By Sharon Drew Morgen

Did you ever wonder what happens behind the scenes with prospects after you’ve made a connection, given a great pitch, or delivered an engaging presentation? Why they don’t return your calls or call with an order? The silence has nothing to do with your solution.

Indeed, after you’ve pitched, the prospects return to the team to share your ideas. Some might like it. But maybe some don’t like what they’re hearing (or the way your pitch has been interpreted), or argue about using your solution instead of a different one, or discuss a new workaround to try. Some might think it’s not time.

Without group consensus for what criteria a solution must include, they do nothing because the risk of disturbing what’s working is too great. It’s the difference between selling and buying: You’re using the sales process to place your solution; they’re using their (buying) decision process to figure out how to resolve their problem with the least disruption.

Selling and buying are two different things. The sales model too often introduces solutions before the prospect has gotten buy-in for change and they’re just not ready to buy.

Unfortunately for sellers, you’ve got no control over what buyers are doing because the change they must consider is idiosyncratic to their environment and beyond the purpose of sales. It’s possible to facilitate them through their change decisions, but not with the sales model as it is now.

THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

When sellers start off with a goal to sell a solution (and yes, ‘gathering information’ merely poses biased questions that give you a platform to pitch), it’s a solution looking for a problem. Obviously this narrows the buyer pool to only those who seek THAT solution at THAT moment, those who have already

• understood exactly what something New should do that they can’t do for themselves;
• assembled the full set of stakeholders who have already agreed and bought-into what something New should look and act like and their roles in managing implementation;
• tried several workarounds that don’t work out and an external solution is the only option;
• recognized the ‘cost’ of bringing in something New and know how to manage it;
• have figured out how to manage the change with the least disruption.

Buying occurs only after a prospect has tried everything else and there is wide-spread agreement for change.

Since every environment is a system and includes the history, rules, goals, norms, relationships and Beliefs held within that culture, bringing in anything New must match or the system will be compromised. Nothing, nothing is ever purchased in isolation; a system will ignore, procrastinate, deny, defend, and resist if something is pushed in beforehand.

If you think you want a new car, getting a pitch about a Tesla will only be welcome if you’ve decided on an electric car in a specific price range. Rejecting a Tesla pitch isn’t a testament to the car, merely a commentary on the buying (or buy-in) decision criteria.

BUYERS BUY IF THE ‘COST’ OF CHANGE IS LESS THAN MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO

Let’s think more about the buy side. People don’t want to buy anything, merely solve a problem with the least ‘cost’ to their system. Sometimes they sound like they have a need but are merely in their research phase; sometimes they are seeking workarounds when they connect with you and are comparing alternatives; sometimes they take an appointment to learn more from you so they can develop their own solution; sometimes they want to bring back new ideas to the team.

When you’re speaking with someone who seems like a ‘prospect’, you may be right and they have a need. But until they understand and address the full set of internal issues involved with solving their problem, they can’t fully define the best route to a fix.

Until or unless the criteria for change is known and a plan in place to manage it effectively, people aren’t buyers; the ‘cost’ of any potential disruption is just too high and the status quo has been good-enough. One more thing. Before people are buyers, they must be absolutely certain they can’t fix the problem themselves.

All of these issues explain why you’re closing only 5% – the low hanging fruit actually ready, willing, and able to buy.

SELLING IS TACTICAL, BUYING IS STRATEGIC

A purchase is systemic and strategic – a change management issue before it’s a solution choice issue, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution. Sales is tactical, solution-placement driven, and doesn’t address the complexities and criteria of the hidden buying environment or their specific buying patterns.

I got a cold call once in which the salesman began by telling me he had a great way for me to save money on a phone provider.

A View from the Buy Side, by Sharon Drew Morgen

Did you ever wonder what happens behind the scenes with prospects after you’ve made a connection, given a great pitch, or delivered an engaging presentation? Why they don’t return your calls or call with an order? The silence has nothing to do with your solution.

Indeed, after you’ve pitched, the prospects return to the team to share your ideas. Some might like it. But maybe some don’t like what they’re hearing (or the way your pitch has been interpreted), or argue about using your solution instead of a different one, or discuss a new workaround to try. Some might think it’s not time.

Without group consensus for what criteria a solution must include, they do nothing because the risk of disturbing what’s working is too great. It’s the difference between selling and buying: You’re using the sales process to place your solution; they’re using their (buying) decision process to figure out how to resolve their problem with the least disruption.

