RSSBe The GPS For Your Buyer
Oct 26, 2009 Sales Related, Top Posts
Buyers have two identifiable responsibilities:
- maneuver through their internal, behind-the-scenes buy-in issues to ensure a trouble-free change process, and
- choose a solution that will address their stakeholder’s criteria for systems excellence while maintaining the integrity of the system.
Sales addresses one of these jobs, but not the other. In fact, we’ve never been taught the skills to help with the off-line issues buyers address: as per the explanations and skills offered in my new book Dirty Little Secrets, helping buyers maneuver through their off-line buy-in issues requires a wholly different skill set.
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Tags: behind-the-scenes, buyer, gps, off-line, stakeholders
“Dirty Little Secrets” launches tomorrow: 3 more secrets unveiled
Oct 14, 2009 Sales Related
Yesterday I gave you 3 ’secrets’ from the Conclusion of my new book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.
An answers for those of you who have asked how this book differs from some of my other books, and then I’ll give you 3 more ’secrets.’
This book is very very different from Sales on the Line, Selling with Integrity and Buying Facilitation®. While those books talk about the buying decision process as being separate from the sales process and introduce some new skills, none of my previous books delve into exactly, EXACTLY what happens behind the scenes. I have thoroughly explained
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Tags: behind-the-scenes, book, Buy-In, buyer, change, Dirty Little Secrets, information, internal systems, off-line, solution
Cold Calling Works – and it’s fun!
Sep 28, 2009 Sales Related
I’m here to tell you that cold calling can be one of the most effective ways to meet new prospects. And a whole lotta fun.
I know, I know. Most sellers eschew cold calling, preferring instead to network, get referrals, golf, meet face-to-face.
Did you ever ask yourself why?
We can think historically: Dale Carnegie, in How to win friends and influence people published in 1937, told us to meet prospects in person (and his choices then were….. were what?). We can think about trying to ‘get through’ the gatekeeper. We can think about trying to gather information or pitch product with no ability to understand or share personal expressions on a phone.
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Tags: behind-the-scenes, buying decision team, Buying Facilitation®, cold calls, off-line, prospects
Managing Off-Line Decisions
Aug 28, 2009 Decisioning & Change Management
Where do our prospects go when they say, “I’ll call you back?” Most of us guess, but really, we don’t know where they go.
Where they go, in fact, is to get ahold of their colleagues and figure out how to get agreement for whatever outcomes the new solution will cause within the buyer’s environment. We rarely think that way as sellers: we see a problem, figure out if we have the appropriate solution, and go forth, fearlessly, to match the need with the solution.
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Tags: behind-the-scenes, budget, need, off-line, sales, solution
How To Listen To A Buyer
Aug 24, 2009 Sales Related
Until or unless buyers know how to manage the tangles of people and policies that hold their Identified Problem in place, they will not make a purchase no matter how urgent their need or how appropriate your solution.
Because sales unwittingly focuses on the very last stages of the buyer’s buying decision, sellers are trained to listen carefully for all of the details around ’need.’ Once sellers understand how their solution would fit into the ‘need’ or the ‘pain’, they work hard to advantageously place their product/service information so buyers will know how to buy. Which they do, around 7% of the time.
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Tags: behind-the-scenes, Buying Facilitation®, Decision Facilitation, listening, off-line, sales, solution
