RSSHow do we sell if we don’t understand needs?
Nov 9, 2009 Sales Related
When people first hear about Buying Facilitation®, they ask: ‘But if we can’t ask about needs and discuss our solution, how do we sell?’
The short answer is, you don’t. At least not when you are accustomed to. Because that’s not the first thing buyers need from you. The buyer first needs assistance navigating around their off-line decision issues. See, we actually enter our buyer’s sphere far too early in their decision cycle. And we end up attempting to gather needs, understand, and place product before a buyer really knows how to have this conversation with you.
The first thing buyers do – well before they are ready to choose a vendor or a solution – is to figure out what needs to happen internally for them to be assured that they can achieve excellence AND keep their organization in tact. THEN they are ready for you to understand their need and place your solution. The sales model does not help the buyer at this initial part of their decision cycle because it’s private, unconscious, idiosyncratic, and for insiders only. But they must do it – and we needlessly wait as they do. It would like finding the house or car of your dreams before you discussed a move or a purchase with your spouse or bank.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: call, data, gps, help buyers buy, I'll call you back, needs, understand
A New Presentation Model: Facilitate the Decision
Oct 29, 2009 Sales Related
I know that a lot of you love to do presentations. When folks use Buying Facilitation® their presentations are not focused on presenting solution data, but rather helping prospect maneuver through their behind-the-scenes issues they need to manage before being able to choose a solution – and THEN they present whatever matches the buying criteria they all have discovered together.
Whenever we stand in front of a room and pitch data, we have no idea how the folks are viewing us or our solution, what the politics in the room are and how the personalities are weighted, how we are being perceived in relation to our competitors, their old vendors or their on-site team mates who are currently providing a work-around until a new solution gets chosen.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: buying decision team, data, facilitate, pitch, presentation
