You think you know what your problem is. But you don’t know what it is. And that is a problem!

Whenever I work with sales teams I will ask them what their sales process is. They’ll usually say something like ‘lead generation, meet with prospect, identify the problem, propose a solution, keep pushing (and offering more “value”) until they decide.’

Though there is something inherently wrong with that whole process, the problem I’d like to talk about today is “problems” themselves.

The Salesperson’s Problem

Today salespeople are being pushed hard by their companies. They have to deliver ever increasing sales quotas with less and less support. So they fear wasting any time with a prospect.

To that end, when they get into the “identify the problem” stage of the sales process they look for the first “problem” the client presents, at which point the salesperson kicks out a solution-proposal and is off to the next appointment.

Will they win most of the proposals they put out there? No. in fact they will get anywhere from 5% to 15% if they are lucky. Such low closing ratios only increase the belief that they need to see “more prospects”.  After all with such miserable ratios, how else are they supposed to make quota?

The Problem with Solving Problems

But let’s step back and look at this logically. The client obviously had the salesperson in because they believed that the salesperson could help them solve a problem. And the client will ultimately buy (or do) something to solve a problem. So, was the problem with the solution offered OR was the problem with the “problem” itself?

As I tell my clients, “people’s biggest problem is that they don’t know what their biggest problem is.” This means that the problem people tell you up front is not the deep problem they need or even want to solve.

A Story about Problems and Levels

A few years ago I was meeting with an HR manager. After we had built some rapport we began to discuss the problems of the company. She said their biggest issue was “turnover.”

“Turnover” is what I call a “Level One problem”. It is generic and meaningless. It describes a current result, not the real problem of the company and certainly not the real problem of the HR Manager. However, most salespeople would try to sell a “turnover” solution at this point…and they’d get shot down.

The Problems beneath the Surface

In this case “turnover” acted like one of those Russian nesting dolls (one inside the other) that held all of the deeper problems and kept them out of sight. In order to determine a useful solution for the HR Manager I had to open the “doll” and see the deeper problems.

I discovered that a deeper problem was the fact that they were suffering a large turnover in their mid-level managers. The average staying time of a newly hired mid-level manager was 18 months.

We were now at a Level Three or Four Problem.

As I continued, I found out that it cost $60,000 to hire each Manager, $25,000 to train them, and $150,000 to compensate them annually. This meant they were out $310,000 each time a manger left. And they had lost 12 managers a year for the last two years. A net loss of $7,440,000.

We were now at a Level Five or Six Problem.

Picking Apart the Problem Pile

The work teams in the company were built around these managers. Each time a manager left there was chaos in the team. There was also a lack of faith on the part of the team members every time a new manager was assigned to them.

This chaos and loss of faith had created a 10% drop in productivity in the teams, which meant a 10% drop in profitability. This equated to a $14,000,000 loss for them.

We were now at a Level Seven or Eight Problem.

The loss of productivity and profitability had lost them customers and, ultimately, led to them dropping from second place in their market to a distant fourth.

The Real Problem

We were at the Level Ten Problem for the company. However, I still had to get to her Level Ten Problem, so I kept asking questions.

Finally, I learned that they had already done two rounds of layoffs in the company.

The HR manager knew if things didn’t change soon there would be more layoffs. She realized her staff, all of whom were paid significantly less than she was, could cover her work if she was gone, so she knew she’d be gone in the next round of layoffs.

She was a single-mom of two boys, and she couldn’t afford to lose her job.

Now we were at her Level Ten Problem.

A New POV on the Problem

From this new vantage point, level ten versus level one, I was able to see a much bigger picture of what was going on, and the HR manager also had a new perspective. This allowed us to have a completely different conversation then she had with any other salesperson she’d spoken to and it allowed me to offer a different solution, which was accepted with little effort.

The moral here is that no one, not even you, knows what their “real problem” is. It takes an outsider with the curiosity, compassion and, most importantly, patience to help us see it.

So, forget about trying to meet with 10 prospects so you can propose 10 solutions to 10 problems. Instead focus on one prospect and take their “problem” 10 levels deep.

—–

Erik Luhrs is the author of BE DO SALE and the creator of The GURUS Selling System.