Selling and buying are two different things. The sales model too often introduces solutions before the prospect has gotten buy-in for change and they’re just not ready to buy.

Unfortunately for sellers, you’ve got no control over what buyers are doing because the change they must consider is idiosyncratic to their environment and beyond the purpose of sales. It’s possible to facilitate them through their change decisions, but not with the sales model as it is now.

THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

When sellers start off with a goal to sell a solution (and yes, ‘gathering information’ merely poses biased questions that give you a platform to pitch), it’s a solution looking for a problem. Obviously this narrows the buyer pool to only those who seek THAT solution at THAT moment, those who have already

• understood exactly what something New should do that they can’t do for themselves;
• assembled the full set of stakeholders who have already agreed and bought-into what something New should look and act like and their roles in managing implementation;
• tried several workarounds that don’t work out and an external solution is the only option;
• recognized the ‘cost’ of bringing in something New and know how to manage it;
• have figured out how to manage the change with the least disruption.

Buying occurs only after a prospect has tried everything else and there is wide-spread agreement for change.

Since every environment is a system and includes the history, rules, goals, norms, relationships and Beliefs held within that culture, bringing in anything New must match or the system will be compromised. Nothing, nothing is ever purchased in isolation; a system will ignore, procrastinate, deny, defend, and resist if something is pushed in beforehand.

If you think you want a new car, getting a pitch about a Tesla will only be welcome if you’ve decided on an electric car in a specific price range. Rejecting a Tesla pitch isn’t a testament to the car, merely a commentary on the buying (or buy-in) decision criteria.

BUYERS BUY IF THE ‘COST’ OF CHANGE IS LESS THAN MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO

Let’s think more about the buy side. People don’t want to buy anything, merely solve a problem with the least ‘cost’ to their system. Sometimes they sound like they have a need but are merely in their research phase; sometimes they are seeking workarounds when they connect with you and are comparing alternatives; sometimes they take an appointment to learn more from you so they can develop their own solution; sometimes they want to bring back new ideas to the team.

When you’re speaking with someone who seems like a ‘prospect’, you may be right and they have a need. But until they understand and address the full set of internal issues involved with solving their problem, they can’t fully define the best route to a fix.

Until or unless the criteria for change is known and a plan in place to manage it effectively, people aren’t buyers; the ‘cost’ of any potential disruption is just too high and the status quo has been good-enough. One more thing. Before people are buyers, they must be absolutely certain they can’t fix the problem themselves.

All of these issues explain why you’re closing only 5% – the low hanging fruit actually ready, willing, and able to buy.

SELLING IS TACTICAL, BUYING IS STRATEGIC

A purchase is systemic and strategic – a change management issue before it’s a solution choice issue, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution. Sales is tactical, solution-placement driven, and doesn’t address the complexities and criteria of the hidden buying environment or their specific buying patterns.

I got a cold call once in which the salesman began by telling me he had a great way for me to save money on a phone provider.

SD: But saving money isn’t one of my buying criteria!

Rep: Well, it should be. [Wait, he’s telling me I should buy using his selling criteria?]

SD: Great. Then you buy it.

Until people know the rules, roles, and relationships they must maintain, the specifics of your solution are moot. When you’re pitching before people have all their ducks in row, they can’t even hear the details you proudly offer. 

You’ve got nothing to sell if they have nothing to buy, regardless of the need or the efficacy of your solution. And unfortunately, because their internal considerations are so idiosyncratic, you can’t ever understand them. But you can know the areas they must handle so you can facilitate them through their uncertainty.

WHAT BUYERS MUST KNOW

Here is a list of what folks must figure out before they can buy anything, regardless of how well your solution matches or how great their need. And the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle. Indeed, they can’t define what they need until this is completed:

• Stakeholders: Have all stakeholders who have been part of maintaining the status quo been assembled? Have those who will be part of the solution been included and driving the initiative? Have they reached agreement on the specific modifications needed? Do they know, and have agreed to, their roles within the processes of the New? Are they aware how their responsibilities will change? Is there supervision or leadership in place to facilitate them through change? Do they all – all – believe the New will maintain the team’s values and goals and offer more efficiency? Have the stakeholders had a say in any transition and had their voices and ideas added?
• Workarounds: Have all possible workarounds been tried so it’s obvious to everyone something New is necessary?
• Users: Have the users asked for this and have a say in the specifics they need? If not, how will management help them buy-in to using something they didn’t ask for or won’t do what they want it to do? Will they need training for the New? Will their habituated use behaviors need to change? How will the adoption of the New affect their workload or jobs? Have they agreed to a learning curve and to less-than-optimal output when they won’t be so efficient?
• Old vs New: How will something New fit with the old? Must the old be removed or is a ‘both/and’ possible? Must the old be retrofitted to work with the New? How? Who will do this?How many of the old practices are needed to maintain work flow? What’s a plausible time frame on this?
• Implementation: Does everyone understand the downsides – the labor, costs, time, output issues – of the New and how to mitigate them? Are all – all – on board with New procedures and willing to take on the new activities without resistance? Who is responsible for managing the overall implementation and downsides?
• Creativity: Does the team have the opportunity to add ideas? Will they be able to add what they need so they’re part of the solution and won’t resist?
• Brand: Will the New change the brand and require different kinds of marketing? Will the new potentially change the finances? The audience? Is it worth it? How will they know before they try?

Bringing in something New or different requires group buy-in, discussion, debating, questioning and idea-sharing. Imagine coming home for dinner and announcing to your family that you just purchased a new house and moving next week! The fact that last night your spouse mentioned s/he’d love an extra room is not the point.

No one buys anything unless workarounds have been tried, research has been done, possibilities are discussed, options are considered, and stakeholders have bought into, and added to, the process of change.

Because sales focuses on ‘need’ and placing solutions, it only closes those at the tail end of their change management process and expends far too much resource trying to drive a decision with folks who aren’t yet real buyers.

Why not begin selling by seeking those going through the change process at that moment and help them facilitate the change first then leading them through their systemic decisions and selling to those who are ready? It will take far less time, and if you’re like the large numbers of sales reps I’ve trained globally, you’ll close 40% instead of 5%.

DO YOU WANT TO SELL? OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY?

Selling and buying are two different activities. Start on the buy side, discover those who WILL be buyers and then facilitate buying. Then you can sell because they’re ready to buy. By then you’re on the Buying Decision Team, can target your pitches and presentations, be a real trusted advisor, and your price discussions will be minimal. You will also have saved a lot of time, closed a lot more sales, and have real relationships.

For those of you wanting to learn how to do this, I invented a model called Buying Facilitation® that uses the 13 steps all people go through on route to buying. It involves a wholly different facilitation skill set: Facilitative Questions, Presumptive Summaries, and Systems Listening. I suggest you visit www.sharondrewmorgen.com and read the articles I put up on change, buying, and decision making. And if you’re committed to helping buyers buy, read Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell. Or just contact me and we can chat. www.sharondrewmorgen.com

_________________________________

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.sharondrewmorgen.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Have you ever wondered why people don’t buy, even when it seems your solution is perfect for their needs? Have you considered that maybe your Selling Patterns don’t match their Buying Patterns? Or that they don’t have the ‘need’ you think they do?

With a focus on finding people with a need that is resolved by your solution, sellers overlook two very important factors in the buy/sell equation:

1. 1. people don’t become buyers until they’ve determined they cannot resolve a problem themselves and
   2. the ‘cost’ of a purchase must be equal to, or less than, the ‘cost’ of staying the same.

A purchase is a change management problem well before it’s a solution choice issue. And ‘need’ may have little to do with a purchase.

DO YOU WANT TO SELL? OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY?

As they seek to resolve a problem, people go through an internal, systemic process of managing change that determines whether or not they can buy anything. Sales doesn’t address this to their detriment, connecting with people only once they’ve determined they’re buyers.

By overlooking the possibility of facilitating folks to first manage their change, we not only omit the possibility of connecting with the people who WILL buy when they are ready, but restrict our pool of prospects to those who show up. The problem is until they’ve addressed their change they aren’t yet buyers and can’t hear or heed your message, even if they need it.

Think about this: instead of trying to motivate a sale by pushing content, or lowering the price; or wondering why your prospect isn’t returning calls or in the pipeline for so long; or thinking they’re in pain; help them do the Pre-Sales work they must do before they become a buyer. You’re waiting (and calling, and calling) anyway. Might as well use a different skill set and help them where they most need help.

Here’s the takeaway idea: Enter as a change facilitator, help the folks who will be buyers (easy to spot with a change hat on rather than a sales hat) manage their change, and then you’re part of their team once they’ve become buyers.

Helping people who may become buyers is a very quick process, far quicker than trying to sell those few who are ready and wasting time pushing out content to the rest.

In this article I will introduce you to the steps, the Buying Patterns, people go through en route to buying anything, regardless of need or the efficacy/size/price of the solution.

