First: SAVO. They are doing interesting, important work, making it easy for sellers to be successful in the solution-placement end of the buying decision. They are working arduously and creatively to develop material to support successful sales campaigns. Their technology is intuitive and they continue to innovate. I was impressed at their level of professionalism and content. And their folks are smart, fun, attentive.

But like others in the sales enablement industry, SAVO  still omits the full decision facilitation capability that starts far earlier in the buyer’s decision journey and manages the buy-in issues necessary before making a purchase. More on this later.

WE WERE TAUGHT HOW TO PUSH HARDER

Next: Jill Konrath – keynote speaker – was delightful. She spoke about our ‘Crazy Busy Buyers’ (as per her book SNAP), did a  fun role play that demonstrated ‘busy-ness’, and showed clearly why execs ‘delete’ self-serving sales folks. She’s got an important message.

Next: the speakers, overall, were professional. But here is where I get a bit cranky. OK -a lot cranky. At one point I left a session in a huff and went outside ranting to the poor folks stuck being near me: a speaker was offering  manipulative advice, saying  “It’s about making the customer uncomfortable about where they are,”  and “Engineer the (selling) experience for emotional effect,” and “The problem was the customer didn’t understand your value,” and “Put our proposition into language they can understand so we have an opportunity to teach them.” -  all assuming the buyer is some form of stupid.

Let’s have a frank chat here. Buyer’s needs are not an isolated event: before they can get buy-in for a purchase, they have a whole heap of behind-the-scenes work to do that has nothing to do with their ‘need’ and everything to do with politics and relationships. Instead of  first  facilitating  the private, non-need related issues, sellers (and sales enablement technology) push/manipulate to place solution. And buyers don’t buy. And resist being pushed. And they aren’t ready.

SALES CLOSE BECAUSE BUYERS ACHIEVE INTERNAL BUY-IN, NOT BECAUSE SELLERS PUSH

As per Buying Facilitation™, sales fail when based on these beliefs:

1. the seller has THE ANSWER;
2. if ONLY the buyer could UNDERSTAND what the seller believes is OBVIOUS, then the buyer will be smart enough to buy;
3. what stands between a need and a purchase is the seller’s ability to get the buyer to ‘admit’ to a need, find the buyer’s ‘pain point’ (I HATE THAT TERM), and route through their ‘resistance’ (the natural result of being pushed against)

Sales, from all sales efforts, only close a fraction of the time. Here’s why: until or unless

• the entire Buying Decision Team is formed and agrees to buying criteria,
• buy-in ensures all people who touch the solution are on board,
• a route exists from choice to purchase to implementation including any change issues that must be resolved first,

nothing, nothing, nothing will happen. This is where buyers go. This is why there are delays. This is why they prefer the status quo: if they don’t get the buy-in or manage the change, the risk to the underlying system is far higher than what happens if they don’t resolve a problem. They maintain the status quo because it’s better than the alternative.

Folks: The last thing buyers need is your solution. Literally. Buyers have a lot of work to do before they can buy. They don’t have ’pain points’ (if the buyer felt they were in pain they would have resolved it long ago). We just think they do because our focus is wrong.

SALES ENABLEMENT IS A TOOL, NOT A SOLUTION

One more thing: given that the push model is so endemic, one would believe the sales  model succeeds! The sales field only has a 7% success rate overall, and, according to Jim Lenskold, author of Marketing ROI: “If only 2% – 10% of our leads are closing, it means 90 – 98% of the leads are leaking out of the funnel.”

We are replicating a failed model and getting the same results across selling contexts. We are entering at the lagging end of the buying decision and ignoring the capability of entering earlier!

I contend that we don’t know where our leads start their journey, or are when we meet them: Where are they on the Buying Decision Team? What is the ‘weight’ of their vote? How far along the Buying Decision Team-gathering process are they? What, exactly, do they do with the data they get from us?) or exactly who they are.

We end up coming in at the end, following the tiny bit we get from them, find ways to push, and have no active capability to help them manage or influence the entire Buying Decision Team – necessary before they can garner the agreement to purchase.

Instead of being manipulative, or pushing harder, or getting them uncomfortable, why not use technology to help buyers make the change management decisions beforehand? No, it’s not sales. No, it’s not solution related. But: Would you rather make a sale? Or help people buy? They are two different activities. And we’re only managing one of them.

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SAVO Sales Enablement Conference is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I’d like to introduce you to a few of my friends and give you some links to what you can get from them (Free or otherwise. They’ve got great stuff and they are my friends after all.). They are all good, smart, thoughtful people, offering business the best of the best (IMHO). Check them out.

