|
|
Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! |  |
|
Get Onto The Buying Decision Team On The First Call
| Guest post by: Sharon Drew Morgen |
Article Overview: When I tell sales folks their sales cycle is double what it should be, they assume I’m lying. But I’m not. I’m just using a different model than sales to being my client contact: Given that the typical sales model builds in time delays and leaves the seller out of the behind-the-scenes discussions going on, there is no way to get onto the Buying Decision Team on the first call.
 |
Free Download - An Intelligent Contact Sheet By Sharon Drew Morgen |
Get Onto The Buying Decision Team On The First Call
My clients consistently close sales ina minimum of half the time it
used to take them. Why? Because Buying Facilitation®gets themonto the
Buying Decision Team on the first call, and they immediately being
helping navigate the buyers through theiroften unknowableinternal
decision issues.
It’s not rocket science: the sales model pushes against the status
quo, causing the status quo to defend itself. Sales treats a buyer’s
alleged need, or’problem,’ as if it were an isolated event; it has no
capability to support buyers as they discover and managethe
off-linechange managementissues they must address internally
andprivately prior tomaking a purchase. Indeed, the buyer’s
internalsystemfights any chaos that would take place if the new
solution entered too soon, and thereby rejects outside influence.
Think about coming home with a brand new luxury car before discussing
the purchase with your wife or managing the budget or garage space:
just because the family might need a car, until or unless all of the
internal factors are managed, no change can take place without chaos.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE NEED
It’s not about the need, or the solution. Until or unless buyers
figure out how to navigate through the off-line systems issues so that
there will be no disruption, they will take no action and make no
purchase, regardless of their need or the efficacy of your solution.
When you enter the call as a neutral navigator, and recognize
yourfirst job to be a GPS system that helps the buyer make sense of
their internal politics and relationships and vendors and tech groups,
and how they all support change or a new solution, youcan
beimmediately recognized as a true support person andput onto the
Buying Decision Team immediately. But note: don’t think ’sales’ as it’s
not a sales model.
ON KPMG’S BUYING DECISION TEAM
I’ll recount a very funny story – my favorite of how I got onto the
Buying Decision Team. Years ago I received a call from the training
partner at KPMG. He had interest in learning Buying Facilitation®. He
actually said, “Intuitively, I can tell that using this model would
decreaseour sales cycle (which it ultimately did – from a 3 year sales
cycle to a 4 month sales cycle).”
As he started asking me questions,I stopped him and turned the
conversation around: no matter how brilliant my solution was, if he and
hisBuying Decision Team didn’t know how to choose it and if it didn’t
fit with their environment, it didn’t matter as he wouldn’t be able to
buy it.
“How are you currently adding new skills to the ones you currently
train to your Partners?” “What has stopped you from offering the skills
that would help your Partners support the buyer’s buying process rather
thanbeing solution-driven?”
After a couple of these Facilitative Questions, he didn’t have any
answers. I told him toget some answers and call me back. And to this
end, I gave him a couple of more Facilitative Questions to help him
navigate through his confusion. He called me back a few days later with
acouple of Senior Partners on the phone.
“Ifigured if we’re going to consider bringing you in, we might need a
couple of the decision makers to get involved with helping me figure it
out. I wasn’t doing such a great job on my own anyway – your questions
made me realize this was a larger undertaking than just bringing
youin.”
He introduced me to the 2 others, and I began posing more
Facilitative Questions.One of them stumped them:
“How would you and your Buying Decision Team know, before you
began,thattaking the time and paying the price to bring in a new skill
set- Buying Facilitation®or anything new – would give you the skills
you seek?”
They didn’t know the answer to this, so I told them to call me back
when they had the answer. This back and forth went on for a total of 2
months; on each call there were more people than the previous call.
Finally, one Friday when I was in Toronto with a client, they called me
at 7:00 a.m. with about 15 people from several countries on the call.
As I was going through more of my Facilitative Questions (which were
help them figure out how to manage internal change, who would need to be
involved to get the necessary internal buy-in, how the change would
have to be managed at each step of the way, etc.), one of the
participants said to my initial client:
“Hey Steve. What is she selling?”
