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A Buying Decision is a Change Management Problem

Guest post by: Sharon Drew Morgen

Article Overview: The sales model focuses on needs assessment and solution placement. Buying is a change management activity. They are two different activities, done at two different – and opposite – points along the buying decision journey.

A Buying Decision is a Change Management Problem

The sales model focuses on needs assessment and solution placement. Buying is a change management activity. They are two different activities, done at two different – and opposite – points along the buying decision journey.

Salesmodels to not have the capabilityto facilitate the buyer’s behind-the-scenes issues and activities to ensure they get the necessary buy-in to bring in an outside solution. But they should, because in the gap between the selling and the buying is where we lose our buyers, and they lose us.

WHEN DOES A BUYER NEED TO BUY

Just because we perceive a need (And we are right! They do!) doesn’t meanour prospects want it fixed, or fixed by us, or fixed now. We enter our conversationswith a bias: we believe that our solution will rule the day:find the need, pitch the solution. Bingo. Except then we sit and wait. And wait.

But the last thing a buyer needs is a solution. In fact, buyers don’t want to buy anything – they merely need to resolve a business problem. If they are not able to resolve it with a familiar resource, they are forced to select a solution to purchase. But they don’t really want to.

When we enter with a solution – even one that isnecessary – buyers have a problem: how do they solvetheir problem in the easiest, most cost-effective manner?It’s simpler to use an existing resource so less change is necessary. Butif they determine they must find a new provider, they must bring in the new solutionin a way that leaves their culture whole.All things being equal they really don’t want to disrupt their routines.

BUYERS LIVE IN SYSTEMS

There is a disparity between the selling model and buying behaviors: solutions are ‘things’ and a buying decision is a change management issue. As per my latest book Dirty Little Secrets, buyers (like all of us) live in systems of people, rules, relationships, history and policies. Any ‘problem’ becomes part of the system, which develops work-arounds so it can keep on keepin’-on. Sowhen we gain weight, we buy new clothes rather than change our eating habits, work out more, stop drinking our wine. Anddaily, the system wakes up doing the best it can.

When we approach prospects using the sales model (i.e. a search for a match between the need and the solution), we are acting as if the problem were an isolated event rather than a part of a larger system of people and policies that maintain it. We don’t realize that they have already created a ‘good enough’work-around for it.

It is only when – and if – the group of folks that touch the problem daily decide that a work-around isn’t good enoughAND they cannot fix it with a familiar resource, that they seek an external fix. Then, regardless of how well we’ve been selling, they have work to do: 1. they have to figure out how to ‘go outside’ for a solution; 2. they have to figure out how to get internal issues prepared for change.

HAVING A NEED DOESN’T MEAN A NEED FOR A SOLUTION

Our selling doesn’t provide us with another tool kit for change management – what buyers do when they go off-line to manage their internal politics and relationship issues.

So whatare we supposed to do?

Here are our choices:

• we sit and wait until they figure out how to get everyone together to decide;
• we sit and wait until they get the full Buying Decision Team on board;
• we pitch, send data, nurture, and hope we’ll be top-of-mind when they’ve put all of their ducks in a row;
• webegin witha different focus: we help them navigate through their buying decision path and shorten the sales cycle AND get onto the Buying Decision Team and thwart competitors.

The last option sounds the best, right? And yes, my Buying Facilitation®model is an add-on skill that works with sales to do this.

Given you work withina sales system, let me ask you to consider adding Buying Facilitation®skills to the sales skills you use:

How will you know when it’s time to consider adding a new skill to what you’re already doing successfully?

What skills/activities/beliefsdo you want to keep so anything new will not disrupt your normal functioning that you’ve become familiar with? And how would you like something new added in a way that maintains your activities and motivation?

What would you need to know about Buying Facilitation®before you consider an addition, to know if it would work for you? How difficult it would be to learn/add? What the downsides and upsides would be? How your boss/team would react when you begin selling differently?

What would you need to know from me, as the developer/seller, to know if you’d get the support you need to be successful?

It’s not about your solution. To really sell well, you must have 2 skills:helping buyersnavigate through their back-endchange management issues;place solutions.

Or just sit and wait for the low hanging fruit to drop. Remember that 80% of your prospects will buy a solution similar to yours within 2 years. They have the need – they just haven’t figured out how to manage the change. Help them. And close more sales, quicker.

sd

Related Articles
  Does the sales model do what we need it to do?
  Client Buying States
  You have a buying process problem, not a selling problem
  Who’s in the meeting – and who’s not?
  Solution Selection: do we know how buyers choose one solution over another?
  Two Types of Decisions: Buy-IN, and BuyING
  Your Prospects Aren't in Pain
  12 Dirty Little Secrets: Why Buyers Don\\\'t Buy
  You think know your buyer. You don’t.
  Resistance to change: inexplicable, irrational, and real
  The Definition Game: name that concept
  Where does selling begin? Activate the buying journey immediately
  We Can’t Understand Customers
  Prospects Aren't Really Prospects
  Facilitating Buying Decisions: a definition
  Selling with Integrity
  When Do Buyers Buy?
  "My Job is to Start a Conversation"
  An Intelligent Contact Sheet
  Are They the “Real” Decision Maker?

Article Tags: buying facilitation, change management, sales model



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