I’ve spent years unpacking these buying decision steps after I personally went from a seller to a buyer. There is a sequence of 13 steps people take between discovering a problem and choosing/buying a solution. But first let me explain why the sales model doesn’t facilitate buying.

WHY PAIN & NEED ARE IRRELEVANT

There are two approaches sellers operate from that actually limit success: seeking folks with a ‘need’, and believing they have pain.

Let’s take a look at the fallacy of a ‘need’ criteria. Do you need to lose, say, 10 pounds? You have a need, yet you haven’t resolved it. What about getting more organized? Or exercise more?

People don’t buy based on need. They may have a need they’re not ready to resolve, or circumstances make it difficult, or colleagues that have different ideas or or.

If adding an external/new solution causes too much disruption they will not buy regardless of their need or the efficacy of your solution. They must weigh all the issues involved – most of which are historic and unique – and get buy-in from the stakeholders before any action is taken or not. And using the sales model, there’s no way to get inside the mind of a would-be buyer to help them.

Now let’s look at pain.

I don’t understand why ‘pain’ is so often paired with why/how buyers make buying decisions. Indeed, the ‘pain’ issue has been invented by sellers who assume potential/targeted buyers would function better if they bought the seller’s solution, and by not buying they’re obviously in pain. This is bogus.

As outsiders we have absolutely no idea what’s going on in someone’s environment. It might not be pain at all, but a very cogent decision that works for them and we’ll never understand.

David Sandler called me in 1993 to buy me out before he died. He said he’d made an error stating that ‘buyers are liars’ and saying ‘buyers are in pain’. Once he understood my thinking he realized that the problem was in the tenacious focus of placing solutions and the ommission of facilitating the necessary buying decision/change management process.

“I thought I had gone outside the box with Sandler Sales; I realize now I was still considering sales from a solution placement perspective. I didn’t understand how far outside the box I needed to go to include the buying decision process. Good job, Sharon Drew.”

CASE STUDY

Here’s a simple story to explain what’s going on behind the scenes, and how little it’s got to do with what a seller is selling, need, or pain.

In 1995 I was running a Buying Facilitation® training at IBM. One day my client asked me to help enlist a new Beta site for one of their new systems. There was a small ‘Mom & Pop’ shop (i.e. family run business) located nearby, and from their records they knew this company was using a system far too small for the growth they’d incurred over the past years, causing very slow response times.

Letting them have a free new system in exchange for IBM having them close by to test would be a win/win. But even after two sales folks had visited them with the promise of a new, free, system that would substantially speed up their response times, the company had no interest. Could I get them to become a beta site? Here was our conversation:

SDM: Hi there. I’m a trainee calling from IBM and have a question for someone who is using your computers.

SON: Hi. I’m Joe. I’m one of the owners. Maybe I can help.

SDM: Thanks. I wonder how your current system is running?

SON: It’s ok.

SDM: I know our folks were out there offering you a faster system to beta and you weren’t interested. I’m curious now what’s stopping you from upgrading your current system to be better than OK?

SON: Dad.

SDM: DAD? I don’t understand.

SON: I know our system is very very slow. But my father is in charge of the technology here, and he’s 75 years old. He’ll be retiring in a year or so, and I don’t want to overwhelm him with learning anything new. So I’ll make whatever changes necessary after he leaves.

SDM: Ah. So what I hear you saying is that your main criteria is not to overwhelm Dad and don’t mind how slow the system is in the meantime.

SON: Right.

SDM: You already know we want to give you an upgrade in exchange for being a beta site for us. From what I know about it, they’ve made it very simple to use and easy to learn. Maybe you and Dad could visit another beta site here in Rye to see if Dad likes it and finds it easy to use? I’d be happy to pick you up and take you there. And if Dad is happy, then maybe you’d be comfortable accepting it to beta test for us?

SON: Oh. I wasn’t aware we could do that. Your colleagues were trying to sell me on the features of the new capabilities, and that wasn’t my main problem. Sure, Dad and I would be willing to go to the beta site. Thanks. Having a quicker response time would be great for us if we could make that happen and Dad is comfortable with it.

The sellers used ‘features, functions, and benefits’ as their Selling Pattern; there was no way an outsider could guess that Dad was the problem that had to be solved. Offering a needed product or cheap price (free) details were moot. And so long as the seller focused on the sale, on the need, on the pain, there was no buy.

