in to bring in a new solution, they will do nothing. And this buy-in is based on the change management issues the buyer must handle behind-the-scenes:

• if there is not buy-in from everyone who touches the solution, there will be no purchase;
• if there is not a way to meld the new solution with whatever is there now, there will be no purchase;
• if the regular vendor is not in some way ‘managed’, they will not buy;
• if there are turf battles, personality battles, or internal politics involved with trying to resolve a problem, no solution will be purchased.

Because the sales model is solution-placement focused, sellers mistakenly believe that with a need/solution match, there will be a sale. But that’s of course not true 90% of the time. In fact, that belief puts sellers out of control: a buying decision is not made via the sales process. And you should care because you are wasting so much time, and losing so much commission by focusing on the ‘pain’ and the ‘need’ and not focusing first on influencing the complete buying decision path from the beginning. Of course you must sell when it’s the right time; but by that time the buyer has already made the majority of the necessary decisions.

WE CLOSE THE LOW HANGING FRUIT

As long as sellers focus on placing a solution rather than facilitating the decision path that buyers go through as they attempt to bring all of the right people on board and manage change in a way that doesn’t leave behind chaos, you will merely close the low hanging fruit.

If you want real control, facilitate the buying decision path from the beginning: from where they are and an idea for something better, to figuring out what to do with the current situation and workarounds, to what needs to change; from how to use what they are using now to adding something new and fitting the old and new together; from needing a solution to getting the relevant buy-in.

Buying Facilitation® is the model I’ve created to accomplish this: it’s a change management/decision facilitation model (not a selling model) that leads buyers through their entire buying decision journey from the first idea, through to the inclusion of the full Buying Decision Team and getting their buy-in. In conjunction with sales, it truly facilitates the buyer’s decision journey.

If you want real control, lead buyers through their back-end change management issues before you start selling. They have to do this anyway – with you or without you. By helping them navigate, and using the very proscribed model I’ve developed specifically for this purpose, you are fully in control.  I’m not suggesting you stop selling; I’m suggesting you help buyers manage their decision path first.

sd

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

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

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

Sellers can’t control the buyer’s decision journey is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

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

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

SELLING VS BUYING

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

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

Used in front of sales it:

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

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

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

HOW SALES DOESN’T WORK

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

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

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

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

Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy?

sd

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

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

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

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

I recently asked 15 colleagues to define what a good contact sheet should reveal. I got 15 different answers. So what’s correct? Here is my take away:

1. it’s obviously subjective. Different companies seek different data points. How do they choose? How do they know they aren’t annoying/rebuffing/ignoring good leads? Are they calibrating the data so they understand the type/amount of wastage?
2. the pulled data does not offer true buy-cycle data, merely good guesses.

When I trial a few contact sheets to test different types – and try to trick the questions to reveal nothing -  I realize that the sheets are asking for specious data. How does one company decide to ask for number of employees, and another ask for the company revenue? And since the close numbers are so low, what difference does it make?

I can easily fill out a form for a webinar from home, and not use my company data. I can easily use a different account – say, a gmail account – to sign up for anything I want and no one will know who I am or be able to reach me. I can sign up for my ‘boss,’ who, say, might use the conference room and my computer, to listen to the webinar with 10 others, and no one will know. I can sign up for myself, and just be comparing the new material with my vendor’s, so I can pass the data on to them and have no intention of buying anything (even though I look and act like a real prospect) and block all the rest of the incoming emails.

WHO IS FALLING OUT OF THE SYSTEM?

As a result of the debatable usefulness of the data collected, sellers have no idea who they are following, nurturing, or trying to make an appointment with. Or who/what they should be spending money on. They are ignoring great leads and nurturing some who will never close. And they don’t know the difference, so they call and nurture whoever comes up on their ‘lead scoring’ – another activity based on guesswork (or they’d be closing more sales, no?).

Here are the numbers that you may not be tracking: from first name, when attempting to get an appointment, you are closing .6758% of the collected names. From 100 names that you call approximately 15 times over 3 months (obviously there is nothing better to do), 97.5% don’t want an appointment. From the 2.5% who take an appointment, 17% will close at some point. That’s when I hear folks say, “I close 17%.’ Geesh. Anyone can close 17% from first appointment. Why aren’t you closing 17% from the total?

