When I began talking about ‘helping buyers buy’, or ‘decision facilitation’ in 1988, people thought I was a bit eccentric, to say the least. “I help buyers buy too,” I used to hear. “I find out what they need, position my solution in a way they understand that it will resolve their pain, and give [...]

Sales has been around since the Serpent convinced Eve to eat the apple. And, unfortunately, the goals have remained pretty much the same ever since.
The sales model was designed for a different time in history, when there were fewer decision makers and products could be easily described in a magazine ad. With the advent of [...]

You’ve done your homework. You’ve found the right buyers – prospects with needs you can fulfill and can afford your solution. You’ve nurtured them, contacted them, met with them, scored them, pitched them, networked with them, sent them gifts. But only a small fraction buy.
Where do they go?
Industry lore believes that 80% of your prospects will purchase [...]

Sales people get confused when I suggest they can’t ’understand’ the buyer’s needs if they approach a sale with this outcome. Without everyone on board who will lend their voice to a possible solution, buyers cannot understand it themselves. And using the sales model, we can’t help: we’ll never understand what’s going on behind-the-scenes as they figure out who should be involved, what must be [...]

When you think about your numbers (closing percentages, total calls, etc.), and consider the objections, the price issues, the delayed sales cycles, the excuses, and those who just, well, disappear, don’t you realize these same problems have been cropping up, um, forever? And that whatever you seem to be doing to ‘correct’ the issue doesn’t seem to [...]

Science, sales, negotiating, and the prison system – not to mention neuromarketing, neurosciences, and decision making sciences – have a base-line belief  that there is a ‘rational’ way to recognize choice -  rationality assumed when the ‘appropriate information’ is available to decide with.
In other words, when choices are made that go against what the world [...]