RSSA buying decision is based on more than need.
Mar 12, 2010 Sales Related
Because the ultimate goal of sales is product placement, technology, presentations, pitches, and information gathering are based on discovering prospects with appropriate needs to fit the solution.
That means your questions are biased, the answers are biased, and the data you get is such a small subset of the necessary data that precludes buying decisions that sellers end up making costly assumptions: they’ll close ’soon,’ the buyer is a ‘hot prospect,’ for example. It makes it so difficult for sales managers to predict the real pipeline, and for sellers to know who to spend time with.
Think about it: when your baseline assumption is that just because you’ve ‘uncovered a need’ that you have a prospect, you have no idea who is really going to buy, or you would have closed a lot more business.
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Tags: buying decision, sales, status quo
Facilitating Buying Decisions: a definition
Mar 8, 2010 Sales Related, Top Posts
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Recently, I’ve noticed many folks using the term ‘facilitating buying decisions.’ First, let me state that we have a program by that title, that can be licensed to train in companies. It’s a very fun program, teaching sellers how to sit in a buyer’s seat and learn every aspect of how they choose vendors and solutions. Learners not only learn how their buyer’s buy, but I teach them the 6 most powerful Facilitative Questions to help buyers make a decision in their favor. Here’s a preview of one of the questions: How would you and your Buying Decision Team know when it was time to bring in an additional resource that will fit with the ones you’re currently using?
Tags: Decision Facilitation, Dirty Little Secrets, Facilitating Buying Decisions, Facilitative Question, GPS system, neutral navigator, sales
Make the Phone your Best Friend
Mar 1, 2010 Sales Related
Do you believe that to close a sale you must ‘get in front of prospects?’ Why? Really. Have you ever asked yourself why? Do you tell yourself that you MUST have that eye contact? That ‘face-to-face’ juice? Do you tell yourself that if you’re not in the field, you’re not selling?
In 1937, Dale Carnegie advocated it. What else are you using from a 1937 playbook?
Untold billions of dollars have been misspent following this industry-wide belief: planes, hotels, time. And? The industry still has a 7% average close rate.
Here is a rule: Don’t use your body as a prospecting tool.
Here is a secret: your sterling personality, your great outfit, your Rolex watch and Prada shoes don’t close an account. Nor does your great insight or knowledge of the buyer, their need, your industry, or your solution. Nor does that great rapport you create over lunch. Otherwise, you would be closing a lot more sales. Amazing how much push-back I get from an industry with such a low success rate.
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Tags: buying decision team, closing, identified problem, phone, sales
Why Do We Blame Buyers?
Feb 19, 2010 Sales Related
I once told a group that I was going to title a book I’d Close More Sales if it Weren’t for the Buyer. I got a standing ovation! And I assumed I’d get a laugh. That’s like saying ‘I would have had a better birth experience if it weren’t for my mother.’
Why do we assume buyers are, um, stupid? Because it’s obvious to us they should buy. From where we stand, it seems we have THE perfect fit – the right solution at the right price, filling the right need, and the right relationship.
But we consistently forget that a buyer’s problem is not an isolated event, and it sits within the buyer’s environment – their system, if you will – all mashed up with a bunch of unknown and unknowable other elements that not only hold it in place, but maintain it daily.
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Tags: buyers, Dirty Little Secrets, managers, needs, pitching, prospects, sales, solutions, systems
The Basis of Sales Has Remained Stagnant
Feb 15, 2010 Sales Related, Top Posts
Did I get your attention? Good. Because I’m serious.
Most of you would laugh, tell me I’m wrong, that the sales model has been shifting and that the Internet has ‘changed everything.’ But what, exactly, has it changed?
I believe that basically, sales has not changed since the beginning. Sure, the bells and whistles have changed: it’s far, far easier to get leads and interest; it’s much simpler to get your message out; it’s much quicker to find out whatever you need to find out about prospects. It seems to appear as if buyer’s buying decisions are different (they aren’t, we just know more). But all of this leads to… leads to what?
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Tags: buyer, buying decision, Buying Facilitation®, sales
Lead Gen isn’t enough
Feb 5, 2010 Sales Related
Do you spend a lot of time collecting names that might be prospects?
Do you spend a lot of money learning how to follow prospects on line, so you can guess where they are in the decision making process?
Has all of this activity substantially increased your ROI?
What you’re forgetting – or ignoring – is that no matter what information the buyer needs, or how often they (and their colleagues) visit your site, or how deftly follow their activity with your ability to track ‘Digital Body Language,’ at the end of the day, you will not be there when they sit down to decide. Nope. The internal decisions that buyers make to choose a solution, to decide to make a change, to select one vendor or solution over another, are off-line. That’s right: you are not there when two department heads have an arguement about which vendor they prefer, or when the tech folks start clamoring to take over a project, or when a partner shows up with a good-enough solution.
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