By Sharon Drew Morgen

Questions Aren’t All They’re Cracked Up To Be

Ask more questions! sellers are admonished. Ask better questions! leaders and coaches are reminded. Questions seem to be a prompt in many fields, from medicine to parenting. But why?

There’s a universal assumption that questions will yield Truth, generate ‘real’ discussion topics or realizations, or uncover hidden gems of information or important details. Good questions can even inspire clarity. Right?

I’d like to offer a different point of view on what questions really are and how they function. See, I find questions terribly subjective and often don’t get to the Truth.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

Let me start with Google’s definition of ‘question’: a grouping of words posed to elicit data. Hmmmm…. But they don’t often elicit accurate data. Here’s my assessment. Questions are:

• posed according to the needs, curiosity, goals, and intent of the Asker;
• interpreted uniquely and unconsciously, according to a Responder’s world view;
• potentially ignore more important information outside the Asker’s purview.

Here’s my reasoning:

1. Language: Questions are posed using words and languaging unique to the Asker. Using their own (subjective) intent and goals, their own idioms and word choices, Askers assume Responders will accurately interpret them and respond along expected lines. This expectation is most easily met between folks who are familiar with each other, but less successfully with those outside the Asker’s sphere of influence. Too often Responders interpret a query quite differently than intended, offering responses far afield from the Asker’s intent.
2. Listening/brain: All incoming words enter our ears as meaningless sound vibrations (see my book on this topic), “puffs of air” that eventually get translated according to historic circuits based on our mental models that have been set during our lifetimes. In other words, and similar with the language problem, Responders may not accurately translate incoming questions according to the intent of the Asker. The way Responders hear and interpret the question is at the mercy of the Responder’s brain circuits.
3. Curiosity: Often an Asker seeks data, thoughts, according to his/her desire for knowledge. It might be for research, interest, or ego – to exhibit their intelligence or prove their commitment. Yet given the way information is stored and retrieved in the brain, the question may capture some degree of applicable data, or a whole lotta subjective, unconscious thoughts that may or may not be relevant.

As you can see, the stated goal of questions – to extract useful, relevant data – has a reasonable chance of failure.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

Here’s my opinion on a few different forms of question:

Open question: To me, open questions are great in social discussions but there’s no way to get precise data from them. What would you like for dinner? will prompt an enormous variety of choices. But if the fridge only has leftovers, an open question won’t work, and a closed question “Would you like me to heat up last night’s dinner or Monday night’s dinner?” would. Open questions cause brains to do a transderivational search that may unearth responses far afield from the Asker’s intent and the Asker is out of control.

Closed question: I love these. They are perfect when a specific response is needed. What time is dinner? Should we send answers now or wait until our meeting? Of course they can also be highly manipulative when only limited responses are offered for potentially broad possibilities.

Leading question: Don’t you think you rely on conventional questions too much? That’s a leading question. Manipulative. Disrespectful. Hate them.

Probing question: Meant to gather data, these questions face the same problem I’ve mentioned: using the goal, intent, and words of the Asker, they will be interpreted uniquely as per the Responder’s historic stored content, and extract some fraction of the full data set possible.

Given the above, I invented a new form of question!

FACILITATIVE QUESTION

When I began developing my brain change models decades ago, I realized that using conventional questions would most likely not help me achieve my goal of facilitating Others through their brains to discover their own best answers. Knowing that our brain’s unconscious search for answers (in 5 one-hundredths of a second) leads to subjective, historic, and limited responses along one of the brain’s neural superhighways, I spent 10 years figuring out how to use questions to help people find where their unbiased answers reside.

Since incoming words get translated according to our existing neural circuits, the trick was to use specific words in a specific order so the brain would be led to find the best existing circuits. This proved especially helpful in

• data gathering to discover a more expanded range of choices,
• decision making to uncover each element of consideration as matched with values and outcomes,
• habit/behavior change when seeking to understand and modify the patterns and neural circuitry underlying the current behaviors,
• leadership, sales, coaching when leading others to discover routes to new choices.

One of the main problems I had to resolve was how to circumvent a brain’s automatic and unconscious preferences to make it possible to notice the broadest view of choices.

Language to create objectivity

Since questions (as words) are automatically sent down specific neural routes, I had to figure out a way to use language to broaden the parameters of routes the brain could choose from, expand possibility, and circumvent bias as much as possible – a difficult one as our natural listening is unwittingly biased.

To this end, my Facilitative Questions use specific types of words to facilitate distancing the Responder from the emotions and biases. Let me show you how an objective viewpoint differs from a subjective one and why it’s preferred for decision making: See yourself having dinner with one other person. Notice the other person across from you (the Self/automatic/subjective/unconscious modality). Then mentally put yourself up on the ceiling and see both of you (the Observer/objective/conscious modality).

If you’re having an argument with your dinner partner, where would you rather be – ceiling or across the table – to understand the full data set of what was going on so you could make personal adjustments?

