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.

GOING INTERNAL

Where do buyers go when they say, “I’ll call you back?” They go internal, to make sure the department heads are in agreement, that the status quo can allow change without creating a mess, that the historic fight between rival teams is cleaned up, that the new software will work with the old. Until or unless they manage the interal stuff of relationships,  initiatives, rules, etc., they will not be in a position to buy anything. Regardless of their ‘need’ or ‘pain.’

Think of moving. You and your spouse find the perfect house. Are you going to buy it? Well, that depends on if you can get a loan, or if the school district is viable, or if your spouse really wants that separation, or … And these things are private and off-line and have absolutely nothing to do with the house or the realtor.

It’s possible to add a front end to what you’re already doing successfully and use a different skill set to help buyers maneuver through their internal pitfalls. But it’s not sales. And it has absolutely, absolutely nothing to do with understanding: as an outsider you’ll never understand. Can I understand if, in the example above, your spouse is thinking of separation? Or how to handle the bank if you were overdrawn for 3 months last year?

Once a buyer manages the internal issues sellers can use rapport and sales and understanding skills to make sure the solution is superb. But trying to understand the personal stuff is impossible.

GATHERING DATA AT THE WRONG TIME DOESN’T HELP BUYERS BUY

Sales is faulty (see my new book on this: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it) and only manages needs assessment and solution placement where it is imperative that you understand. I’m suggesting you acquire an add-on skill set to merely act as a GPS system that says left/right/left, through the maze of the types of decisions buyers must make as they consider their internal, systemic issues that hold their status quo in place. Until they do this, they can’t buy from you anyway. But when you use Buying Facilitation™ first with them and do some neutral navigation that is system- and change-based, you will be placed on their Buying Decision Team.

I recently spoke with a potential vendor who I was referred to. She automatically assumed I was ready to buy because of the referral (I certainly was not), and she went ahead gathering data (that I found myself very reluctant to give since I didn’t know her or trust her yet) and trying to sell her services. When I told her that until I knew how I would have a good chance of getting the results I wanted I wouldn’t be able to buy, she was quite adamant: “You’ll know when I give you results.” Well, in my mind that’s kinda foolish. That means I have to buy her services, pay her a lot of money, go through internal disruption, and I won’t know until AFTER all that whether I’m going to be successful or not??? Before I’d be able to choose her, I’d need to figure out the criteria I’d use to know if her suggestions, her personality, my needs, my market, my folks who would be working with her, my company, would act together in a way that would bring me the change I’m seeking. And if it would be worth the money and disruption. She’d have been far better off to have used a Facilitative Question:

How would you know before we begin that you would have a good chance of reaching your goals? What would need to happen within your organization to make sure they are ready for the type of change you are requiring?

It’s not about my need or her solution. It’s about the issues I need to manage internally in order to allow change to take place in a way that minimizes disruption.

Until you realize there are actually two different types of decisions buyers must make – the vendor/solution decision that you handle, and the behind-the-scenes issues that they must handle first – you will be trying to understand too early and not be present to help them with the main decisions they must make first.

You can add a new set of skills to what you’re doing already, and actually become a part of your buyer’s buying decisions. And, when it’s time for you to understand, you will be there with just the skills you need to do it. But first, let’s help manage the private process that you’ve left unattended until now.

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To learn how to do this, consider buying my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it

How do we sell if we don’t understand needs? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

You know those times when buyers show up and, barely before you can ask them what they need, buy? That’s because they’ve already done what they need to do BEFORE they contact you and they are ready. Unfortunately, the majority of buyers don’t realize what they have to do until AFTER they’ve started discussions, leaving us to think they are in a position to buy. They aren’t.

Before I tell you what it is they must do before buying, I’d like to say that I’ve asked hundreds of people where their prospects go when they say “I’ll call you back?” Here are the responses I always get, and have gotten (the same ones) for decades. And in this order:

1. they are going to find a cheaper price; 2. they are checking out the competition; 3. they are checking us out.

My response: “Really? How do you know?”

The answer, after a few beats of silence: “I don’t. It’s just a guess. I guess the answer is ‘I don’t know.’

Lots of guesses.

Here’s the deal. Sales focuses on product/solution placement/need. All of our activities are (net, net) focused on understanding need and making nice so we can place product. We think we do such a great job we could almost convince ourselves of the quality of our hard work and effort – and brains and professionalism, of course. But it’s pretty hard to reach around to pat ourselves on the back with a lower-than-ten-percent close rate.

So we blame the buyer and the product and the environment. And we all look at each other with grave understanding when the buyer never comes back. But no one, no one, is blaming the sales model.

How do you go about deciding?

I have a question. When you seek to purchase or rent a new home, what percentage of time do you spend understanding your choice of the residence, vs. the time you spend in discussion with your spouse, finding schools and choosing school districts, talking to neighbors and friends, traveling around neighborhoods to make choices, talking to banks, filling out paperwork, finding a buyer for your current home and cleaning closets and painting garages, and the most dreaded of all – moving. Moving out and moving in and packing and unpacking.

All of us know that before we make a purchasing decision, there’s a whole bunch of other stuff that needs to get done to make sure nothing falls apart along the way. And for sure, when we start down the path, we kinda know what needs to happen but we sure as hell don’t know all of what will happen. Will the bank lose the paperwork? Will the roof of your current home spring a leak – the day before the new buyers sign the bank papers – and you’re out $5,000 because the house still is yours?

Can the real estate agent manage that stuff for you – even if she understands what you need to do? Well, not using the ‘sales’ model. But before you can move in to your new house, you’ve got to do all of that. Before any change takes place, and purchasing a solution will effect a change in the buyer’s environment, all of the internal, hidden issues that surround the ‘need’ must buy in to the change and somehow be addressed. You would never put a down payment on the house first, and then figure out the schools and the financing and the sale of your own house. First you resolve the internal, private, ‘systems’ issues and THEN you are ready to make a purchase.

And so with your clients. They have stuff to do in their teams, their corporations, their families. And understanding needs, or knowing what solution would be best, doesn’t help them navigate through the mysteries.

Sales is a product placement tool. So blame the sales model for not knowing where your buyers go. And if you ever want to add a new skill set to your sales model and facilitate the buyer’s internal decision issues – separate from their need or your solution – have a look at Buying Facilitation™. Then you can use your terrific sales skills.

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If you’d like me to write a White Paper for you on understanding the decision issues your buyers face, please email me at sharondrew@newsalesparadigm.com.

Or have a look at my book Buying Facilitation:the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. Click here for two free chapters. It will teach you how to understand and manage the route through the internal decision process. Will it help you make a sale? Maybe. Maybe not. But it sure will help you make a client.

What Are Buyers Doing While We Wait? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com