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, has written another wonderful book that will help you with the ‘sales’ end of your job: SNAP Selling. Visit her new site. There are fabulous freebies that she’s offering. Her ideas are solid, her writing is clear, and she understands the buyer’s buying decision issues (I’ve even written a bit for the book – discussing Buying Facilitation™, naturally) and offers help to get a buyer’s attention in this insane world where everything is fighting for our buyers’ attention. Go to Amazon.com and buy the book, and then go to her site and sign up for the free resources. Jill is one of the smart ones in the field, and I respect her greatly.

Leadership Excellence, Sales and Service Excellence, and Personal Excellence Magazines have been around decades, offering articles from new thinkers that are consistently solid and interesting. They have two new products that you can use:  ABC Leadership Development Tests and Templates and Personal Excellence Plan. I’d also like you to consider subscribing (yes, and giving them real money to do so).  This magazine has been a bellweather for integrity in business: Leadership Excellence will continue to shape future business successes. Our mission (to help you find a wiser, better way to live your life and lead your organization) is one of positive growth and improvement. And as our 25-year track record shows, we’ve found the means to lasting advancement. Continue browsing LeaderExcel.com to learn more about what Leadership Excellence can do for you.

How about Trust-Building – on line! Imagine! Meri Aaron Walker will teach you how to get friends, meet clients, and have virtual relationships on the net. Here is what she says about her work: I sell a distance relationship management solution. In a nutshell, I help people encounter and overcome the barriers in remote work.For almost two decades, I have been part of an emerging social body of women who have found ourselves responding to the deepest vocational needs of human beings in the midst of the financial, ecological, and social tsunami we’ve been living through as the Internet emerges.

Go to her site and get her new little book. It’s filled with goodies that will help you be really, really professional and smart on Skype and in video-based meetings. Stop spending all of that money for flights when for $17.97 you can have that meeting on line – and be just as successful.

Stone Payton has a radio show in which he interviews leaders and rainmakers, as well as a video business in which he goes around the country, interviewing and videoing authors, making their book reviews and videos available to all. He has an interesting take on the world mixed with his iconic verve and humor. Check it out. And, I’ll be on his show June 21st. I’ll remind you later.

Martin Rutte, co-author of Seeking the Sacred: leading a spiritual life in a secular world, and I have been friends and co-conspirators for 20 years as we’ve both worked assiduously to bring spiritual values into the world of business. He’s in charge of getting out a wonderful newsletter on work and values. The newsletter is part of the Centre for Spirituality and the Workplace, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada. Take a look and/or sign up to receive the newsletter. The articles are both thoughtful and thought-provoking. If you’re a regular reader of my newsletters, these are just the sort of articles that will excite you.

The Wisdom Journal is a good place to go for anything you need inspiration for. Whether it is to find out how to have a fair fight with your husband or to motivate your employees, the Wisdom Journal finds articles that offer caring advice. The articles are smart, informative and well written. Check them out.

Alen Majer is one of the good guys. Kind, gentle, integrous, and smart. He’s got a new little book called Trigger Events. He regularly runs free webinars, and talks about finding buyers who are ready to buy. For those of you who don’t yet use Buying Facilitation™ and don’t know how to help buyers navigate through their internal buying decision issues, and are seeking those already ready to buy, Alen’s the guy.

I’ll give you further updates on friends as they write new books. It’s an honor for me to know and serve these people.

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Friends with Benefits is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

As of tonight, Dirty Little Secrets is #2 in the sales category on Amazon! How exciting! I am so happy I can barely express it!

I have a lot of people to thank. The most amazing thing is that I’ve never met most of these angels – we have met over the past months (in some cases a year or more) over the phone!

First, and friend par excellence, is Jeff Blackwell of SalesPractice.com. Even though we don’t know each other well, he fell in love with Buying Facilitation™ and my decision facilitation model quite a while ago, believing that Buying Facilitation™ completes the sales model – with integrity. He has been tirelessly, and obnoxiously (smile) pitching me and the new book daily for months. He humbles me.

My friend Jill has been my sounding board, my mother, my friend, and my coach. Without her, I might have had a different book – certainly be a different person.