On the ceiling, where you’d see both of you. From this meta position, you’d be objective, free from the feelings and biases that guided the argument along historic circuits. From Observer you’d have the best chance to make choices that might resolve your problem. Try it for yourself! Don’t forget to go back down to Self to communicate warmly. My clients walk around saying ‘Decide from Observer, Deliver from Self.’

So when developing Facilitative Questions, I had to put listeners into Observer. I played with words and found that these cause Responders to unconsciously step back (i.e. meta) to take an unbiased, less subjective, and broader view.

• how would you know if…
• what would you need to understand differently…

Change the goal

I also had to change the goal of a question, from my own curiosity and need to elicit data to helping the Other discover their own answers.

“Why do you wear your hair like that?”

is a conventional question puts the Responder directly into Self, while

“How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle?”

enables the Responder to step back, look at current and past hairstyles, note their situation to see if it merits change, and have a more complete data/criterion set with which to possibly make a change – or not. This not only provides a full set of unbiased possibilities, but it encourages trust between Asker and Responder and doesn’t push a response.

Questions follow steps to change

The biggest element I had to figure out was the sequence. I figured out 13 sequential steps to all change and decision making and I pose the Facilitative Questions down the sequence. Here are the main categories:

• Where are you and what’s missing? Responder begins by discovering their full set of givens, some of which are unconscious.
• How can you fix the problem yourself? Systems don’t seek change, merely to resolve a problem at the least ‘cost’ to the system. To minimize any ‘cost’ involved, it’s best to begin by trying to fix the problem with what’s familiar.
• How can you manage change without disruption and with buy-in? Until it’s known what the fallout of the ‘new’ will be, and there’s agreement, no change will occur.

I’ve trained these questions globally for sales folks learning my Buying Facilitation® model to help prospects become buyers, and for coaches and leaders to help followers discover their own best answers.

If your job is to serve, the best thing you can offer others is a commitment to help them help themselves. Facilitative Questions can be used in any industry, from business to healthcare, from parenting to relationships as tools to enable discovery, change, and health.

It takes a bit of practice to create these questions, but the coaches, sellers, doctors, and leaders I’ve taught them to use them to help Others discover their own excellence. I encourage you to consider learning them. And I’m happy to discuss and share what I know. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com My hope is that you’ll begin to think about questions differently.

___________________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen November 22nd, 2021

Posted In: News

6 Comments

Get Your Message Understood: how influencers can change minds

As an influencer, how often do say to yourself “Why doesn’t she understand me?” or “If he understood me better this decision would be a no-brainer.” It’s natural to assume Others will understand – and comply with – your suggestions. Have you ever wondered what’s happening when they don’t?

As influencers, part of your job is to change minds. But how? In general, you’ve likely used different forms of information (story, article, pitch, etc.) to ‘hook, grab, engage, guide,’ assuming your words carry the meaning you intend to convey. But do they?

Sometimes people misinterpret you and your audience is unintentionally restricted to only those who naturally understand your message. Sometimes people ignore you, regardless of how important your message or how engagingly you deliver it or how badly they need it.

What if ‘changing minds’ was easier without content or information? Or that it was the last thing needed? I’d like to begin by explaining how brains interpret language and how this facilitates decision making.

OUR BRAINS ARE THE CULPRIT

Thinking about using information as a persuasion strategy, let me share a confounding concept: words have no meaning at all! According to John Colapinto in his fascinating book This is the Voice,

Speech is a connected flow of ever-changing, harmonically rich musical pitches determined by the rate at which the phonating chords vibrate, the complex overtone spectrum is filtered by the rapidly changing length and shape of the mouth, and lips, interspersed with bursts of noise…It is our brain that turns this incoming stream of sonic air disturbances into something meaningful. (pg 54)

Indeed, it was only when researching my book on the gap between what’s said and what’s heard that I discovered words have no inherent meaning until our subjective brains define them.

Here’s a greatly simplified explanation of how brains translate incoming words. Seems words enter our ears as meaningless sound vibrations. These ‘puffs of air’, as many books call the vibrations, soon become signals that our Central Executive Network, or CEN, dispatches to what it deems an historic ‘similar-enough circuit’ (one among 84 billion) for translation.

People understand us according to the existing circuits the incoming signals are sent to, regardless of meaning, or of how different these circuits are from our intended message.

And where the signals don’t match the existing circuitry, a listener’s brain kindly discards the difference!

In other words, people don’t hear us according to the messages we send but by what they already know and believe, potentially outside of our intent.

Unfortunately, because this brain activity is electro-chemical and automatic, neither Speaker or Listener understands how far from accurate the translation is. Listeners assume their brains tell them exactly what’s been said; Speakers assume they’ve been heard accurately. Turns out these assumptions are false; communication potentially ends up biased and subjective.

