For decades, I have been a proponent of, and keynoter in the field of, Spirituality in the Workplace. In my work life, I have focused on the sales profession, as I believe (as the very foundation of business), it offers the capability of making each person, each interaction, and each company, based on true service.

Unfortunately, with the focus on profit, solution placement, timelines, and commissions, the potential for true servant-leadership has been overlooked.  Indeed, it’s possible to make money AND make nice.

SELLING AND SERVING

The sales job focuses on needs assessment and solution placement. Of course this is necessary – but only as the final stage of issues buyers have to address. Sales overlooks the off-line, behind-the-scenes decision issues that buyers must face privately before they get the buy-in to make a purchase.

But this is where the true servant-leader connection is: imagine having the capability to serve folks by first helping them discover all of the internal, values-based decision issues they must address, and being a support for them in the process. And once this is done (and it makes the sales process about 600% more efficient), then we can sell.

But we can’t continue to use our positions merely to influence others. Let’s look at what we’ve been doing until now.

Sellers, unfortunately, have a belief that if by offering the right data, in the right way, to the right demographic, or use the right incentives/push/pitch/influence, that people will buy, or acquiesce, or agree. Yup: I’ve got the important data that you need - now let me tell you about it and explain to you why you need it.

But that premise is false: sales only close 7% of prospects. And that’s an average. Why doesn’t this model work? Because it’s based on information push, and ignores the underlying values that people must match before they are willing to buy anything.

People don’t make decisions based on data: all decisions are made according to our internal values/criteria/beliefs (There is no such thing as an emotional decision, even if it looks that way to an outsider.). We do not choose to do something that goes against our values, so all behavior is a rendition of our beliefs in action, even thought it might be unconscious.

When we create data-driven vehicles for marketing and sales, we have no idea if the mode, the message, the presentation, or the actual verbiage, go against someone’s internal criteria. As a result, we have no idea how our message will be received. That means, we’re either lucky or we’re unlucky. Bad odds: with the best solution in the world, we are dependent on luck for our results. Not to mention that we are missing opportunities to connect with, and serve, another person.

THERE IS A WAY TO INFLUENCE WITH INTEGRITY

But there is a way to help buyers discover how to make the decisions and manage the change (and every purchase – indeed every decision – is a change management issue) by using their own values.

It’s possible to help buyers:

1. assemble the appropriate Buying Decision Team members.
2. define the criteria they must ultimately meet.
3. explore every opportunity to resolve their issues with familiar resources (like current vendors or by fixing current.
4. get necessary buy-in from whoever, whatever touches the final solution.
5. operate with the new solution without facing major disruption.

Buyers need to accomplish all of these things anyway, with us or without us. Sellers sit and wait while they do them. We can continue to wait to make a sale, or become a true Servant Leader and lead our buyers through these decision points. It’s not sales – it’s change management – but it will afford an opportunity to serve, and buyers will fold the seller in to the decision, with no objections.

I’ve developed a new type of question (Facilitative Question) to help people uncover their unconscious criteria to make new decisions, or re-weight old beliefs. It works alongside my Buying Facilitation™ model as a decision facilitation tool to manage change. Questions like:

How would you know when it was time to add a new skill set to the ones you’re already using successfully?

What would you need to trust to recognize that by facilitating buying decisions and entering the buying journey earlier that you can close more deals and make more money?

How would you know that adding a change management skill set would be good for business, and enable a true collaboration of trust and respect?

Until or unless people choose to reconsider all of the elements within their status quo, and can find a way forward that doesn’t disrupt their status quo irreparably, they will do nothing.

Start the buyer/seller relationship by helping buyers manage the idiosyncratic decision issues they must address internally. Then, once they’ve determined their route, you can sell. It’s a good way to help people get to the very core, the very heart of the matter and create real change. And it gives us the opportunity to truly serve by leading the change.

sd

Read about: The Heart of Business & Leadership Involves Helping Others Buy. Gain new skills with the  Learning Accelerators and hear Sharon Drew use the Morgen Buying Facilitation Method®.

The Heart of Sales is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

What, exactly, are the skills we need to help make a difference, to help people choose to do ‘the right thing’? I’m going to offer some new thinking that’s in line with my biases.

WHAT SKILLS ARE THE DIFFERENCE THAT MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?