How many of the 97.5% that didn’t want an appointment were real prospects? You have no idea – and yet they fell out of the system.

It’s possible to determine if the Buying Decision Team is already on board, or not formed yet. It’s possible to determine if the visitor is seeking other solutions, or comparing price with your competition. I would deem this valuable data.

But current contact sheets are not set up for this sort of data collection, because they are attempting to place a solution to the ‘right’ sort of buyer and lowering the odds by placing leads in demographic categories and then guessing.

WHAT WOULD BE THE RIGHT DATA

What if the idea was to collect data on the behind-the-scenes activities that buyers were managing, and entering there? In other words, entering earlier in the buying path rather than at the tail end. If your realtor could help you from the moment you and your family started considering you might want to move, would you have more data, and a better relationship, than when they just come to you saying they want a 3 bedroom house?

Here is the killer question: how many good leads – real buyers –  are you losing because you aren’t capturing the right data? And what would the right data capture look like?

I’ve developed a new contact sheet that has a decision facilitation basis that really – really – leads buyers to the exact data they need at the exact right time (based on the decision path, not the type of buyer they might be) and simply helps buyers manage their entire decision path – offline as well as on line, change management as well as solution choice. It’s different from what you’re using now. But simple to use. And easy to replace your current contact sheet.

Yes, it’s different from what you’ve been using for the past 3 years. Ask yourself: Do you want to influence leads

• at the point where you can offer them your solution data, and hope they’ll use it
• or at the point where they are making decisions based on their human, political, and company criteria, and be there at the right time and place with the right data for each stage of the buying path?

Call me to discuss my newest solution. Unless you really like the results you’re getting and are convinced nothing is falling out of the bottom.

sd

To read more about the offline buying decision path, read The Buyer’s Decision Path: why it’s important to sellers;

Why aren’t our prospects buying: the problem sales can’t solve;

Helping buyers choose the right Buying Decision Team: a case study.

There are many ways to learn Buying Facilitation®:

• 3-Day Public Training in Austin  June 8-10 Syllabus | Registration
• Buying Facilitation® corporate training
• Guided Study program for individuals or teams
• Learning Accelerators

Contact sheets: are they gathering the right data? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

As we continue to seek better ways to do the same things that failed before ( look at the numbers below, all industry numbers or from averages of my global clients) I think our industry might be facing extinction.

We continue to ‘understand’ more and ‘push’ harder, follow footprints and nuture. But our close rates remain well below 10% because we are focusing on the wrong end of the buying decision journey.  Can you imagine any other industry where a lower-than-10% success rate is deemed ‘success’? Would you go on a plane with that success rate? Or visit a doc?

THE HARD REALITY

• We close .6758% of our leads if we begin the dialogue by seeking an appointment.
• We close 17% of the prospects we get appointments with – but we lose over 90% of the full spectrum of prospects by seeking appointments as our first outcome.
• When using conventional (i.e. non marketing automation) sales, we close 7% and have closed this number consistently for decades, regardless of the sales model.
• We spend 90% of our time scoring/nurturing leads/names – 93% of whom won’t buy using conventional sales approaches; 25% of  the total would buy if they were facilitated earlier in their buying journey.
• We close 10% of our proposals, wasting 90% of our time.
• We waste 85% of our time attempting to present to prospects who have claimed ‘interest’ but are nowhere near ready to buy.
• 80% of our prospects will buy a solution similar to ours within 2 years of speaking with us – but not from us because they haven’t figured out how to buy/change and get the appropriate buy-in.

The problems causing all of the above statistics are all based on where, how, and why, we enter the buyer’s world. We are

1. entering at the back end of the buying journey,
2. treating ’needs’ as if they were isolated events rather than part of a functioning system,
3. ignoring the behind-the-scenes, political and relationship issues buyers must address before they can buy,
4. acting as if they have already completed their change management piece and are merely choosing the best solution,
5. entering too early with a solution when it takes time for the entire Buying Decision Team to form is the length of the sales cycle; no purchase will happen until all of their input is included in a solution choice.

With a focus on needs assessment and solution placement, we sit helplessly while our buyers are facing confusion along the route of their ever-more-complex buying journeys. With marketing automation keeping us out of the loop until late in the buy cycle, we don’t have the personal ability to influence buying behavior as we once did.