THE INFORMATION PROBLEM

The misinterpretation problem gets exacerbated when your words get sent down Other’s circuits that unwittingly incur resistance. If my brain tells me you said ABL it’s hard to convince me you said ABC. I’ve lost friends and partners that way and didn’t understand why until my book research. And sadly, because it all takes place outside of conscious awareness, we have no control over it.

This possibility of misinterpreting incoming information makes the case for providing information when it can be most accurately translated: when the Listener knows exactly what they are listening for, the brain will have a more direct route to the right circuits.

But by shifting your goal there’s a way to get your message to invoke change: lead Others to where their brains seek new data and then share the information to fit! In other words, help Others figure out the information they need from you then supply content that will be heard accurately.

One of my clients said that instead of shooting an arrow to hit a bullseye I taught him to first shoot the arrow then draw the bullseye where the arrow lands! I’ll discuss how I figured this out.

After 60 years of studying, and developing models for, systemic brain change and decision making, I’ve realized that information is the very last thing anyone needs when considering doing something different (i.e. buying, changing habits, etc.). And yes, it goes against most conventional thinking. But hang with me.

As a kid, my then-undiagnosed Asperger’s caused me to act differently than people around me. I was in trouble often, and never understood why. I began reading voraciously – dozens of books! – on how to change my behaviors: how to visualize, to motivate myself, make plans. But they were all based on trying to fix my seemingly automatic actions. And I failed repeatedly to make any of the changes permanent.

After trying unsuccessfully for decades, I realized my brain was the culprit and began developing neural workarounds to create new brain pathways to new behaviors. I know, I know. It’s odd, and there was lots of trial-and-error. But eventually I figured it out.

It proved so powerful I dedicated the rest of my life to developing, writing about, and teaching systemic brain change models. Thankfully, my concepts caught on in sales, coaching, leadership, and change management.

My facilitation models help people orchestrate their own change; in sales, my Buying Facilitation® model teaches people on route to fixing a problem how to traverse their change management steps to become buyers. I enable people to discover, and act on, their own excellence and as needed, influencers then supply the information or skills.

CHANGE FACILITATION

For those of you whose job is to get others to do something you want them to do, let’s look at it from the Other’s side – the people on route to change, those who have discovered a problem they want resolved. Once you understand what goes on between the status quo and doing something differently, it’ll be easier to facilitate change. Here are some points to consider:

Conform to norms: Change is more than doing something different, but a reconfiguration of the status quo that must end up conforming with the norms on which it was developed. And it’s only when something has gone wrong that something different from the status quo is required. Obviously the timing is dependent on the changee, regardless of when an influencer wants change to occur.

Cost: It’s not until the ‘cost’ (resource, results, disruption) of a fix is identified that anyone knows whether a problem is worth fixing. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you’ve recognized, no one naturally seeks out change if all seems fine, regardless of the problem or the efficacy of the solution.

Disruption: Because our internal systems seek balance (homeostasis), we avoid disruption. And the time it takes us to change in a way that avoids disruption is the length of time it takes us to buy, change, or decide.

Personal: For change to be sought, the Other must discover their own route to change and maintain control over their own criteria, not to mention ensure their underlying system ends up matching the Identity and Beliefs of the original configuration. The status quo does not like being altered!

It only takes a shift in thinking and a focus on helping Others first discover how to handle their own change issues. Here’s a situation where I used a carefully crafted sentence to direct a friend’s thinking to where her choice points lie.

I have a lovely young friend who, to me, had serious energy problems. Some days she had difficulty getting out of bed, even with 5 children. Some days she didn’t have the energy to cook or work. And she’d been having this issue for decades. After knowing her a year I finally said, “If the time ever comes that you wish for additional choices around your store of energy to be more available for your kids, I have a thought.”

By shifting the context to her children, by giving her control over her choices and not trying to change her, by leading her to each of her decision points, her system didn’t feel threatened. She welcomed my thoughts, got help (My naturopath discovered she was actually dying from a critical lack of vitamin B12.) and now is awake daily at 5:30 a.m. with endless amounts of energy.

No matter what the problem or solution may be, if a system is adjusted to the status quo and can’t do anything different without major disruption, if the cost is too high, it won’t consider doing anything different. So how can we help Others find their own excellence?

13 STEPS TO CHANGE

You must begin by trusting Others have their own criteria for change and that as an outsider, you can’t know it. But as you lead them through their steps to excellence, they’ll notice where they can’t accomplish it on their own and know exactly what they need from you. Then they’ll be ready to hear your information. And as you’ve already helped them help themselves, they’ll come to you for their needs and trust has been established.

The facilitation model I developed leads them through to excellence. It involves 13 specific steps that follow the sequence all brain change takes as a precursor to behavior change. It provides the tools to help the Other figure out their own steps to change so you can then offer the information at the point they needed it:

• recognize the full set of givens involved;
• identify all stakeholders and get them involved early;
• try workarounds to fix the problem internally if possible;
• understand what the change/fix involves if getting help needed;
• get buy-in to adopt the new.