Guest Post: You know what your problem is? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

When my book, Selling with Integrity, made it to the NYTimes Business Best Seller’s list, I was ecstatic. I called my Mom. She was non-plussed. “You announced on your eleventh birthday that you were going to be a best selling author. Other kids your age wanted to be movie stars or cowboys. But you always loved writing. Knowing how driven you’ve always been, it was always a matter of time – not if, but when.”

To date, I’ve published probably 800 or more articles, 8 books, and have contributed to about half a dozen other books. I wrote an 8 page newsletter every month for 9 years (exhausting); I write a blog 5 days a week now.  And I just finished a book. A whopper of a book, I might add.

In all of my years of writing, I have never had a writing experience like my current one. For this book, I decided to say what I always wanted to say. [Since I turned 60, everything has a special, new meaning. I take nothing casually, I say what I mean (and mean what I say) and I'm easier to anger and to apologize - I am both impatient with bullshit, and expansive with empathy (go figure that one out!).]

I have always been frustrated with how wonderful sales folks end up being abused by the very incomplete sales model. I have always been annoyed that people try to get others to change by using logic and information, when change happens personally and internally – not because of logical data. I have always been confounded by the waste of great sales folks who can be performing a wonderful spiritual function with both buyers and their companies, but are mired in ‘sales’ skills and don’t know how to go beyond them.

So I decided to say exactly what I wanted to say. No care if the book were purchased, or if it was a hit. I wrote this book for me. And I wrote my heart out, seeking to right all wrongs in sales, teach folks how to help others change with integrity, offer skills and tools so we could all serve each other. I wrote from sun-up to sun-up for months on end, with no days off. I was driven.

Until the end of the process when I collapsed and realized the errors I’d made. The good thing I did was to self-publish so I could do it all my way (good idea I think). But then I hired the team from hell. My long-time editor who edited most of my previous books took some sort of turn, and tried to get me to rewrite the books I’d already written. My layout designer made so many errors that after the book was re-re printed, there were still design errors that showed up that he never caught. And the very worst was the proofreader, who left me with over 200 errors in punctuation that he should have caught (I have a bad habit of using too many colons).

So I had to catch everything myself. And my long-suffering friends who were kind enough to take chapters to read for me as I lost my ability to see clearly with my exhaustion.I would have loved to have fired the lot of them. But my choices were limited: Once I was committed to THAT editor and THAT designer and THAT proofer, I had to continue or start again. And I was so psychically, spiritually tired that I didn’t have the ability to do that. And I’ve had to pick up everyone’s mess and try to remain calm and clear enough to fix what had to be fixed, even if it means a late book launch.

What is the lesson here? I don’t know yet. I just submitted my last last last round of edits on an already re-printed copy of the ‘final’ book. Amazing how one little book can have so many tiny errors — that no one else was able to find, regarless of their job descriptions.

Now the book is complete. I can only pray people like it. I believe it’s good – I took such care unravelling how change happens and how to explain it in a simple, fun, way. A complement I just got from a reader was that it was like reading a mystery novel – that he couldn’t stop turning the pages to discover the next new idea, and then the next, and the next. I hope it’s good. But mostly, at this moment, I’m relieved to be finished. I thought I was finished last week, and the week before. But now, no matter what, I’m done.

If you buy my book and you find some typos, please kiss them for me. Have empathy for all those things in life that we want so badly that our teeth hurt, and can’t always accomplish. Say a prayer for all of us who want it all, and accept what we have with great vulnerability.

But know, in the words and pages, that I am honored that you are reading my book, hopeful that some of my ideas might support you in being all you can be, and so pleased that I have a voice that is heard – even if my words may be imperfect.

Thank you all for making it possible to write books that people read. And I sure hope you enjoy my new one. Typos and all.

sd

Listen to Sharon Drew Morgen speak on MaestroConference on Oct. 14.

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 inluences 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 clien

Finishing My Book With Humility And Hope is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I thought I would write a brief sales book that announced my anger at the sales model for being so unruly, for allowing so much failure. So many sales people end up wasting so much time, not to mention buyers not getting what they deserve. I thought that I’d just have a good-old rant for 100 pages or so.