A BUYING DECISION IS SYSTEMIC AND STRATEGIC

A buying decision is a change management problem well before it is a solution choice issue. People don’t want to buy anything; they want to resolve a problem in the least disruptive way.

Indeed people only become buyers when they’re certain they cannot resolve the problem using familiar resources, and explore every avenue to fixing the problem themselves first. Buying anything is the very last thing people do.

Think about it. Before you buy a new CRM system, for example, you don’t begin by buying a new system: you begin by meeting with the managers and users to determine why the current system is problematic; trying to get the current one fixed; finding workarounds to try to resolve the problem easily; and making sure that there’s a process in place to manage any user, technology, training, time disruption that might come with bringing in new technology.

Again, buying anything is the very last thing that happens. By overlooking Buying Patterns, sellers automatically restrict their full set of prospective buyers.

Obviously when it’s time to buy, buyers take very specific actions as they choose one solution over another, choices based on price, reputation/brand of the solution, decision makers, etc. This is when the conventional sales model kicks in. But selling doesn’t cause buying.

STAGES OF BUYING PATTERNS

Here are the Pre-Sales stages folks go through as they become buyers:

What’s the status quo? Whats’ missing: until or unless every element of the status quo is understood, buyers cannot identify exactly what’s missing. In the Dad example, what was missing was not the computer issue, but the ability to have Dad learn how to support a new one; a delay in purchasing new software is most likely not a technology issue, but might be a recent reorganization, or a merger, or a change in leadership. And an outsider can never, ever understand because they’re, well, outsiders. This stage includes meetings, research, identifying stakeholders.

RULE: a seller can facilitate someone through the process of recognizing the full fact pattern of givens within their status quo, including the people, culture, and rules, to help them learn what is keeping them from having an optimal environment. Guesswork is detrimental because it’s such an idiosyncratic process. Using these steps, sellers can get out of the guessing game and merely facilitate the change.

Gather the full set of stakeholders: until or unless everyone involved with creating the problem and touching a new solution is brought in the full problem set cannot be understood. Everyone’s voice must be included – Dad, and Joe in accounting. This stage includes meetings to determine who will touch the final solution and agreement as to how to involve them.

RULE: a seller can facilitate a prospective buyer through a discovery. Until all folks who will touch the final solution are included, there is no way for them to understand their needs. Speaking with anyone about needs before this is a waste of time (i.e. all those names on your call back list and pipeline].

Try to fix the problem with workarounds: until it’s fully understood that the problem cannot be resolved with anything that’s already been accepted by the culture – other departments or items, familiar vendors or products – and all workarounds have been tried, they will never consider buying anything as it will be disruptive to the culture. This stage includes internal research, and delegating folks to outreach for familiar resources: can our old vendors fix this? Can the other department help? Until a workaround is dismissed, there will be no initiative to make a purchase.

RULE: people always begin by trying to fix the problem themselves. Sellers can help here: What’s stopping you from using the vendors you used last year? Have you tried getting help from other departments? Either you help them through this, or sit helplessly while they do it themselves as you continue to think they’re prospects and put them in your pipeline. In reality, this is the simplest stage.

Managing change to avoid disruption: once folks agree

1. They have a problem that all stakeholders have fully defined;
2. They cannot fix it themselves;
3. The ‘cost’ of a purchase is manageable;

then it’s necessary to go ‘outside’ for a solution.

The cost of the new must be calculated against maintaining the status quo. When they figure this element out, they’re ready to choose a solution. This stage includes lots of research within the group/company/family to ferret out problems that change would incur, and figuring out the human, time, money, strategic, costs.

RULE: facilitate people to recognize what might be in jeopardy if something new is brought in. Until they weight the risk between the status quo vs a fix, and can calculate that bringing something new is has a lower cost than maintaining the status quo, they cannot buy anything as the risk is too high.

Choose a vendor/solution: This is the last stage – where sales now enters! Once it’s calculated that it will cost less to bring in a new solution than maintaining their status quo, AND there is buy-in from the stakeholders, AND they know how to integrate the new with minimal disruption, they become buyers. This is the low hanging fruit. These folks are ready for a pitch! This stage involves sellers pitching, content marketing, website design, etc.

SALES VS FACILITATING BUYING PATTERNS

I always ask sellers: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? They are two different activities. Buying has nothing to do with pain, or the marketing efforts, or the pitch deck, or the product. You’re products are great.

The problem is you’re only focusing on those who already show up as buyers and ignore managing the full set of Buying Patterns of the far larger group of real prospects. My clients close 40% against the control group that closes 5% selling the same solution. But not by starting with the sales model.