It’s not so simple as an outsider gathering information or posing questions to help the influencer understand. Because until they know that the cost change will be equal to or less than their status quo, they will not take action.

Historically, I’ve taught this facilitation process successfully to 100,000 sales professionals and coaches. But with the new technology, it’s quite possible to use it in marketing for Deal Rooms, ABM discussions, and Sales Enablement.

Recently I’ve developed a new Buying Enablement practice to enable marketers to first facilitate the buying decision process and remain a thought leader during the customer life-cycle.

So as you consider delaying your storytelling or pitching until you’ve facilitated change, ask yourself:

• Would you rather speak or be heard?
• What is your job – to serve Others through to their own form of excellence or get your point across to anyone who can listen?
• Do you seek a quick hit or a long-term relationship?
• Would you rather be a servant leader or an information hawker?

You decide. It’s possible to serve Others and be available with information when and as they need. Sellers can first facilitate buying, coaches and facilitate permanent change, and marketers can develop content that leads people through to brain change. I’m here if you have questions. Or go to www.sharon-drew.com to learn about my facilitation and brain change models.

_______________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.    

Sharon Drew Morgen November 8th, 2021

Posted In: News

4 Comments

Buying Enablement: the missing piece in Revenue Enablement

What if

• you could find real prospects early in their Buying Journey?
• you could discover non-buyers immediately while leading real prospects efficiently through their Buy Side steps?
• none of this involves sales, product details, need, or pitch?

How can you promote buying without “sales, product details, need, or pitch”? I believe that by relying on these concepts exclusively you close less sales than you deserve given your efforts and the quality of your solution.

I suggest that by adding new thinking and tools that facilitate and enable buying from the Buy Side – wholly different from Sales Enablement that facilitates the Sell Side – you’ll not only find people on route to becoming buyers, but you can help them be ready to close. Let me explain.

SELL SIDE VS BUY SIDE

All current technology in Sales Enablement, marketing, and ABM is biased toward the Sell Side with a focus on finding, enabling, and engaging folks with an assumed need to ultimately make a purchase. But we overlook an audience of potential prospects 50% larger; our current tools overlook the differences in goals, steps, considerations, decisions, and activity that occur as people try to resolve a problem on the Buy Side.

Sure, we track ‘buying’ but, generally, only in terms of product sale – the Sell Side – and overlook the change management activities that people must address before they’re even buyers.

People don’t start off wanting to buy anything, merely resolve their problem at the least ‘cost’ to their system. They begin by figuring out how to congruently manage change.

Indeed, a buying decision is a change management issue well before it’s a solution choice issue. Because sales tools are aimed at how sales and marketing define ‘buying’ and only apply to the Sell Side, folks in the process of possibly becoming buyers but aren’t there yet, won’t heed our messages trying to sell them anything.

Until people understand the entire fact pattern of what and who’s involved and know what any change means to them, they can’t have a full understanding of a need. They certainly don’t read unsolicited marketing material or take appointments, regardless of a need or the efficacy of a solution.

But take heart! By holding off on conventional sales and marketing until these folks are self-identified as buyers, there’s a way to not only find them but facilitate them through the process they must manage, making it easier for them to buy and for us to sell: those who would never buy fall out, those who become buyers will do so faster, and their names can be handed over to Sales Enablement, ABM, or a sales professional as real prospects.

MY JOURNEY AS A BUYER

As a million-dollar producer on Wall Street in the 70s, I thought buyers were incongruent. We called them ‘stupid buyers’ because they didn’t ‘understand’ what we believed they needed.

In 1983 I became a tech entrepreneur in London and recognized the problem I had had as a seller: Before I could buy anything, I had stuff to do internally that had nothing to do with making a purchase. I certainly wouldn’t consider buying anything until I had no other options. To resolve my problems, I had to

• understand the full problem set by hearing everyone’s thoughts on how they were affected and what they considered a solution;
• try available fixes to resolve the problem internally;
• understand the ‘cost’ of doing something different;
• get buy-in from those who would connect with the solution;

and, once I understood what the change would entail, determine if the problems were worth fixing. Obviously if a fix caused more problems than leaving things as they were, it wasn’t worth solving. But we couldn’t know that until the end of our considerations. Honestly, I didn’t even understand my real ‘needs’ until I had done all of the above.

There seemed to be unknown implications in doing anything different, necessary to take into account beforehand. I certainly hadn’t realized how much disruption was involved, that making any change (all problem-solving involves change) had to be first considered via thoughtful change management assessments and buy-in, to make sure we ended up ‘butter side up’.

Eventually we fixed some of our problems internally. Indeed, I didn’t start off wanting to buy anything, merely wanting to fix problems as simply and congruently as possible. Buying anything was the very last thing on my mind. Last thing.

