Around 85% of a buyer’s pre-purchase, back-end decision issues get addressed privately, outside of the seller’s purview, and a seller has no place at the table. Here is where we lose our sales – as buyers manage the internal politics, and the strategic/change issues – not because our solutions aren’t relevant or because we haven’t done a good job selling.
The [...]

Science, sales, negotiating, and the prison system – not to mention neuromarketing, neurosciences, and decision making sciences – have a base-line belief  that there is a ‘rational’ way to recognize choice -  rationality assumed when the ‘appropriate information’ is available to decide with.
In other words, when choices are made that go against what the world [...]

In the 23 years I’ve been writing about and teaching Buying Facilitation®, I’ve come up with dozens of terms to explain my intent re  ’the buyer’s journey’ or ‘the buyer’s decision path’.
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) [...]

Sales folks like having control. You ‘understand the need’, ‘manage the relationship‘, ’follow the digital footprint’, send the ‘right’ data at the ‘right’ time.
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 [...]

Because choosing a solution is the last thing a buyer does, the vendor isn’t an active partner at the point the most important decisions get made.  We  like to think that because we gather good data, deeply understand pain, and have a relevant solution, we’ll be considered an ‘active partner.’
SELLERS ENTER TOO EARLY
We fail to realize that we are [...]

A fast-moving marketing automation company recently hired me to train Buying Faciliation®. They were both thrilling and unnerving to work with: constant change and disruption, people changing jobs and decisions, different initiatives happening all at once, etc. left everyone breathless – with many incomplete, unmanageable, and unexamined issues left behind. Not to mention an atmosphere that was ruled by the loudest people [...]