And we have little capability to qualify – regardless of the selling model used. We’re kinda assuming that because it LOOKS like it might be a lead, that it IS a lead. But it’s merely a name. In fact, sales is becoming transactional.

FOCUS ON INFLUENCING THE BUYING JOURNEY, NOT MAKING THE SALE

Buying Facilitation™ can dramatically shift these numbers because we enter differently and at a far earlier place, use different skills, have different goals and outcomes, and get very very different responses and results.

Someone recently asked me why the sales community fights with me, when all that’s necessary is adding a front end to what is already being done. My answer: I have no idea.

Stop fighting me. Unless you love the results your getting and aren’t wasting more than, oh, 15% of your time on deals that won’t close, or don’t mind losing prospects that could become buyers if you managed the entire buying decision journey from the start.

If you were 100 pounds overweight, would you fight a doc that tells you you need to lose weight? You can see that problem and at least believe that losing weight would be a great idea. But when I give you the numbers in the selling industry, you fight and tell me that you want to continue failing. You tell me that those numbers don’t apply to you. Or YOU do it so much better, but your teammates don’t. Or you start counting from your presentation.

WHY CARE ABOUT THE BUYING DECISION JOURNEY?

Why does helping the buying decision journey give you different numbers?

• Because the time it takes the buyer to recognize and manage all of the internal people/policy issues that will shift as a result of a purchase is the length of the buy cycle.
• Because until all of the Buying Decision Team members are on board they don’t even know the full fact pattern of their need.
• Because they will say ‘no’ to an appointment until they have a handle on the internal change management issues and the folks who need to be involved.
• Because unless you are able to use your first call to help prospects set up their Buying Decision Team, you will continue to have 3 or 4 meetings over 6 months rather than get an appointment with the full Buying Decision Team on the first – and possibly only – meeting.
• Because you are pitching, presenting, and proposing the wrong information – or information they do not know they need yet, or information that has not-enough people to understand at an early place in the decision cycle.

So you’ll close much, much quicker if you enter as a decision facilitator. You will find buyers who didn’t think they were ready and help them get ready quickly (and no, it’s not solution-focused). You will find prospects who didn’t know they were prospects, and get rid of those who really aren’t ever going to be buyers… on the first call. You will make the right appointment with the right people and the right folks will show up.

No more time wasting. No more sequenced appointments as the whole team gets on board. No more following bad leads. No more waiting for sales to close, with an inability to forecast.

That’s why you should care about the buying decision journey. That’s why you should add Buying Facilitation™ to the front end of what you are doing now. Otherwise, marketing automation is going to take over your job. And maybe then you’ll end up on the buy side with  your new job, and understand what I’ve been talking about all these years.

Just saying.

sd

Want to learn Buying Facilitation™? check out these learning products.

• 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®

Learn Buying Facilitation™ | Implement Buying Facilitation™ | License Buying Facilitation™

Fighting for Failure: why modern sales practices are illogical is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

1. what is a ‘sales question’?
2. what makes them ‘hotter now’ than before?
3. what is their intent?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a guess that a ‘hot sales question’ is defined as the ‘right’ question to ask to…. um, maybe, elicit the ‘right’ data to see if it’s a qualified lead? Or something to do with closing a sale? Or gathering the ‘right’ data to close the deal by saying the right thing? No idea.

Since my Buying Facilitation Method® uses a new type of question I developed (Facilitative Question) as a guide, like a GPS system, to lead buyers through the decisions they must address before they buy, I probably have a different criteria around what questions should do. My questions don’t elicit data, but can initiate decisions, invoke new behaviors and choices, and influence thinking and activity. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

A typical question pulls data from a decision already made (see my book Dirty Little Secrets. I have a large section devoted to questions). A responder (i.e. buyer) gives information to a person (i.e. seller) who wants to gather data.

The very nature of a normal question is biased, posed to fulfill someone’s curiosity; the responder offers the best guess from a data-bank of comfortable responses, hoping to satisfy the questioner. Lots of bias everywhere.

In sales, questions have been used to elicit information to better sell, to:

• understand/assess need;
• get an ‘admission’ of need;
• gather data about inner processes so risk can be assessed.

