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How Much Time Do Sales People Waste?

Article Overview: As sellers, we waste over 90% of our time. We need to find prospects, get them bought-in to the possibility of using our solution, get them what they need to understand our solution and how it might fit, get past gatekeepers, manage objections, get to the right people who will know how to buy us, and wait. And then, we only close a small fraction.

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How Much Time Do Sales People Waste?

As sellers, we waste over 90% of our time. We need to find prospects, get them bought-in to the possibility of using our solution, get them what they need to understand our solution and how it might fit, get past gatekeepers, manage objections, get to the right people who will know how to buy us, and wait. And then, we only close a small fraction. There must be a better way to do this, no?

if we knew who would be a prospect on the first call, and get rid of those who will never buy, how much time would we save?
if most gatekeepers would get us to the right person, how much time would we save?
if we can connect with all of the folks who will ultimately be (or are already) on the Buying Decision Team, how many more sales would we close?
if there are no more objections of any kind, how much time would we save and how much more money would we make?
if buyers could make a buying decision in the time frame that we believe is possible (i.e. those buyers who call up and purchase quickly are good examples of what's possible for every sale),

how much more business would we close? And why can't we make these things happen?

THE REASONS YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE RESULTS YOU DESERVE

To begin with, you are beginning at the end of the buyer's journey - the purchasing decision - and must wait while they catch up. As sellers, you have been trained to find appropriate prospects: you have not been trained to help them begin or traverse their journey through the behind-the-scenes decision path that is change-management/systems based, and has more to do with internal politics and time lines than it does with purchasing a solution or choosing a vendor.

As a result, you have learned ways to manage the fallout you've received from attempting to offer a solution at the wrong time. Or from attempting to offer a solution that folks might not know they need, or aren't ready to concede that they might need. Or know they need but haven't figured out how to get buy-in.

Pushback, objections, time delays, buyers who seemingly don't know how or if to buy. Prospects that stop returning calls. Prospects who make promises they don't keep.

The only reason you aren't closing more sales, and the reason you end up wasting time with non-buyers and delayed sales cycles, is not because of your solution. Your solution is fine. So is your care and respect and personality.

You're wasting your time trying to place a solution before the buyer has lined up the change management issues they must contend with. But sales doesn't offer you any other tools.

THE BUYING FACILITATION® MODEL WORKS WITH SALES TO MANAGE THE BUYING DECISION.

OK. I'm a hammer looking around for a nail. But it's the truth. Buying Facilitation® is another model - like sales only different - that you must learn in addition to sales to manage the back end issues buyers must address privately before they can buy.

Gatekeepers will help you find the right people to talk to rather than put you off.

You can help buyers put together their entire Buying Decision Team on the first call.
You will no longer get objections (fallout from the sales model) - price or otherwise.
You will be differentiated from your competition immediately.
Your buyers will buy in approximately 1/8 the time (sometimes with very large sales the number drops to 1/4).
You will know who is a buyer and who is not, on the first call.

It's not sales. But really - do you want to keep having those super long sales cycles and getting objections? Do you really want pipelines that aren't converting? There is no reason you shouldn't be doing Buying Facilitation® AND sales, and stop wasting time. The sale model is great to understand need and place solution - but by using it too early in the buyer's change management process, you're not helping buyers buy. You deserve better.

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Article Tags: buying facilitation, prospects, sales, sales conversion, success

About the Author: Sharon Drew Morgen
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Sharon Drew Morgen is a pioneer and thought leader, the bestselling author of NYTimes Business Bestsellers Selling with Integrity , Sales on the Line, and Buying Facilitation, the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions as well as 2 other books and 800 articles on her original collaborative decision-support model Buying Facilitation. As the architect of a wholly original sales model, Sharon Drew has provoked, inspired, and motivated thousands of sales professionals world-wide. With a history as a million-dollar producer and 30 years in sales, an entrepreneur of a successful start-up, and a sales consultant in many Fortune 100 companies, she brings field knowledge as well as innovation to her audiences. Based on supporting the buyer's internal (management) decisions, Sharon Drew is a trainer, consultant, keynote speaker, and designer of patents that help site visitors and sellers make the decisions necessary for success. Her model has been trained worldwide, in global corporations such as Coors, Wachovia, Intuit, KPMG, IBM, and retail corporations such as Clinique.

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