As a frustrated sales person, I developed a new model called Buying Facilitation® to identify and facilitate steps of change, choice, and buy-in as a servant leader. Following these steps it’s possible for sellers to assist people in navigating the journey first with no bias, before trying to sell anything.

This sequence – Buying Facilitation® first, sales second – ensures you’ll find (and quickly close) a much larger number of people who WILL buy (rather than those who SHOULD buy) and keep you from wasting time on those who will never buy (but you think they ‘should’ because you think they’re ‘in pain’). My clients who use Buying Facilitation® close, on average, 40% selling the same product as the control group that closes 5%.

People who will become buyers must go through this process anyway, regardless of their need or the efficacy of our solution. But they do this without us, as we wait, hope, push, and pitch, and lose an opportunity to both serve and differentiate ourselves.

Instead of the time and resource we use pushing content, why not use a different skill set (i.e. Buying Facilitation®, or some form of facilitation model that manages change) first to help them become buyers.

_____________________________________

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.

I recently got a call from a noted venture capitalist of healthcare apps.

DH: I heard you have a model that facilitates permanent behavior change. I wonder if it would work with any of the 15 healthcare apps I’ve invested in.

SD: I do have a model that does that. And it certainly could be used as a front end to conventional behavior change apps to enable users to develop permanent habits. What are you using now to help folks change behaviors permanently?

DH. Behavior Modification, but it doesn’t work. There’s no scientific evidence that it works and our analysis concurs. But there’s nothing else to use. Can you help?

It’s a known fact that Behavior Modification has a 3% success rate over time. Sure, people initially lose weight with a behavior-based plan to eat differently. Certainly people stop smoking or get to the gym for a few weeks. But because these new behaviors haven’t been accepted by, or made permanent in, the brain, they cannot succeed over time. And repeating the new in hopes that THIS time it will stick obviously doesn’t work.

Permanent change is a very achievable goal. But not the way we’re going about it; we’re approaching the problem from the wrong angle. In this essay I will explain what a behavior is, what change is, how our brains govern them both, and introduce the steps needed to form habits. Believe it or not, it’s mechanical.

THE PROBLEM WITH BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION

Lately I’ve heard several Behavioral Scientists on the radio, all offering Behavior Modification techniques to habituate new behaviors by, well, habituating new behaviors. They ‘remove barriers’, suggest ‘momentum’, offer ‘promoting forces/restraining forces’, and propose ‘behavioral interventions’ such as keeping weights at your desk so you can ‘lift’ during Zoom calls. All meant to motivate behavior change – through behavior change. I suspect Einstein might have something to say about that.

The problem is the premise. Behavior Mod’s core assumptions are actually contrary to brain science. It assumes that by merely repeating a behavior over and over (and over and over), permanent brain change will result that can be maintained over time. But it doesn’t. And it can’t.

Certainly we’ve all tried. Gone on a ‘different’ diet that we’d get ‘serious’ about this time. Or promised ourselves we’d always write up a schedule for the next day before ending work so we’d be up and running in the morning. But we’ve failed.

We’ve learned the hard way that we can’t lose weight permanently by trying to lose weight. Or stop smoking by trying to stop smoking. Somehow we forget that we have to remember to keep doing it, so we promise ourselves we’ll be disciplined ‘this time’. But we don’t. And we don’t know what else to do.

DIFFERENT THINKING REQUIRED

The reason it’s not possible is pretty simple once you understand what a behavior is and how our brains generate them. The problem isn’t our lack of discipline. We’re ignoring the brain chemistry and neural pathways that prompt behaviors to begin with.

I’ll start with an analogy. Let’s say you purchase a forward-moving robot, use it for a while, then decide you want it to move backward. You tell it why a ‘backwards’ functionality would enhance it, show it slides and presentations of other robots that move backwards, and attempt to push, cajole, and offer rewards for days on end. Nope. It won’t move backward. But if you program it differently, it will.

What about changing a chair into a table. You put red plastic into a machine that is programmed to spit out a red plastic chair. Once the chair is produced, you can’t make it a table. But you can create a table if you program the machine appropriately at the start.

Changing habits by trying to change habits is merely attempting to change the outcome, what’s already occurred – the output, the habit, the behavior – but failing to reprogram the brain with different instructions.

