To understand and influence the buyer’s buying decision process and all of the people, politics and relationships that buyers must manage internally to be ready to make a purchase, it’s necessary for sellers to learn a new language. Not the language of sales, but the language of decision making, the language of systems, and the language of change management.

The sales model disregards the complex issues – both human and corporate - that buyers must handle behind-the-scenes. It’s the tech guy not wanting to outsource, or the management team not wanting training, or the sales and marketing folks who can’t work together. Human issues regarding change, or ego, or relationships. And sales does not facilitate this.

WHAT IS A BUYING DECISION?

The majority of a buying decision takes place before the consideration of a solution or vendor and includes

• collecting an entire Buying Decision Team that includes all of the people and job functions that will touch the potential solution;
• figuring out how to incorporate all of the appropriate systems/people issues so that when bringing in something new, the status quo will be able to maintain itself;
• reviewing current work-arounds and current/favored vendors to ensure there is no possibility that familiar resources can resolve the problem;
• getting the appropriate buy-in from the appropriate people to ensure there is support for change, no sabotage, and internal creativity/leadership;
• the solution/vendor choice;
• agreements and implementation strategies to ensure success.

Until or unless these things happen, a buyer cannot buy. Regardless of their ‘need.’ This is where buyers go when they disappear. You can help them manage this – but  not with the sales model.

THE BOTTOM FUNNEL – DECISION MAKING and SOLUTION CHOICE

The problem, in terms of lost revenue, lost prospects, overlong sales cycles,  and leads that come in at the top funnel but do not ‘come out’ the bottom, is that sales doesn’t offer the capability to enter the complete decision journey: you don’t enter early enough in their buying process. Not to mention, people do not know what to do with solution  information if they haven’t already opened a place for change and you are wasting their time and yours by presenting solution data too early.

At the ‘top of the funnel‘ you’ve collected names. You don’t know if they are leads, or prospects, or buyers. In some instances, they don’t know either. But when you approach them, not only do you have no idea if your solution is really what they need (you are merely assuming and hoping) and will fit in with their status quo, but they most likely have no idea either.

Sometimes you get lucky and the prospect has done all of the work already. But this is merely 5% of the leads you have – the ones who are easy, who are ready to buy. So you are pushing for appointments, doing presentations and pitches, to 95% of the lead population who needs something more from us: help with the off-line end of the buying process.

There is a way to enter the buyer’s buying process earlier, and help them manage their behind-the-scenes issues. But it’s not called ‘sales’ and it’s not solution/need driven.

Buying Facilitation™ is a very different skill, with a different focus, than sales. It’s a decision facilitation model that works alongside of sales and actually helps buyers navigate through the early part of their internal decision journey, much like a GPS system helps drivers navigate their route.

Your choice is to sit and wait for them to accomplish this, or hope that your pushing, or presentation, or product pitch or price reduction will result in a sale. And entering the buying process on the very first call makes the entire process much quicker and far, far easier.

Only 1-6% of sales are now closing. Obviously something is going on that you are not handling or you’d be closing far more.

Learn a new skill set to add to the sales model, and first help buyers manage their buy-in, change management journey. Differentiate yourself. Enter the buying process at the beginning. Buyers have to do this anyway – with you or without you. Rather than sit and wait for them to do it, be the GPS system for the buying process, and help buyers buy.

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To learn more about the Buying Facilitation Method®, here are some learning tools:

• Learning Accelerators
• Guided Study program
• MP3s of Sharon Drew using Buying Facilitation™

The buyer’s buying process vs. the sales model: two divergent roads is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Indeed, I need to discover how I will choose my vendors.  What criteria will I use? And who on my team needs to make which decisions with me? I must figure these things out before data gathering – 0r sharing – is relevant.

I teach this stuff – and I don’t realize how vital it is until I am the buyer and feel what it feels like to be treated like I’m sitting here waiting for them to show up and open myself up to these strangers as if I knew and trusted them.

I had a chat with a friend today and we discussed how buyers are seeking data to make decisions with. So companies are making as much data as possible available on the net. But what, exactly, does that give the sellers? They are in the same position they were in when they did a lot of presentations, or wrote a lot of proposals: telling prospects they are terrific, that they have terrific data, and that they ask terrific questions.