Bias, bias, bias, and the responder/buyer learns nothing; the seller gets biased data, potentially missing important data that was omitted from the questioner’s assumptions.

Here’s an example of how using conventional questions brought in the possibility but missed the deal. When a client at KPMG called a very large corporation to assess need, to sell an 8 figure consulting deal, they got an RFP. They were ecstatic: this company had always used another XYZ Consulting. KPMG put a whole bunch of senior managers onto the project to create a million dollar proposal. Finally my client had a shot at getting the business.

When I asked “Why aren’t they going to use XYZ anymore?” they were stumped. They called the prospect and posed the same question to them. They were told:

“We are going to use them. We just needed a second bid.”

In sales, we don’t realize we pose our questions in a very narrow landscape: we are so focused on getting the data WE think we need that we ignore very important stuff that could actually close the sale.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS TEACH HOW TO DECIDE, NOT GATHER DATA

I developed Facilitative Questions as a way to lead change, not gather data. Here is a very simple example:

• Why do you wear your hair like that? is a simple question that gathers data.
• How would you know when it was time to reconsider your hairstyle? is Facilitative Question that actually teaches the listener how to pull decision making criteria from disparate memory storage units in the brain so the listener can pull their highly valued criteria together to potentially make a new decision. In other words, I help people decide to buy.

So Facilitative Questions support the buying decision. Regular questions give the seller biased data that most probably leaves out lots of important information and may not be the issues the buyer is considering when they make a purchase.

BOTH AND

Both types of questions are necessary, but at different times in the buying decision process. Conventional questions assess need and place solution, help sellers figure out how to place their pitch, or understand the competition. They help us understand all aspects of a buyer’s need and make sure they understand our solution.

By using Facilitative Questions first, we can become part of the private, inside track that goes on in the buyer’s decision journey. When working with a prospect with a large buying decision team recently, I sent them sets of Facilitative Questions every time I knew they had a meeting, and became part of the Buying Decision Team. These questions were all based on ensuring they managed their change - nothing to do with gathering data or placing solution. Examples of questions I used:

• How will you and the whole decision team know when it’s time to bring in a new solution when you have so much going on already? What would you need to hear, see, experience?
• At what point will you know that you have buy-in from the group you want trained? How can you assess that? How will you recognize problems? And how will you and the decision team assign responsibility to manage any fallout before, during, or after the training?

Until or unless buyers figure this stuff out, they can’t buy anyway. And you know what? It’s so easy to create these questions for the telesales team or for inside sales folks, to use to qualify.

sd

• Hear Sharon Drew use Facilitative Questions in her live calls on MP3 or CD.
• Want to learn to use Facilitative Questions to help buyers decide? Check out my Learning Accelerators

Sales questions are hot now is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Traditional Sales, spearheaded by Dale Carnegie in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, published in 1937, is about the product sale. How to position it, how to make its features, functions, and benefits relevant, and how to discuss it so buyers will recognize a need.

Consultative Sales, spearheaded by Linda Richardson in the 80s, added the customer to the mix. What are their needs? What sort of a solution will be relevant? How can we gather the right data so we can ensure that our product/solution can fit with the needs and be positioned in a way to ensure the prospect understands the fit?

But both Tradtional Sales and Consultative Sales (and Permission Marketing, and Values-based Sales, and Relationship Sales, and Trusted Advisor Sales, and Question-based Sales, etc.) are based on placing a solution. By using questions, relationship management, being trustworthy because we care, etc. we work hard at being the chosen vendor. And yet, looking at the numbers, we still close the same number of sales we’ve always closed: plus/minus 7% from first prospecting call to close. And we waste far too much time with customers who won’t buy, and don’t know the difference before we expend all of that time.

Why aren’t we more successful? Because the sales model only manages the solution placement end of the buying decision. And this is the last thing the buyer does as s/he seeks to find a solution.

Think of a time when you wanted to buy something. Say, a new watch. Did you go into a store to buy one as soon as yours broke or became old? Probably not. First, before you went looking or gathering data, you had to decide what sort of watch you wanted. Do you want the same type of watch? Do you want a watch merely to tell time - or be a status symbol? Do you want a watch to hand down to your son or daughter? Do you want to buy several watches to match your work and play outfits? Do you want a watch made in this country, or one imported from Switzerland? Or do you want to merely fix your watch? And do you need to have your spouse buy-in to your decision (if it’s going to be a large purchase)?