But once I got started, I realized that maybe, just maybe, it was the time to actually share the full range of ideas, theories, rules and learnings that I’ve gleaned over the past 20 years of developing, teaching and writing about Buying Facilitation™. Of course I’ve written many books on it, and they all still sell, but I’ve never systematically collected my theories and thoughts on change, systems, decision making, choice, serving, and sales, and put forth my entire dynamic model that deeply serves buyers AND sellers, and makes sure everyone gets what they need and want. And I’ve never before explained my ideas about the change management that buyers – or anyone - must go through before deciding to resolve a problem.

I teach this on client sites, and use the material in coaching, but I’ve never written it all down. Until now.

Now I guess I have an oeuvre. I feel like I’ve given birth. I don’t have the feeling of joy that I had when I first saw my son when he was born, or the feeling of relief when my other books were finished. This time it’s more of an awe that something so powerful came out of me in spite of  (or maybe because of) my limitations.

As I proof and reproof the pages one last time before the book goes to the printer, I find myself surprised that I was actually capable of saying what I deeply believe and know to be true: that underneath any decision that anyone makes, their must be agreement from deep within their ‘system’ or change can’t happen; that information doesn’t teach anyone how to make a new decision; that buyers don’t know what their journey will be when they begin the process of seeking a solution; that sellers cannot be part of the buyer’s off-line decision process; that with a new skill set, sellers can truly serve buyers and get better results.

I put these ideas together with systems thinking and decision making, and turned the book into a microscopic view of change and decision making. I’m proud, and a bit surprised that I actually got it all down in a cogent whole.

While I’ve taught this stuff in classrooms, I’ve not always been willing to say what I believe because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be accepted in my field, that I would lose credibility for saying the Emperor had no clothes. Although I’ve been talking about helping buyers buy for over 20 years, and writing books on decision facilitation and buying decisions since 1992, I have shied away from the hard hitting premise: that the sales model just does not handle much of the buyer’s off-line decision process.

During one of my editing bouts, my editor (who has edited all of my previous books) called me. “I just have one question,” she said. “I don’t understand something. If sales is this inefficient, and sellers spend this sort of time with those sorts of results, why didn’t someone come along and change the model before now? And why has it taken you decades to get them to want to add a new capability?”

There is no answer to those questions, of course. It just takes the time it takes to change a long-held model that’s been around since the serpent convinced Eve to eat the apple. But it’s happening now. Change is happening. And my new book brings the future vision and capability into every sellers hands. Thinking back, it’s quite astonishing to me that I’ve persisted with my viewpoint in the face of almost universal disapproval, knowing that I had an important piece of the puzzle. I think it was Margaret Mead who said that change only needed one (crazy) person with an idea.

So now I can rest. Now I can write my next book about something else. I took everything that was in my head and put it to paper in a way that’s readable, understandable, and interesting. I’ve said exactly what I wanted to say – I’ve held nothing back as I have for decades.

And I’m tired. And complete. Just like when I took a nap after giving birth to my son. In awe of my miracle and the role I played in it, and feeling happy in the accomplishment. And very tired at the effort. And curious as to  what it will become.

sd

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.

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. I’ll be doing a webinar on the material close to the launch date, so stay tuned.

Or have a look at my book Buying Facilitation:the new way to sell that inluences 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.

Birthing A Book is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

My return flight was one of those effortless flights that make travel fun – even KLM was on its best behavior. Every flight was on time; there wasn’t a cloud to be seen anywhere, with great views of the glaciers in Iceland. Interesting seatmates: a woman who was returning from Germany after buying her 17 year old son a $70,000 Beemer (!?!) because he was a good kid and studied hard (Work after school to pay for his own gas?? Why?); a Republican business man who loves the interesting Governor of Texas, Rick Perry (Sometimes my asperger’s coaching does me well – I was able to smile sweetly and change the subject instead of say what was sooo close to the tip of my tongue.). An American who worked on the rigs off shore. Nice folks all around being helpful and kind to each other. Darling babies running around airports.

I even spent a very memorable evening (the parts that I remember) getting sloshed with my client who took me to The Scotch Malt Whiskey Society where I was given Innis and Gunn (a beer made from the whiskey cask… you’ll have to ask him to explain it) BEFORE drinking the single malt whiskeys, to prepare my palate for the different whiskeys I was given to try. Just don’t ask me how many because I have no idea…. What I do remember is that the whiskey they serve there is only made once, in one cask, and then never again.