Sounds obvious. But that’s not what behaviorists are trying to do: Behavior Mod tries to get the robot to move backward by pushing it (and pushing it and pushing it) on a regular basis assuming the repetition will cause permanent change. It’s just not possible to maintain over time without changing the core input instructions to the brain.

WHAT IS A BEHAVIOR?

To understand the full scope of the problem it’s helpful to understand what, exactly, a behavior is. They don’t just arise haphazardly, like coincidences that seem to occur by chance, or stand-alone features.

Behaviors are merely the activity, the output – the forward-moving robot – of our brain’s signaling system, the response to input instructions that travel down a fixed neural pathway and hook up with a set of circuits that generate a behavior.

Where do behaviors originate? Behaviors are Beliefs in action, tangible representations of our core identity factors. Our politics represent our Beliefs. The way we dress, talk; the professions we choose; where we travel and who we marry. Everything we do represents who we are. As the foundational factor, Beliefs determine our actions and must be factored in when considering change or forming a new habit. Current Behavior Mod approaches try to circumvent Beliefs and therein lie the problem.

There is actual science on how behaviors get generated and why we automatically repeat behaviors even when we don’t want to. Here’s a quote from noted Harvard neuroscientist Richard Masland in We Know It When We See It to set the stage:

Our brain has trillions of cell assemblies that fire together automatically. When anything incoming bears even some of the characteristics [of operational circuits], the brain automatically fires the same set of synapses. (pg 143)

I’ll now offer a simplified version of the specifics of how to convince the brain to make the changes that lead to new habits: the science, the neurology, of how messages travel through the brain to become a behavior. It’s only slightly wonky, so hang with me. Once you ‘get it’ you’ll understand how behaviors occur and where change comes from.

NEUROLOGICAL PATHWAY FROM INPUT TO OUTPUT

Generally, each behavior starts off as an input – an idea or command, thought or story – that enters our brains as a meaningless puff of air, an electrochemical vibration (a ‘message’). To keep us congruent, the input gets evaluated against our Mental Models and Beliefs before going further. Is this input a risk? Is it congruent with values?

If the idea goes against who we are, it gets rejected or resisted and does not end up becoming a permanent pathway. Did you ever try to convince someone of a different political persuasion, regardless of the strength of your argument? Nope. We’re not talking rational here, we’re talking electrochemical neurology.

If the vibration is accepted, it gets turned into signals that then seek out similar-enough circuits that translate them into action or output – a behavior. So:

1. Receive input vibrations (from conversations, thoughts, reading, ideas) and
2. Compare/test against foundational Beliefs, norms, and history
3. Get turned into signals that get
4. Matched with the closest, habituated brain circuits
5. That translate them into output/action/behavior.

In more scientific language, it looks like this in our brains:

Data/Input -> Risk/Congruence check -> CUE creates signals -> CEN (Central Executive Network) generates/chooses circuits -> Output/behavior.

Or simply stated: Input -> Relevance check -> Programming -> Output

The time it takes a message to go from an input to an output takes 5 one-hundredths of a second. It’s pretty automatic.

THE NEED FOR VALUES-BASED CONGRUENCY

The next important piece is why repetition won’t cause new (permanent) habits. To understand this, it’s important to understand the strength and responsibility of the neural pathway between the input and the output.

All outputs, behaviors, are initiated by signals that trigger them in the first place. Since input messages become signals only AFTER a relevance check and found to be risk free, any potential new habits must go through the same safeguards. There’s a reason why.

One of our brain’s guiding principles is Systems Congruence, or the need to be stable. This need for stability creates our habits that enable us to brush our teeth when we get up in the morning, and take a left turn without major thought. For this reason, our brains seek well-traveled pathways – doing what we’ve always done – regardless of their current efficacy, because they matched our Beliefs at some point and are now habituated and unconscious.

If our Beliefs change and new outputs are required, our system just needs to go back to the drawing board with new inputs, new relevancy check, new signals and new circuits. Otherwise there is no reason for our brains to consider changing. Remember that we’re dealing with brain activity, vibrations, that offer no good/bad judgment on their own. If it was ‘good to go’ at one point, and the brain has no reason to reconsider this, it just keeps on keepin’ on.

Sadly – and the reason new activity fails when Behavior Mod is attempted – if anything tries to change the status quo without being checked for relevance, our brain discards the new input because it may carry risk! The new isn’t sustainable. Ultimately, trying to create new habits without sending wholly new belief-based input instructions – i.e. new programming – cannot cause permanent change because there are no new circuits to administer it!