This is a very simple siuation. Not a lot of people need to buy-in to your choice, or work together with you to implement it. But until you figure out the above, it doesn’t matter how wonderful a watch’s marketing is, or its features and functions and benefits. Until you make sure that you’ve met your internal criteria for choice, the information about any particular watch is potentially moot.

BUYERS MUST MANAGE THEIR BEHIND-THE-SCENES DECISION ISSUES

Your buyers have personal, professional, company, and team issues to take into account. They have relationship problems and budget challenges. They must get buy-in from above AND below. Until they do all of these things, not only will they not be ready to choose a solution, they won’t even have the full set of their criteria for choice ready.

I recently heard a story that might have taken place  in any company, anywhere around the world. A client of mine in Australia wanted to start up a manufacturing group. He wrote up a very complete proposal and budget for his boss – located in a different country – and sent it off with a request for a decision within three months. He then found a company in Germany that could develop and supply the set-up materials. The sales rep from the German company flew to Australia three times with product prototypes, sales pitches, team intros. These conversations went on for months.

My client had not heard from his boss. Eventually, he flew to visit the boss to discuss the idea with all of the costs and photos of the prototypes in hand. But he and his boss did not get along. And the boss had no interest in a discussion. End of story. Really. End of story.

The cost? Oh, about $50,000 in materials, travel and time. Finally,the German company was just told “No. Sorry. The boss won’t approve.” But it didn’t have to happen.

If the German sales rep had used Buying Facilitation™ on the very first call, my client would have known how to manage his boss and potentially be given the go-ahead BEFORE the manufacturing company sales guy made his first trip to Australia. Or would have known right away that it wasn’t going to fly.

German Seller: What would you have that you haven’t had until now?

Australian Buyer: A new manufacturing division.

GS: What has stopped you from starting up this division unti now?

AS: I have wanted it for some time, but have not approached my boss about it, as he’s not much of a visionary. Besides, we don’t get along so well. He’s out of the country and he pretty much leaves me alone. I suspect we both like it that way and have developed lots of work-arounds to make sure we work together well at arms length. But it makes it difficult to come to agreements.

GS: I hear that until you and your boss figure out a way to decide if a manufacturing group would make sense for your company, it doesn’t make too much sense to have us move forward with a prototype. What would need to happen for you and your boss to be willing to sit down together and figure out what Excellence would look like for the company?

In this way, the seller could actually help the prospect figure out how to possibly heal his relationship with his boss, and possibly move forward. Because until or unless this happens, no sale can take place anyway.

This is the first  job of the buyer: figure out how to recognize, align, and manage all of the internal issues that need to take place so that a problem can be resolved in a way that maintains the congruence of the system. Because until or unless the internal system maintains congruence and integrity, it cannot go forth and choose a solution. And sales – consultative or otherwise – does not manage this.

All sales models manage the solution end of a buying decision. Buying Facilitation™ offers new skills to help buyers figure out how to manage their internal, private, off-line stuff that is keeping them from success, and that sales does not address. Read my new book, Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. It will give you a new skill set to help the buyer do their first job: manage their internal system. And THEN you can do Consultative Sales.

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Purchasing a solution is the last thing a buyer does 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

Since I’m getting heavily and happily into the Collaboration of all of the aspects of support around the Sales Profession, I thought I’d spend an entire blog just on Consultative Sales.

Let’s start with at the beginning. Linda Richardson was the person who first introduced Consultative Sales. Many of you may not know that, but she’s the brains behind the idea, although this fact might have gotten lost over the ensuing years. Once she introduced the model – it has been a much-needed addition to traditional sales and really begins the process of bringing the buyer into the process rather than have the buyer be a mere object at the other end of the seller’s pitch – a whole slew of folks took it from there, most notably Dave Sandler (the brains behind Sandler Sales) and Neil Rackham.

Before I get into SPIN, I’d like to offer one small comment about my late friend Dave Sandler: before Dave died, and after my book Sales on the Line came out, Dave called me to ask if he could buy me out. Unfortunately, and maybe stupidly (ok. It was stupid) I said ‘no’. Dave’s comment to me was interesting: “I’m very impressed with your work. I understand that the sales profession hasn’t known how to help manage the system behind the buying decision, and I tried to address that area with my model, but I didn’t know how to get far enough outside the box. You figured it out, even though you had to go ‘way outside the box to do it. Good job.”