I’ve been so immersed in writing my new book without a day off since March, that I forgot what it was like to be a human. Although I did 6 hours of final page proofing on the flight across the pond (What are long flights for anyway?), I did manage to have 4 days of plays and music in Scotland (and haggis for dinner every single night!!) which gave me the ability to see the world again through bright eyes.

Work is necessary, of course. But I must remember to take regular time off to smell the flowers. Believe it or not, I am not a workaholic: this book project just took me over. But now I’m free. Back to dancing regularly, having weekends off to play with friends, and evenings off to do whatever I want.

I guess it took this trip to make me appreciate what life is all about: good people, good theater, and an endless supply of haggis. Oh. And occassional malt whiskey.

Good night…

sd

Thoughts From A Weary Traveler is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I am in the throws of doing final edits on my new book The Dirty Little Secret: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it and would love you to read a chapter. Many of you have been reading my books since the first book (“Sales on the Line” – still in print)  came out 17 years ago; I’d now like to add your stories about facilitating buying decisions to the book.

This book takes my previous books to the next level, into the realm of systems management, decision facilitation, and servant-leadership. It shows what internal decisions need to get made and why, who needs to buy in and why, how a ‘need’ got to be a ‘need’ to begin with and why it’s kept in place rather than be resolved, and why buyer’s systems fight to maintain their status quo. And, importantly, it explains why sales is so inefficient.  It actually offers the tools to

1. help buyers understand, manage, and resolve the complexities of their buying decision process;
2. lead buyers through their unique process of generating systems buy-in to ensure that the internal people, policies, rules, and initiatives are ready, willing, and able to adopt a new solution;
3. adds a new dimension to sales that has been lacking.

The book goes well beyond sales: our sales model doesn’t help buyers figure out how to attain the internal buy-in (based on the rules and roles of the culture – not on ‘need’) necessary for a buying decision. They have to do this anyway, and because sales doesn’t manage this, they do it on their own while we sit and keep our fingers crossed until they return with a purchase order.

It’s where buyers go when they say ‘I’ll call you back.” Or when they can’t see a need which seems obvious to us. Or when they can’t differentiate us from our competitors. Or when they take forever to close when it seems it should be simple. And the time it takes them to do it is the length of the sales cycle.

One of my favorite things about the book is that it offers a cool Case Study that shows every angle of a sale – from both buyer’s side and sellers, including all of the delays, the internal decisions, the personal/relationship problems. And then I take the same Case Study using Buying Facilitation and show the differences. The time to close is reduced to 1/3 for starters. Not to mention another 1/3 more prospects are discovered.

If I’ve gotten you curious, you can read one chapter of the book here. Also, please send me stories about how  you actually facilitated a buying decision (separate from closing a sale) and I’ll include them in the new book. Send to my private email address: sharondrew@newsalesparadigm.com or just comment on this blog.

I look forward to our journey – and thanks for your encouragement. Because of your love and support, my thinking has grown richer and I’ve learned how to serve you better. Thanks for joining me in making the field of sales a values-filled profession.

Why Buyers Can’t Buy And Sellers Can’t Sell is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

In it, they suggest:

• let your gut have a say in your decision making;
• attend to what’s important, and know the difference between what’s important and what’s not;
• stand back, slow down, and understand the big picture;
• listen to yourself and listen to others (No. Really.);
• success means helping others.

The book is a deeply values-based look at how to be in integrity with yourself so you show up as an authentic person, and really, really be present.

Imagine if we all did that – instead of the DO-ing DO-ing that we DO. There is one catch though: just like our buyers can’t always understand, at first, the full range of their internal, hidden issues they need to manage prior to buying-in to change, we can’t always know how to make the changes we need to make to be more successful.

Sometimes making a behavioral change works just fine. Sometimes – especially if it’s a more complicate shift that affects our identity – some sort of belief change needs to happen for a permanent change to take place.

Whether it’s the desire to make more money, or take better care of yourself, or give more to your community, new activity demands new choices. And our old choices keep telling us they are perfectly happy as they are, thank you very much.