CASE STUDY

After leaving my company I became an author of the first NYTimes Business Bestseller on sales (Selling with Integrity) and inventor of Buying Facilitation® that taught sales professionals how to facilitate the Buy Side change management process – the process the sales model ignored because it had little to do with ‘need’ or solution placement.

‘Need’ is a big one in sales; it’s assumed if need can be ascertained, the person should buy. Yet there’s a case to be made that ‘need’ is not necessarily a precursor to buying. Here’s an example of a client with a need who ended up not buying because of what it would ‘cost’ to change.

Years ago I ran a pilot Buying Facilitation® training at Proctor and Gamble, in hopes that if successful I could train the other 15,000 sales folks.

The program was tremendously successful – 15% increase over the control group’s 2% which in this instance potentially increased sales by billions of dollars annually. Good, right? But the ‘costs’ ended up being higher than they wanted to ‘spend’. To implement Buying Facilitation® internationally, they’d need to

1. bring in new machinery to manufacture products faster,
2. get more trucks and drivers to transport products to outlets faster,
3. pay more shipping and air rate costs,
4. reorganize their management structure,
5. bring in more assistants, customer service reps, etc.

They calculated it would cost almost $2,000,000,000 (That’s billion.) and take years to recoup, not to mention explain it to their shareholders.

It had never occurred to me to consider what the ‘cost’ of success would be for them. Neither did they. My client said if she’d realized how much more they’d sell and how much faster, she wouldn’t have done the pilot. Confounding.

In this case, they needed the training and loved both me and my ‘solution’ but couldn’t handle the cost of the change. Need, as I learned, had little to do with buying and is actually quite subjective. And outsiders can never factor the private equation.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT BEFORE SELLING

As an entrepreneur I was responsible to staff, solution, and clients. I had to address problem solving as a change management issue and make sure all voices were heard and everyone bought into change.

But as a seller, I never considered the point of view of change. Everything I did, created, or thought was on the Sell Side. I was taught product knowledge, how to listen for a way ‘in’ so I could mention my solution in their context, pose questions that implied a need, start a ‘relationship’ so they’d like me, and assume every ‘need’ or ‘problem’ should be resolved with my solution. As if the Sell Side were the only side.

But how much time I wasted finding and seeking ways to influence folks who weren’t, and might not ever be, buyers! Creating marketing materials to entice would-be buyers who were in process but not ready – certainly not eager to read unsolicited articles on something they didn’t yet know they couldn’t handle themselves.

And how much opportunity I overlooked facilitating would-be buyers to more efficiently figure out what they had to figure out so they would be ready to buy. My ‘Sell Side Only’ practices restricted my audience to those who already considered themselves buyers.

There’s a much larger group of would-be prospects who are not-yet buyers, and won’t be reached with sales assumptions:

1. those still trying to resolve their problem internally;
2. those with a problem they don’t want to resolve (now);
3. those seeking different solutions or from different vendors;
4. those you’ve mistranslated when they respond to your questions and don’t even have a need.

I now finally understood why buyers seemed so stupid: they weren’t even buyers! All those years assuming my solution, ‘relationship’, and marketing materials would convince, influence, or encourage when I could have been using an additional tool kit to lead them efficiently through their change before trying to sell them anything! We’ve overlooked a potentially lucrative audience.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

I eventually unpacked each step I took during my decision and buy-in process so I could duplicate the route I took as I became a buyer myself.

Turned out my change management process had 13 steps from which I developed Buying Facilitation® for sales, and trained over 100,000 sales folks globally with an average 40% close rate (against the control group’s 5.4%). But these same steps are markers for marketers as well.

Here are the main elements of the 13 step change management path all people go through before they identify as buyers or even understand their needs:

• Recognize a problem
• Gather the full complement of stakeholders to understand the full fact pattern that caused and maintains the problem
• Figure out how to fix the problem with available resources
• Understand the downside, the ‘cost’, of making a change
• Get the buy in from the stakeholders to agree to the change
• Agree on the criteria that an external solution must meet
• Choose a solution that will match their criteria.

If you remember times you bought something, you didn’t begin with the purchase, but could have used help figuring out what you had to figure out – so much of it unknown until the end.

Since the time it takes folks to complete their process is the length of the sales cycle, why not help them? While we wouldn’t be able to sell them anything until the process is complete, we would be selling our services and inspiring trust, and be there as real relationship managers and trusted advisors when they more quickly become buyers. Certainly a competitive advantage.

I suggest it’s time to add technology and new thinking in both sales and marketing to enable the Buy Side to

• find and help people going through change in the area the solution can benefit,
• efficiently lead them through their steps to problem-solve and make decisions,
• gather the right set of stakeholders to involve at each step,
• offer the best available knowledge so each step will explore the cost – and resolution – of the change.

By adding a change management component to marketing and ABM (Buying Enablement), it’s possible to

• recognize non-buyers immediately, and disengage,
• lead would-be buyers through their next steps efficiently,
• understand where, exactly, people are along their 13 step change management/Buying Decision Path,
• efficiently and very quickly lead those who will be buyers through their core change decisions to the point of being ready to buy,
• build trusting relationships through helpful content,
• create a competitive advantage as you truly serve,
• pass the names of real prospects over to sellers and/or sales enablement to do the sales job.