At the very least, we need to be able to influence/lead with integrity. What does this mean? It means we don’t push change, or buying, or ideas just because we believe they have merit, without enlisting buy-in from our audience. I’m suggesting that along with our beliefs about doing the right thing, we must consider changing some of our long-held beliefs about how to influence others.

Unfortunately, we have a belief that if we offer the right data, in the right way, to the right demographic, that people will buy, or acquiesce, or agree. Yup: I”ve got the important data that you need - now let me tell you about it and explain to you why you need it.

But that premise is false as we’ve seen time and time again: in our daily lives, in how we run our businesses and how we sell and market. Yet we  continue to use the same approaches and expect different results.

Why doesn’t this model work? Because people don’t make decisions based on data: we listen through biased filters, and all decisions are made according to our internal values/criteria/beliefs (There is no such thing as an emotional decision, even if it looks that way to an outsider.). We do not choose to do something that goes against our values, so all behavior is a rendition of our beliefs in action. It’s a problem because often, our choice criteria are unconscious.

When we create data-driven vehicles for marketing or change management, we have no idea if the mode, the message, the presentation, the actual verbiage, go against someone’s internal criteria. As a result, we have no idea how our message will be received. That means, we’re either lucky or we’re unlucky. Bad odds. And it also means that with the best will in the world, with the best message, we are dependent on luck for our results.

THERE IS A WAY TO INFLUENCE WITH INTEGRITY

But there is a way to have folks open to change and use their values. Instead of offering data, let’s help them decide to make a difference, choose to treat their colleagues with care and respect, lead with a collaborative spirity and trust, donate because it’s the right thing to do, turn off the water because the world needs each of us to be sustainable.

If people don’t already have those values, or have these values stored in some unconscious way, how do we help instill them? Because that is what we need to do. And not by giving them good data.

Let’s help them recognize all of the internal decision issues they need to address in order to come up with sustainable, values-based behaviors they can buy-in to and take action on. Let’s use Facilitative Questions (a new form of question I’ve developed to help people uncover their unconscious criteria so they can examine it or change it) to help folks make new decisions, or re-weight old beliefs. Questions like:

How are you playing your part to help the earth – our habitats and animals – thrive? What would stop you from being an active participant in a sustainable universe?

How would you know that collaborating with employees in a way to allow them each to be a leader will give you and your company a richer environment in which to grow? What would you need to trust to recognize that by facilitating leadership and creativity among all levels of staff your business can make more money?

What would you need to know or believe differently to be willing to contribute more to organizations that are helping the environment or problems experienced in disaster areas? How would you know that you could trust that your money would be used in a way that would make a difference? That a contribution would make a difference to you, personally?

What would need to be different for you to be able to meld your company’s work-life balance recommendations with your need for revenue – and how would you know that employees who have a balance will offer you (and your clients) a greater level of commitment and creativity?

Those are just a few of my Facilitative Questions to help you think about raising awareness. My material (Buying Facilitation™ ) has been used in the sales environment until now. But the premises and skill sets are meant to be universally applied: until or unless people choose to reconsider all of the elements within their status quo, and can find a way forward that doesn’t disrupt their status quo irreparably, they will do nothing.

Rather than push data and attempt to manipulate the situation through good content or placement, help buyers manage the idiosyncratic decision issues they must address internally. It’s a good way to help people get to the very core, the very heart of the matter and create real change.

sd

The Heart of Business is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Of all of the things I do, of all of the things I am, Dancer is #1.

Dancing fills my heart – in that special place that is joy. I don’t often get to feel it in my daily stress that seems to go on way too long into the night.

But when I dance, my heart flutters. And the flutter gets down into my bones. And then I move from inside out.

There is a group in Austin called Body Choir. We are a motley crew: aged 2 months to 90 – median age maybe 40; lawyers, architects, politicians, yoga teachers, musicians, house painters, professors, consultants, chefs, waitresses, authors. The world, somehow.

And a few times a week we dance. We dance for 2 hours, barefoot, silent, in a large studio. About 100 of us at a time. We dance to world music according to the rhythms of Gabrielle Roth – soft to loud to soft; gentle to rough to gentle; inside to outside to inside.

We dance alone. Or with each other. Whatever feels right. And it’s the only place where nothing is expected accept safety. So I can dance, and play with others, and lay on the floor. And just be. With a fluttering heart and whistling bones.

And that is what I did tonight. Thought I’d share it with you.

sd

Dancing With My Shoes Off is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com