In order to change – like we ask our buyers to do when we suggest they bring in our solution – the underlying belief system that has kept us where we are needs to be willing and able to change. Couch potato? Change to new belief: Now you ARE a healthy person, and that means you work out and watch what you eat! Always use your internal training department to design all of your training? Change to new belief: Maybe it’s time to bring in fresh ideas and training styles and work with other vendors to expand capability.

Every change, no matter how big or small, involves a series of decisions that not only uncover the tangled web of elements in the status quo that maintain it, but teach the old how to accept the new with integrity and grace.

Not recognizing the complexity of the decisions that buyers must make has kept our sales efforts less than successful. Just as we need to make some underlying belief shifts to change personally, so you’re going to have to do that to change your sales.

Start with Colan and Cottrell’s ideas, and begin the process of understanding how to change yourself. It will give you a good idea about how to understand and serve your buyers better.

http://www.thelgroup.com/

Winners Always Quit – Book Review is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I’m writing everyone to reconnect after several months of no contact.

As they say, “Sheeee’s Back!” But this time, with some new offerings. And regular blog posts J I’ve been listed as having one of the top 10 blogs, so please make sure you come back often.

BLOG

My new blog will focus on introducing new ideas from sales books and blogs, and doing interviews, podcasts, and webinars with colleagues in sales, marketing, authenticity in business, outsourcing, MLM, banking – folks whose ideas I find interesting and integrity-filled. My hope is that with this type of support, you’ll be intrigued enough about ‘the dirty little secret’ that you might want to buy it. Stay tuned to see the sorts of offers and offerings I’ll make available for those of you interested in my new book.

I’ll also be counting on you to make comments, and start discussions. What fun we can have! And because the blog will be linked to my friends and colleagues – some of whom are in conventional sales, but all of whom act from a place of integrity – you will have plenty of ideas to help you with your success.

I’ll be sending one blog post a week, and if you want to receive them through RSS feed automatically, you can sign up on the site. For those of you who want to opt out, please unsubscribe below.

NEW BOOK

Why does sales have such a high failure rate? And what can we do about it. My new book will be coming out soon – The Dirty Little Secret: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it – and I’ll be discussing some of the ideas in it:

• why sales is a failed model and how to include the first half of the buying decision in your selling effort;
• how we can help buyers buy by helping them manage their internal, implicit, decisions;
• how the system that has created (and maintains) a buyer’s ‘need’ must be managed in order for them to buy anything;
• how buyers decide and how to help them decide to choose you;
• systems: what are the elements in a buyer’s system, how it can be influenced, and where ‘need’ sits;
• how it’s possible to close a helluva lot more sales, get rid of those prospects who won’t ever buy, and halve the sales cycle (but not with the typical selling model);
• how to be true servant leaders to our customers and work with an integrity/values foundation.

The Dirty Little Secret: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it is my most ambitious book to date, and includes a very complete Case History of a sale, and an alternate scenario that shows what’s possible when the top half of sales (the buying decision half) gets added to the sales model.

I think you’ll like it, and for those of you who haven’t bought my ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions, you might want to get it before the new one comes out as they are companion books.

Thank you for your care. If there is anything I can do for you to help facilitate your success, please let me know.

I look forward to our time together.

Sharon Drew

Catch Up: Blogging With Colleagues, New Book Introduction is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

What a waste – not only for sellers, but for buyers.

This doesn’t need to happen. Sales is just an incomplete model that we’ve accepted as the way to place our products. It works only at the product decision end of the equation (vs. Buying Facilitation™, my model that manages the buying decision end of the equation), with no ability to guide buyers through their tangle of stuff’ that needs to get figured out before they can make a buying decision. It’s where prospects go when they say, “I’ll call you back.” They have to make sure all of the people and policies that touch the Identified Problem are in agreement, that old vendor issues and relationships are handled, that historic problems are managed. Unfortunately for us, sales doesn’t help with this aspect of the seller-buyer equation and buyers need to do this on their own.

Unfortunately for them, buyers don’t initially know the route through all of their decisions either. And we meet them far too early in their decision process, leaving us waiting to close and not knowing what’s going on. After all, their need and our solution seem to be a match – but it takes so long for them to decide! What is the problem!