Selling and Buying are two different activities. Let’s develop two different outreach and facilitation processes that work together to efficiently find, engage, and enable real buyers.

BUYING ENABLEMENT AND SALES

In addition to my Buying Facilitation® model that teaches the process of change facilitation to sales folks, I have developed Buying Enablement for marketing to lead folks efficiently through their steps and then hand over names of in-target buyers to Sales Enablement and ABM for the Sell Side.

In other words, help those on route to buying do what they need to do anyway and stop wasting resource following and pushing content to folks you think SHOULD buy but aren’t yet ready. Then hand over real names to SE and sales.

Buying Enablement enters through marketing to facilitate each change management step on the Buy Side, helps would-be buyers become buyers efficiently, then hands off names of real prospects to sales. Of course search analytics can be used, but they will include new terms and timing. The process addresses these points:

• Finding people getting ready to, or in the process of, working internally to resolve a problem that your solution could resolve;
• Noting specific markers to send specific content;
• Helping uncover elements that caused and maintains the problem;
• Facilitating the recognition, incorporation, and buy-in of all stakeholders;
• Diagnosing and resolving the actual ‘cost’ of change to the system;
• Finding a workaround or simple fix where possible;
• Determining sales add-ons – sales enablement, Buyer Personas – to move the activity over to sales.

Buying Enablement makes the Buy Side more efficient. Here’s what I offer:

• Buy Side training: For both sales, marketing, and customer service professionals to understand the profound differences between the Buy Side and the Sell Side so all can work in tandem going forward.
• Data gathering/report: To understand specifically how your specific buyers buy, I’ll speak with several current buyers to discover

a.   the timing, activity, search, people, and constraints during each stage of problem solving and change management;
b.   what they do and when to understand the full problem set. Includes people, relationship, history, and policy issues and snags encountered;
c.   patterns of (external) factors that bias problem maintenance and resolution, and cause resistance;
d.   the possible workarounds and range of solutions they’re considering to resolve the problem and how they fare;
e.   understand their risks in bringing in something new and how that affects people, policies and solution choices;
f.     the times they go online to research each stage and the search terms they use at each stage and why.

I recommend my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell to better understand each step on the Buy Side.

• Marketing tools, article ideas, and Buyer Personas for each stage. I will suggest best practices and offer article titles along each step, to get folks the knowledge to do what they need to do. Ardath Albee will design Buyer Personas that lead people through each change management stage. With this full tool kit you’ll know

a.   where prospects are in the buy-cycle,
b.   the job titles of those involved,
c.   have a line between marketing -> content -> sales,
d.   offer titles so marketing can personalize the best content for each stage,
e.   be relevant to the specific needs of your audience.

• Digital App: My ‘The Decider’ app can be populated with the knowledge learned from the Report to

a.   efficiently lead folks through their decision phases if they need help;
b.   digitally lead site visitors to the pages with data they need from your site and/or your company,
c.   use with sellers in Deal Rooms,
d.   discover which stage of a change decision they’re at to make sure the best content is sent out to them at the right time.

• Footers: Since they’re not yet buyers, we must be careful how solution details are offered. Ardath Albee can tie the right words, tone, style, and voice to ensure buyers are engaged personally.
• Connect with Sales Enablement: This process will produce probable buyers to hand over to sales and Sales Enablement and continue outreach throughout the length of the customer life cycle.

With our close ratios dropping, and more money being spent to engage it’s time to begin adding Buying Enablement to marketing and Buying Facilitation® to sales. Is it solution related? Nope. But people must do all these things before they’re buyers anyway. We might as well help them.

_____________________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen October 18th, 2021

Posted In: News

6 Comments

Change Management: how sales and marketing can engage real buyers

Marketing is currently designed to inspire, identify, and engage potential buyers in a way that leads them to action. The baseline assumptions are that good content in the right hands, or engaged relationships that create connection, will provide the foundational components to cause buying. But do they?

Before people become buyers they have work to do that’s not buying related, outside the purview of both marketing and sales, and won’t be activated by conventional sales or marketing strategy.

I contend that marketing and sales could be so much more effective if they added the capability of finding, engaging and facilitating not-yet buyers through their Pre-Sales, change management issues – the stuff that precludes them from identifying as buyers initially but who will be once they’re ready.

THE RESULTS OF OUR OUTREACH

Currently sales and marketing spend money/resource finding names and inundating them with content, hoping to evoke a sale. But success has been elusive, and we must ask ourselves these questions:

• Do our product details move people to action they wouldn’t take otherwise?
• Are we convincing those who would NOT buy to choose us over our competitors? Cause them to buy NOW instead of later?
• Does our information get read by folks who aren’t yet buyers but will be?
• Are we capturing/engaging folks who WILL be buyers?