Clayton Shold at Salesopedia made me laugh while he did stuff to help my new book that was wwaaayyyy beyond the call of duty. Avril Shelton has been an angel, appearing softly to lend a hand at all of the right moments.  Anne Miller kept me honest and reminded me of what I was forgetting. Paul Mccord and Meri Aaron Walker kept me present. Craig Rosenberg, Gerhard Gshwandtner, David Friedland and Stone Payton reminded me of who I really am and sometimes kept me going when I wanted to go back to bed. Alan Chapman has believed in me and kept advertising about me for years and years and years.

And so many other wonderful, kind, caring folks who believe in Buying Facilitation™. Thanks everyone. You are the best!

Without these angels, not only would the book not have gotten written in the months I spent writing it, but it wouldn’t have gotten the recognition or air time that it’s now getting world wide. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

Here are some podcasts from the previous weeks that I have made with my friends: Lee Glickstein (Relational Presence), Clayton Shold (Why Sales Fail), Lee Colan (Leadership), Jeff Ogden (Buying Facilitation™)

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For those of you still interested in purchasing Dirty Little Secrets, go here. Remember that Amazon is only selling it in the U.S. For international orders, order from us.

Thanks everyone is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

For those of you entering into the ‘book marketing’ business, let me offer a few tips. First: you need partners. Lots and lots of partners. I became a demon – writing to everyone on all of my lists…all the time. My wonderful tech guy Shawn Dibble helped me design, send, and create the materials I needed so I had everything I needed as soon as I realized I needed it.

I began my marketing as soon as I started writing. I sent out early chapters to dozens and dozens of people: some friends, some colleagues, some competitors, some clients. I got feedback, buddies who hung with me through changes and corrections, and folks who ultimately became demons at helping me promote the book they watched grow up. It gave me other brains to think with, other viewpoints from the field, areas of problems, new ways to look at book organization. And I didn’t feel so alone.

Next: I created some nifty tool kits to help people help me promote. After all, if I’m going to ask people to ‘work’ for me, the least I can do is make it easy for them. So I developed a kit with automatic tweets, different sized blog posts, an ‘interview’ with me, etc. Brainless and painless. As a result, with a flick of the wrist, people could lend a hand and help me market without having to take time from their days.  Btw, here is my kit. Cool, right?

Then, I began contacting folks on the web who I thought would be willing to partner with me. My very favorite (other than some scheduled radio interviews with Stone Payton and Erik Wolf, plus the numerous podcasts I’m doing with colleagues – see my calendar) is MaestroConference. They have this truly super-cool conference site that allows people to get into chat groups during  on-line meetings, have large group discussions and ask questions, etc. I believe this state-of-the-art product will be endemic and used by every major corporation someday. As a marketing device, they’ve gotten a bunch of truly fabulous icons (my personal favorites are Diana Whitney and Marianne Williamson and Barbara Marx Hubbard)  to give free seminars so folks could meet the greats and get free time to trial MaestroConference.com at the same time. It’s a win-win. Here is a link to an invite for my free teleseminar Wednesday, Oct 14, noon PT.

Everything else I’ve done defies what we’re taught regarding marketing. I basically spoke to folks personally. Sometimes by email, sometimes by phone, sometimes by Skype conference if they were out of the country. I asked them how I could serve them, I did blogs on them (payFORWARD), I sent them copies of the unfinished, and often typo-laden manuscript, I had lots of people vote on the cover design, I called crying when frustrated by a horrid editor, an irresponsible layout designer and a proofer who should have had his fingers chopped off. By the way, if you want the names of these folks so you can avoid them, call me.

I collected testimonials from everyone who in any way read any part of the book. I gathered freebies to hand out for the book launch …net net net, I have made this all a community effort. People who I never knew have introduced me to others. People who I never liked became my friends. People who I didn’t know well put in Herculean efforts because they believed in me – and I didn’t even know them! Some folks put together groups of us to help each other through our book writing. People who didn’t think sales needed to change are now converts. Along the way I even got work.

And I have a very special ‘Thank You’ to the folks at BookSurge.com, the POD arm of Amazon.com. I decided to self-publish this book because I didn’t want to wait 2 years for it to come out. And with the interesting personalities on my editorial/design team, I ended up interfacing with BookSurge far more than anyone expected. They came out smelling like a rose: they were supportive, creative, flexible, kind. They handed me off to higher ups when necessary and then circled back to make sure all was well. They did me favors, they stretched rules. I LOVE these folks. Every single solitary one of them. I would strongly, strongly recommend them over a conventional publishing house. Truly. So long as you’re willing to do the marketing on your own (which publishing houses rarely do for you anyway unless you’re Stephen King), call these folks. I give them a perfect 10. My rep is David Friedland. He’s amazingly gentle and supportive and professional and absolutely unflappable.