Neil took us one step further: he added a questioning system that was not only easy to learn and understand, but very valuable in terms of how to help the seller determine what and how and when and why a buyer would buy. Brilliant. So brilliant that many major organizations are still using the model today. It has become a staple for Consultative Sales, both with sellers and sales programs.

But – and Neil and I have had several conversations about this – SPIN still doesn’t manage the internal, systemic, hidden (sometimes even hidden from the buyer) criteria that not only created the darned Identified Problem to begin with, but hold it in place.

For those of you who are happily using Consultative Sales and SPIN, I’d love you to have a look at Buying Facilitation: it actually sits on the front end – before you pitch, gather data, or do needs analysis – and walks the buyer through all of the internal issues they need to consider prior to even being willing to add a new vendor or product, or solve their own problem.

Are their internal folks fighting about changing vendors? Or is the current vendor a favorite to some? Is the problem part of something larger – and if so, how will the decision team know when it’s time to address the larger problem – which would need to be addressed prior to resolving the problem your product could resolve? You’re new to the prospect: how will the prospect know to trust you? Just because you have testimonials, or that you’re really good, doesn’t mean that will manage their criteria.

Consultative Sales is wonderful: it brings the buyer’s Identified Problem into the sales process and gives the buyer a voice. Let’s just add Buying Facilitation to the mix and give the buyer the thinking tools to walk through all of the issues they need to resolve before they can make a purchasing decision (they have to do it anyway, and Buying Facilitation will make it easier for them). That way more of them can make room for your product much quicker. And because you will have helped them put together all of the pieces of the necessary decisions (not just product or problem related, but related to the entire set of givens that created the problem to begin with) you will be a true Consultant.

Spin and the Consultative Sales Model is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Let’s begin with my friend Jeff Thull. Jeff’s work (Exceptional Selling) most parallel’s my own. He works with companies doing complex sales, and connects the solutions to the client’s business drivers. He’s prolific, professional, and certainly is focused on incorporating the buying end into the sales effort. Buying Facilitation would add yet another tool into Jeff’s fabulous toolbox of skills, and would actually add another layer of systems management to the very front end of the seller/buyer relationship and actually offer an additional toolkit for the buyer to recognize, and manage, all of the systemic elements that need to be included, shifted, and reconfigured for any change to take place. Not only would Buying Facilitation add to Jeff’s current (amazing, professional) skills set by minimizing the purchasing
decision and time it takes to garner internal management decisions, it would also support effortless buy-in for the client side and also parallel Jeff’s focus on ethical, values-based collaboration.

http://www.primeresource.com/

Brian Tracy is of course, well, Brian Tracy. He’s not only the carrier of SALES as we’ve known it, but he’s smart, kind, professional, and really cares about people. He was certainly very giving to me when I needed a friend’s ear. Brian has more product than any other sales professional out there, and it’s all professionally done and very relevant to the seller who is seeking to learn the basics: give your customer what they want, at the price they want to pay, and give them the service they deserve. Buying Facilitation could easily tack on to Brian’s thinking: give sellers additional tools that are not about product but are geared to help the buyer make their best decision (the ones that are outside of the seller’s purview – the ones that the buyer’s have to make privately, internally, to be ready to make a buying decision that their status quo can tolerate). Once they know how to line up their internal decision process, then the pitching and information gathering, the presentations and the follow ups all become easier. I look forward to getting feedback from those of you willing to try adding Buying Facilitation to what you’re already doing with Brians work.  http://www.briantracy.com/

Tony
Alessandra is adding streetsmarts into the equation: how does it REALLY get done. And, Tony has built several  assessment tools to help you figure it out. He’s an amazing speaker. Really fun and professional, and his clients adore him. Adding Buying Facilitation to his work would make the decision making even quicker, while maintaining all of Tony’s unique take on the buyer/seller relationships. http://www.tonyalessandra.com/

Tomorrow I’ll take this even further. In the meantime, I look forward to some feedback.

Adding Buying Facilitation® to Consultative Sales: Friends is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com