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The Future of Sales

Written by: Sharon Drew Morgen

Article Overview: For centuries, the sales model has been focused on placing a solution. Given the complexity of business these days, having the right solution to manage a ‘need’ is not enough to help buyers choose your solution. Buyers live in a very complex world now. With global stakeholders, economic downturns, enlarged decision teams, and an almost limitless number of options – all available at the drop of a hat – competition is far more complex than being addressed by us having a good solution and giving great service. And as a result, we’re having greater difficulty closing sales. We’d like to think it’s ‘the economy, stupid.’ But in reality, the problem is more complex.

The Future of Sales

For centuries, the sales model has been focused on placing a solution. Given the complexity of business these days, having the right solution to manage a ‘need’ is not enough to help buyers choose your solution.

Buyers live in a very complex world now. With global stakeholders, economic downturns, enlarged decision teams, and an almost limitless number of options – all available at the drop of a hat – competition is far more complex than being addressed by us having a good solution and giving great service. And as a result, we’re having greater difficulty closing sales. We’d like to think it’s ‘the economy, stupid.’ But in reality, the problem is more complex.

The only way to shift the results is to do something different. [You know the deal: According to Einstein, you can’t solve a problem using the same things that created it.] And sellers are kicking and screaming at the possibility of having to do something different. But I can tell you that doing what you are doing will keep giving you the results you’re getting.

Sales is no longer a robust-enough model. The future of sales lie in actually helping buyers navigate through their internal decision issues that often have absolutely nothing to do with a problem or a solution. We have been taught to believe that by understanding the ‘problem’ and having the appropriate ’solution’ that buyers will buy. We’venever been taught that getting buy-in from the internal, behind-the-scenescultural issues that buyers live with daily and are the cause of the ‘need’are what determines purchasinghabits. In fact, a buyer’s decision issues are managed, daily, by a plethora of internal people, policies, history, relationships, vendors, etc. that are independentof their need or our solution, and are well outside the sphere or influence of ’sales.’ But we know that, as that’s what’s stopping us from closing all of the sales we should be closing.

WE CAN’T MANAGE BUYERS’ RELATIONSHIP ISSUES A prospect that a client of mine had been working with for a year finally, after 3 visits and 3 trials, decided to not purchase the product. I spoke with the prospect that was the head of Learning and Development: What stopped her from being able to buy a product that they loved? The new HR director was a very difficult person to deal with, and the prospect didn’t want to get into a fight and decided to not purchase rather than deal with him.

So this had nothing to do with need or solution, and everything to do with a buyer’s behind-the-scenesissues. What I did was to give the L&D person a list of Facilitative Questions to use with the HR guy to help them decide to work together efficiently on behalf of all of the employees. This worked, and they bought the product the next week.

But it had nothing to do with a problem, a need, a solution, or a relationship. It had to do with helping the buyer manage their off-line issues. And the sales model does not manage these issues: the buyer must manage these issues, on their own and without us, and it’s a confusing journey for them. As I say in my bookDirty Little Secrets, when buyers begin the journey to resolve a business problem, they have no idea what demons they need to address en route. And the time it takes them to figure it out is the length of the sales cycle. But we can help them by being neutral navigators and providing a navigation route through the maze.

Herein lie the problem with sales: it does not have the tools to help buyers manage their private, off-line, non-problem/solution related issues.

What would you need to believe differently to be willing to consider adding a new skill set to the one you are already using, and have been using successfully for years?

How would you know that adding a decision facilitation model, related to the buyer’s change patterns not needs, would give you the ability to close more sales?

What would you need to see, understand, or agree with, to be willing to shift your initial approach to a buyer and instead focus on being the GPS system to lead your buyer through their internal decision issuesbeforestarting the sales process?

Buying Facilitation® is the future of sales. I don’t see our environment or economy or our competition getting any easier. I believe it’s time to learn a new skill set that will help buyers make the internal decisions necessary to buy.

Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy? They are two different activities.

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Home > Sales > Sharon Drew Morgen > The Future of Sales

Article Tags: centuries, complexity, drop of a hat, economic downturns, economy, good solution, limitless number, right solution, sales model

About the Author: Sharon Drew Morgen RSS for Sharon Drew's articles - Visit Sharon Drew's website 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. Click here to visit Sharon Drew's website More from Sharon Drew Morgen What is a Sellers Priority How Much Time Do Sales People Waste PITCHING TOO SOON how I got it wrong Prospects Arent Really Prospects You have a buying process problem not a selling problem

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