I am happy to report that I have come through the last 8 months a far more enriched person. Very Very Tired. But my book is far, far better because of the community of friends, the always-interesting feedback, the never-ending support and good will of everyone involved.

Thank you all. Together, we’ve made a great book.

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Listen to Sharon Drew Morgen speak on MaestroConference on Oct. 14 at 12P.M. PST

Check out my new book coming out October 15: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Read two free chapters. Sign up for presales deals, and announcements.

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, and is meant to be read alongside of the new book, Dirty Little Secrets.

Maestro, BookSurge, and Friends: writing and marketing “Dirty Little Secrets” is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

David Sandler called the buyer’s need ‘Pain.’ But think about it: If you broke your arm, would you wait weeks/months/years to get it fixed? Of course not. So how can buyers wait to resolve their need when it’s so obvious (to us, of course) that using our solution would create a state of excellence that they are not experiencing?

Because of their system. The system that has created the ‘need’ is the same system that is holding it in place. Think about any extra weight you might have, or your inability to stop smoking, or your reluctance to work out as much as you know you should, or eat healthier. You’ve been talking about managing those issues for…for how long?? SOOO why aren’t you? You have the need, right? You have the “pain,” right? What’s the deal?

You will change – just like your buyer – when the system you live in (your work hours, your family issues, your identity and ego issues) is willing to be or do something different. Having a great gym near-by, having great clothes a size smaller, having a doc tell you you must shape up – none of those things are enough to get you to change (or you would have).

Unfortunately, sales only manages the need/solution part of a buyer’s buying decision, and has no tool kit to help the buyer recognize and manage the off-line, behind-the-scenes issues that must be addressed before the system is willing to make a change. Is the other department ready to bring in a new X? What about the old vendor? How will the team know how to choose between resolving This problem or That?

Sales doesn’t manage those issues. But decision facilitation does: Buying Facilitation™ is a change management, decision facilitation model that is NOT SALES but is a model sellers can use to help buyers recognize and manage their internal issues in order to insure buy-in for change. Just like you won’t lose weight, or work out more, or eat healthier unless you have internal buy-in (we don’t make decisions to change based on good data, or someone else’s opinion), so buyers won’t buy until they know that their system will remain intact and healthy after the addition of the new solution.

Buyers will buy when the team buys-in to adding something new and getting rid of the old, when it’s clear the regular vendor can’t do the fix, when the other departments know how they are going to work alongside of the new solution. Sales doesn’t handle these issues, causing us to wait forever for buyers to decide, or to lose really good prospects that seemed a good fit.

Have a look at some chapters in my new book Dirty Little Secrets coming out October 15. I hope you like them. In addition, I’ll be doing a book launch for the entire week, with podcasts, radio shows, guest bloggers, etc. and wonderful freebies from good friends like Tony Parinello, Jill Konrath, Alen Majer, Anne Miller, and Lee Glickstein.

How would you know that adding a new skill set would help you get the results you deserve? Stay tuned!

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When Does A Buyer Buy? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

My friend Jill Konrath has a passion for helping people get back to work. She has a site, Get Back To Work Faster that includes all-things-necessary to get a job – articles about job search and interviewing techniques, services to help you find appropriate companies to interview with, job market reports, using the internet to find a job and find networks that will help.

The site is filled with handy, necessary, creative job hunting support tools. It’s all free. And her stuff is fresh and thoughtful.

In fact, Jill is inviting you to attend a free webinar on “How to get a job when no one is hiring.” Tell your friends about it who are job hunting.

And, her book Get Back to Work Faster will be out in the fall, but she’s offering it for FREE now as a download.

Now that I’ve introduced you to Jill – the job maven, let me also introduce you to Jill – the sales maven.

Jill (a best selling author of the book Selling to Big Companies) is one of the sales folks whose work I admire enormously. She is the only person I know whose work is a link between mine and typical sales.

Jill talks/writes about the buying decision, and thoughtfully introduces some top notch thinking and models to give small-medium business owners tools to help buyers buy.

While it doesn’t go as far as my Buying Facilitation™ model does to engage the off-line, hidden,  personal buy in issues necessary for buyers to address before making a purchase, she goes farther than anyone else I know in understanding the importance of influencing the non-solution  end of a sale.

I respect her and her work greatly. Whether you need a job, or are a small business needing some help to close sales, have a look at her sites. I’m so lucky she’s my friend.

Check out her site: Selling To Big Companies

Do You Need A Job? Let Jill Konrath Help. is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com