I think the answer is ‘no’ on all counts. It’s because we’re focused on the Sell Side and overlook the Buy Side. And they’re two entirely different things. Let me explain.

Before people consider themselves ‘buyers’, or have clarity on what, or even if, they’ll buy anything, they have Pre-Sales work to do. This is why they ignore what we send: it doesn’t seem relevant, regardless of a need or the efficacy of our solution. It’s like a realtor sending you details about a terrific house before you and your family have decided to move.

Until people figure out the bits and pieces they must handle, until they know for sure they’re going to fix something rather than leave it as it is, until they try to fix it themselves and get buy-in for change, they don’t seek to buy anything.

MANAGE CHANGE THEN BUY

A buying decision is a change management issue issue before it’s a solution choice issue. And there are far more people in the process of deciding than there are those who show up as buyers. But as of now, neither marketing nor sales addresses this segment of a prospective buyer’s process.

It’s possible to facilitate buyer readiness with different thinking.

Right now our outreach is limited to folks who meet the demographics and search terms that imply to us they have a need.

But our ‘need’/solution-placement focus only attracts folks who self-identify as buyers, reducing our target audience to those relative few who have completed their change- and decision-making activity while ignoring a much larger group who have not yet identified as buyers (and will not read our marketing content) but will buy when they’re ready.

We’re not reaching them now because our selling criteria is disparate from their buying criteria: we need different outreach strategies to connect with them.

And yes, it needs new thinking and new types of content, but it will prove its worth in short order: since people do this anyway before they become buyers, we can enter earlier, help them do what they need to do more efficiently, prove our worth as trusted advisors, and be there when they’re ready.

WHEN DO PEOPLE BUY

At the start, people don’t want to buy anything, merely resolve a problem at the least ‘cost’ to the system. They only become buyers once they

• recognize a problem,
• gather the entire complement of stakeholders to understand the full fact pattern that caused and maintains the problem,
• try to fix the problem with workarounds/available resources,
• get buy in from the stakeholders if workaround not possible,
• understand the downside, the ‘cost’, of making a change,
• agree on the criteria that an external solution must meet,
• choose a solution that will match their criteria and all agree on.

Regardless of how sophisticated our efforts at engaging the ‘right’ ones, until people have completed their change management work above, they are not buyers, regardless of their need or the efficacy of our solution. They certainly won’t be lured by marketing that pushes content they haven’t yet recognized they want.

And this is why we fail to close more sales: we’re assuming our content will entice, when they’re not looking for enticement. With our current solution placement/’need’ lens, we’re merely hoping and guessing our missives will inspire buying when we could be engaging and leading real, but not-yet-ready, buyers through their Buying Decision Path (BDP).

Certainly we capture some eyeballs as folks do research on route to fixing their problem, but these folks aren’t engaged buyers and often ignore what they read or we’ve sent them: they’re not ready, and they’re not yet buyers.

In other words, a high percentage of folks who may be our target market are not actively buyers. Yet.

I suggest it’s possible to generate a much larger group of in-market buyers by first facilitating folks who haven’t yet completed their change process and be their natural choice once they’re ready.

HOW CHANGE MANAGEMENT INFLUENCES BUYING

I figured out the ins and outs of buying decades ago. When I became a tech entrepreneur in the 1980s after being a sales professional for many years, the differences between the Sell Side and the Buy Side became obvious.

When I began hiring and managing, it hit me that a decision to buy anything – leadership training, software – was more complex than I had realized. As a responsible leader, I had to first try to resolve the problem internally, understand the full problem set by hearing from all involved, and get everyone’s buy-in for any change.

Ultimately, until we all understood the ‘cost’ of the change to our job descriptions and policies, and were certain we couldn’t fix the problem ourselves, I would have been irresponsible to consider making a purchase.

That’s when I realized the problem I had as a seller: buying and selling are two wholly different mind-sets and activities! The Buy Side is change management-based; the Sell Side involves solution placement. And both sales and marketing overlook this discrepancy.

But we can add a new initiative to engage more buyers; by focusing on the Buy Side first, marketing can find, follow and lead folks through each stage of their change management process, and send them targeted data that helps them complete their processes – then be there to begin the sales process once they’re buyers.

Right now we wait for these folks to appear. But we can influence their journey – just not with selling or marketing as they are now used.

FACILITATE THE BUY SIDE

Once I realized that change management preceded buying, I developed a unique change facilitation process I named Buying Facilitation® for my own sales team. Instead of beginning by seeking folks with need, we sought out folks seeking change in the area our solution could support, and facilitated them through the steps they had to take anyway as they approached problem resolution.

Once they completed their work with our help and the targeted articles we offered (How to Engage the Right Stakeholders, etc.), we were in line to be their chosen providers. I was happily surprised that we no longer needed proposals, and our pitches were greatly diminished as most of their decision making was already done by then.