Does this help the buyer buy? Well, yes and no. It helps the buyer buy only when they need that specific data set to move forward, or to offer their team mates as proof of concept, or when they are just beginning to gather data to see if a change or possible new solutions would offer them something. But what percentage of these people are buyers? No idea. When will they buy? Well, we know they can only buy when there is internal buy-in for change, regardless of how terrific a vendor or solution is, and regardless of how much ‘pain’ they are in. So all of this internet data is not helping the internal decision structure be more efficient because it doesn’t address the personal, political, and emotional issues going on behind-the-scenes.

One vendor sent me a 3 page testemonial showing how she was really ‘there’ for the client – but in a way I would never use her for. So I guess she’d be terrific for someone else, because I would need her for something different and I can’t close the belief gap.

As sellers, why do we focus on ourselves? Why do we think that being terrific is good enough to make a sale? When are we going to realize that before buyers can see how terrific we are and understand why and how and when to use us, that they have some internal work to do, privately? And sales just doesn’t manage this.

Who would we be if our jobs were to help buyers figure out how to make the decisions they need to make even before they might need information, or before they need to know how terrific we are?

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Why being terrific isn’t good enough to make a sale is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

On the sales end of the equation, you NEED to understand the prospect’s situation to make sure you are placing the appropriate solution in the right place. This same data will give you ability to fine-tune your presentation and pitch to ensure the buyer understand how your solution will fit in their environment. You also need to understand the buyer’s vision, and criteria for Excellence.

There is no way to truly understand anything else.

I know I”m bucking up against some resistance here, but hear me out. You will never understand the private, idiosyncratic issues going on within the buyer’s environment. You might ask questions about these things, hoping you’ll glean enough data to help you target your pitch. But if that worked, you would have closed a lot more sales. And, an outsider can never understand what is really going on inside of anyone else’s situation. There are relationship issues, company politics, history, working relationships, ego issues, rules, vendor issues, partner issues. An outsider can never ‘grok’ the import, the nuance, the residual feelings, the unconscious biases, that go on between people…especially people you don’t know and in groups you aren’t a part of.

I’ve been writing and speaking about the off-line decision issues for decades. This last year, folks are beginning to talk about them and start using the terms I’ve been using all along. Yesterday I got a cold call from a local vendor who actually had something I might be able to use. As the call was ending, I said I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about it now (book launch took over my time) but I’d take his number and call him when I was ready. He then said to me: “Can you please tell me when you’re going to make a decision?” I smiled, knowing he was probably told by a manager to start ‘finding out’ about people’s decision making (and knowing that my work had finally come into the mainstream of sales thinking) and didn’t have a clue what it meant or how to go about it.

Here is the rest of my conversation with the sales guy:

SDM: What will ‘knowing when I’m deciding’ give you?

Rep: What? I just need to know.

SDM: Why?

Rep: If you’re not going to be deciding within a month, I’ll call you back. Would a better question have been: Can I put you down for an order in a month?

This is a real conversation. Did the seller need to know when I was deciding? What would he have done with that data? What did he expect that question would do…make me commit? He never managed my issues: What did I need to know? How was I going to choose to buy?

Imagine if our new jobs as sellers include helping buyers understand how they will line up their internal, off-line decision issues – the people that need to be involved, the historic issues that must be resolved, the buy-in that must be encouraged - that need to take place so they are free to choose a solution. Not the issues involved with a purchasing decision, necessarily. Often, the internal issues have absolutely nothing to do with the buyer’s need, yet they must be handled.

Here is a simple way to look at the new skills I’m suggesting: in the first stages of the buyer’s decision making – you know, that behind-the-scenes part that we are not privvy to  - buyers are unfamiliar with the steps they need to take as they lurch toward solving a problem. If you could take the part of a GPS system and just offer coordinates for choice, the buyer (driving the car that the GPS system is not involved with) would easily find where they were going (they must drive alone, and watch the scenery that you can’t see) and you could be there at the end with the solution.

We can’t understand the exact specs of a solution until the buyer has traversed the journey. Knowing ‘how they buy’ or ‘how they decide’ won’t help the buyer choose you. Add Decision Facilitation to your sales skills. It will make your job easier to not have to understand so much at the front end, and save it for the back end when the buyer really can hear about, and use, your solution.

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Check out my new book: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Read two free chapters, testimonials, and much more. Then buy the book.

Or consider purchasing the bundle: Dirty Little Secrets plus my last book Buying Facilitation™: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. These books were written to be read together, as they offer the full complement of concepts to help you learn and understand Buying Facilitation™ - the new skill set that gives you the ability to lead buyers through their buying decisions.

What do Sellers Need to Understand – and When? is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com