So we sit and wait. And 90% of the prospects don’t come back. Not because our product isn’t good, or because our solution doesn’t match their need. It’s because their internal issues haven’t been resolved, and buyers won’t buy until they are. They can’t: they must maintain the integrity of their environment even if it means they don’t resolve their need.

Sales doesn’t offer us the tools to help guide them through the route to all of those decisions: it’s certainly difficult for sellers to understand the buyer’s buy-in issues, management decisions, technology factors. But it’s quite possible to have an understanding of the decision making process – the route that buyers must make through their unique decision criteria – and recalibrate our jobs to be not only solution providers, but neutral navigators – Buying Facilitators if you will – much like a buddy to a sight-impaired friend who knows where they want to go but doesn’t know the exact route to get there.

By focusing on the buying decision end of the equation, sales can be closed in months rather than years, weeks rather than months, and sellers can stop wasting so much of their time. And failing so often. Imagine if doctors or baseball players had the same failure rate!

Imagine if we could lead buyers through all of their unconscious decision criteria, help them discover who needs to buy-in to a new solution, and help them build our product into their solution design. Imagine.

Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Why is a 90% failure rate ok? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

For those of you who have been following my work, you know how I feel about conventional sales (i.e. all sales as we’ve known it): because the basic sales model is based on placing product (ok, ok, on discovering need, making nice, finding a solution…. but net net placing product, right!?) and the underlying systems issues don’t get managed, sales is an outside-in model. And systems spend so much time rejecting anything from the outside, that sales only closes appx 7% (from first call.  And for those of you who think you close, say, 15% (from first prospecting call), you STILL waste 85% of your time!!!).

What this means is that sales doesn’t give sellers the ability to manage all of the different people/roles/rules/politics, etc. that created and maintain the Identified Problem to begin with, and until those issues are managed, no purchase will take place. btw this is where clients go when they say ‘i’ll call you back’. But sales hasn’t been able to follow them there, or know what’s going on. Buying Facilitation manages all that.

Anyway, with this economy, buyers have no idea how to say ‘yes’ because there are new stakeholders and decision makers, edicts going around saying that all non-essential purchases are to wait,  and everyone feels comfortable just saying NO. So they use their old work-around, aren’t buying anything, and don’t know how to decide to do anything different cuz the ramifications are too high.

Enter Buying Facilitation. When sellers learn how to truly, truly serve their buyers by learning a new skill of truly helping them manage all of their internal systems decisions and use their knowledge and care (and skills they learn as part of Buying Facilitation) to support all of the internal buying decisions, they can resposition themselves a true Consultants. So instead of trying to sell product now, use this time to get onto the Buying Decision Team and either help new decisions get made or be there when the decisions get made.

But the skill, the outcome, the goal, and the job, are different from sales.

SO: my model is now an idea whose time has come, but it’s not positioned in the mainstream. How can I title this book so that the Visionaries and the CSR people and the paradigm busters still have interest AND I garner the interest of the mainstream sellers?

And, will sellers ever admit that what they are now doing – the skills they possess, and the outcomes they seek – are moot in this economy? If indeed they ever were valid (Buying Facilitation has a 35-40% close rate, with a 50% reduction in sales cycle, and a 30% increase in prospects in the pipeline). And I have tests on all this…

Call me. I think it’s time for sales to change. And I’ve got the tools to do it.

What Should I Title My New Book? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

In this environment of mystery, change, and transition, a product sale – especially one that follows your accustomed time/relationship trajectory – is unlikely. Business as usual no longer exists.

As the representatives of your company, you are uniquely positioned to gain access to buyers. Indeed, short of a new marketing initiative, you are the only representative of your company to be in a position to lead customers through this difficult time.

Use this time to develop a stronger bond with your clients – one that will not only help you close more sales, but will solidify your relationship with them, exhibit your ability to serve and be trustworthy and smart, and offer them the tools to make sense of their environment (outside of the sales focus). Not only will you differentiate yourself from the competition, but you’ll get sales that you wouldn’t have gotten, and put yourself on the buyer’s decision team for the future.

It’s time to help buyers take a good look at the elephant in front of them. It’s time to change the game, add new skills and change your job description from ‘seller’ to ‘decision strategist’. What the buyer needs is not your product or a new solution.

How Sales Must Shift In This Uncertain Economy is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com