We were seen as an active participant in their change and decision processes, a true trusted adviser, and there was no content push that risked annoying them. Not only did sales close in half the time, we stopped wasting time because we spent more time facilitating folks who were real buyers. My business doubled.

In case you want more data on the 13 steps all people and groups take as they manage their change issues, I suggest (and here’s a pitch!) you get my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell. It lays out each of step in separate chapters with a very detailed case study at the end.

Obviously this is different than what we’re used to as the outreach is not based on placing a solution. Because of the different focus and goals, the new thinking brings up questions: are we willing to

1. broaden our activities to include change management?
2. use a different filter than need or solution placement?
3. take non-solution-related action?
4. seek out those on route to becoming buyers and facilitate them down their steps rather then directing efforts to those we guess might have need?
5. avoid solution details and sales/marketing techniques?

Of course we use customary sales tools and Sales Enablement once these folks are ready to buy. But are you ready? And can I help? My site explains my change management and sales models.

FIRST FACILITATE CHANGE WITH BUYING ENABLEMENT

I’m now a Buying Enablement Consultant to help marketing professionals develop the capability to facilitate each stage of a potential prospect’s Buying Decision Path to bring names of high-quality prospects to sales. Here are the elements in the new Buying Enablement initiative:

• Buy Side training: For both sales and marketing professionals to understand the profound differences between the Buy Side and the Sell Side, and to enable divergent thinking so both sides can work in tandem going forward.
• Data gathering/report: To understand specifically how your buyers buy, I’ll speak with several current buyers to discover

a. the timing, activity, search, people, and constraints during each stage of problem solving and change management;
b. what they do and when to understand the full problem set. Includes people, relationship, history, and policy issues and snags encountered;
c. patterns of (external) factors that bias problem maintenance and resolution, and cause resistance;
d. the possible workarounds and range of solutions they’re considering to resolve the problem and how they fare;
e. understand their risks in bringing in something new and how that affects people, policies and solution choices;
f. the times they go online to research each stage and the search terms they use at each stage and why.

• Marketing tools, article ideas, and Buyer Personas for each stage. I will suggest best practices and offer article titles. Ardath Albee will design Buyer Personas that lead people through each change management stage.
• Digital: Populate my Decider app with questions gleaned from my report. This can be used on your site to help site visitors first figure out what they need from your site and/or what they need from your company then leads them to the right page(s). It could also a. be configured to discover which stage of a change decision they’re at; b. be used in Deal Rooms or during sales calls.
• Footers: Since these early articles will no longer be solution-detail based, it’s vital marketing creates the right footers and links to move people from the specific step/stage they’re at to the next one. Since they’re not yet buyers, we must be careful how solution details are offered. Ardath Albee can tie the right words, tone, style, and voice to ensure buyers are engaged personally.
• Connect with Sales Enablement: This process will produce probable buyers to hand over to sales and Sales Enablement and continue outreach throughout the length of the customer life cycle.

Using BE you’ll

• know where prospects are in the buy-cycle to send target marketing,
• have a line between marketing -> content -> sales,
• offer personalized content during the entire BDP,
• lead would-be buyers through their change management stages,
• be involved during each decision stage,
• be relevant to the specific needs of your audience.

The field of marketing is beginning to include ‘buying’ thinking, but it’s still housed in product placement activity. To facilitate the BDP, it’s time to focus on how buyers buy and refrain from selling until they’re buyers.

NEXT STEPS

For sellers doing in-person sales, my Buying Facilitation® model offers new skill sets (formulating Facilitative Questions, Listening for Systems, etc) that I’ve taught in many global corporations for over 35 years. (Clients: IBM, Kaiser, HP, DEC, Wachovia, KPMG, Bose, DuPont, P&G, etc.) My clients consistently close 8x more than the control group. This could be your competitive edge. After all, the time it takes them to complete this is the length of the sales cycle.

By starting with a facilitation hat on you’ll

• find and facilitate soon-to-be buyers through the steps of change rather than assuming searches constitute a need or a prospect;
• find real prospects on the first call;
• stop wasting time chasing those who will never buy;
• close in half the time.

You’ll end up with a higher quality prospect, a higher closing probability, and a competitive edge as you truly serve folks by helping them get their ducks in a row.

Also, I suggest marketing (ABM, Demand Gen, Lead Gen, etc.) can specifically know, and target people through, each of their change management steps; build real relationships; and provide the right story line to continue to advance people through to becoming buyers.

Ultimately you’ll end up with vetted buyers to hand over to sales – hence, more closed sales. And of course the process can be used to keep customers engaged during the customer life cycle.

The days of using marketing only to offer product details are behind us. We’ve got the technology and the knowledge to enter a Pre-Sales change management journey and hand over a great, actionable list, to sales.

I continue to pose the question I began posing in 1985: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? They are two different activities. And now we can do both.

__________________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen October 11th, 2021

Posted In: News

5 Comments