Silence. Finally, “I have no idea.’
“How long have you been talking to her.”
“About two months.”
“Two months and you have no idea what she’s selling?”
“Sharon Drew, why haven’t you ever given us a pitch?”
“Until you all understand what change will look like, and you get the
internal buy-in you need to bring in a new program such as the one I
have, it doesn’t matter what I’ve got, does it?”
“If you don’t give me a pitch now, I’m going to hang up.”
So I gave him a pitch. And we worked together for 2 years. How much
time did I put in? Probably a total of about60 minutes over 2 months.
No proposal. No money discussions. No objections. No competition.
If I had taken the first call and done a pitch, I assure you that the
Partners would have stopped the collaboration in its tracks, as it was
obvious they had no idea how to bring in another ‘consultant’ or know
what success would look like. But I taught them how to figure it out.
And I was their guide all the way through.
Would you rather sell? or have someone buy. They are truly two
different things.
Who’s in the meeting – and who’s not?
Wait until the Buying Decision Team is in place to visit or pitch
We Can’t Understand Customers
How Much Time Do Sales People Waste?
The Job of Sales Must Expand
Article Tags: Buying Decision Teams, Buying Facilitation, Facilitative Questions, partners
|
About the Author: Sharon Drew Morgen RSS for Sharon Drew's articles - Visit Sharon Drew's website Click here to visit Sharon Drew's website   Content Marketing Is It Helping You Buy Me The Definition Game name that concept Cold Calling Works And Its Fun Dont make your issue the customers problem Does the sales model do what we need it to do |
Related Forum Posts
Re: Essential Leadership skills
- Vision
Values
Mission
Strategic Thinking
Decision Making
Communication
Team Bonding
People Development
Coaching / Mentoring / Guiding / Grooming
Presentation
Thanks
Robert
Re: Anyone Uses Elance.com? Guru.com? Rentacoder.com?
- I've had quite a bit of success on oDesk.com. I've never used Elance so I can't compare.
I like oDesk.com 'cos I get to sort thru people (e.g. within a certain bid range) with a single click. I find their help response very quick and I like the oDesk Team software that "providers" must install. This gives me the Buyer more insight as to what I am paying for. The Team software takes screenshots of the Providers screen on 10 min increments so I can see that the person is infact doing work for me.
Re: Subject line Etiquette
- [quote="jvprosperity":b50c4a20]Another email rant:
Is there some place on the internet that outlines proper "Subject line" headings?
There mus be a system out there that people use to be more efficient email senders. Not everything that comes into my mail box requires my immediate attention.
I would love to educate myself and the people who send me emails on proper subject lines.
Maybe something like:
"Urgent Review: <<Title of document>>"
"Decision Required: "<<Subject matter>>"
just something for me to quickly scan the subject lines and decide which ones need my immediate attention.
Anyone know of such email standards that exist out there?[/quote:b50c4a20]
The only messages I get that say Urgent or Decision Required etc are spam. I tell people to put something relevant to their business with me in the subject line - this is especially important for the people who fall into my junk mail.
Chris
Re: FILL IN THE BLANK: One thing I did to grow my business today
- Website: Posted a new article on my main business website and bookmarked it.
Team: Contacted new affiliates and invited them to join my training list.
Re: Why Some Websites Sell and Others Don’t?
- There is myth that if you build websites people will come. It is never through, you need to do a lot of things to make your website to work. You have many models of attracting traffics to your site.
PPC
Article Marketing
SEO
Press Release
Banner Ads
Forum Posting
Classified Advertising
Media Buying
Solo Ads
and a lot of more. If you are not doing any of the above your websites will just be one of the millions of the unknown sites in cyber space
Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.
Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.
by: 
4 Building Blocks of an Effective Talent Management System
Simon Fuller Quotes
Lesson #3: “Tell ‘em quick and tell ‘em often”
Searching for the Stars: How Yang and Filo Took Their Business to New Heights
Salesperson Wimp-Out: I Need Help 
Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.