The good news is that the brain is always willing to create new circuits for new behaviors. It’s called Neurogenesis.

CREATING NEW PROGRAMMING, NEW SIGNALS, NEW BEHAVIORS

To change behaviors permanently, start with new, Belief-based input messages that result in wholly new circuits and outputs:

• create a new belief-based input/message that
• generates new signals which
• create or discover a different arrangement of (existing) circuits
• leading to new/different behaviors.

Let me tell you a story. A friend said, “I’ve been telling myself I’m a Fat Cow recently. That means it’s time for me to go on another diet.” Obviously this input would lead her to the same circuits (and results) that it used for past diets that she failed at. But if she changed her input signal and told herself instead:

‘I am a healthy person who will research best nutrition choices for my body type and lifestyle and have the discipline to eat the best foods for the rest of my life.’

she would end up with a different set of circuits and different output/behaviors.

Our outputs, our behaviors, are merely responses to inputs that our brain has checked out as congruent with who we are. So change the incoming messaging to one that is Belief-based and takes into account all the elements (Mental Models, history, norms, experience) that might cause risk to the system. Once it’s approved, it will automatically generate new circuits and new, habituated, behaviors.

THE HOW OF CHANGE

I’ve been studying, unpacking, and writing about Choice and Change for over 50 years. It’s been exciting and frustrating: exciting because I continue to learn as new discoveries in brain science emerge, frustrating because science largely studies outputs without curiosity re where, how, or why a signal gets created or chosen to begin with. The concept of Beliefs, or Systems Congruence, is omitted. And yet science now says it understands change comes from Beliefs – but doesn’t know how to get there. I do. It just takes different thinking.

In 2019, I spent a full year unpacking the science of neural pathways and adding some of my understanding about change and congruence into the mix. From this, I developed a 5-hour program program to guide folks through the step-by-step activity of consciously designing permanent habit formation. I’ve trained it to a few hundred people who have had great results. Here you can watch me deliver the first, introductory, hour of the How of Change™ program.

I am passionately interested in enabling people to consciously design new signaling instructions for their brains to output any new habits they seek. My wish is to work with healthcare providers and apps for exercise, healthy eating, meditation and decision making to aid folks seeking to achieve greater health and success. It’s quite possible to add the How of Change capabilities to the front end of Behavior Mod apps so users first change their brains to be ready for permanent change.

If you want to collaborate, or have questions, contact me to discuss ways we can engage those seeking permanent change. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_______________________

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.sharondrewmorgen.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Ever since the serpent convinced Eve to eat the apple there’s been someone trying to sell something. The original idea was fairly simple: find folks with a problem, then create and sell a product that will fix it.

For centuries, companies worked hard to understand customer needs then create good products to fill those needs. With limited reach and communication tools, early sellers went around to neighbor’s homes and showed their wares; those with money advertised in the most prestigious magazines (TIME, LOOK, LIFE). Sellers closed 25 – 40% back in the day.

Forward a few decades to Silicon Valley that began creating products because they could, with little concern for need, assuming ‘if they build it they will come.’ Using technology to covertly track and gather huge swaths of data, sellers used their new marketing metrics, human behavior predictors, and an ‘understanding’ of sales demographics to reach high-probability buyers.

Theoretically it became possible to cheaply find those who might need a solution after it was already created, and sell by sending ‘possible buyers’ some ‘targeted messages’ and play the percentages. Given the low cost per touchpoint, sellers only needed a small percentage to take the bait for the investment to pay for itself.

INSANITY

So did it work? Did more sales close? During this new era of using technology, of creating solutions first and then finding potential buyers, sales fell. Here are the actual numbers: according to numbers averaged out from my own clients (Fortune 1000 companies), email marketing closes 0.0059%; sales professionals close less than 5%.

But those numbers don’t seem to matter to the field as it continues to use the same thinking that caused the numbers to begin with. Sales just pushes harder, always assuming they only have to find buyers. Build it and they will come indeed.

To me, those numbers matter. They tell me the industry is failing: A 5% close rate means a 95% failure rate! There is no other industry that finds a 95% failure rate acceptable. No one would even go to a hairdresser with a 95% failure rate. Imagine getting on a plane with a 95% failure rate!

Yet this hasn’t caused a re-think; it’s merely caused sellers to seek more targeted prospects, use more technology, gather more private data, all with the assumption that with better data, sellers can pitch better and close more. And yet, with all the expenditure and brilliant minds working on the problem, the numbers continue to go down as the field continues to attempt to place solutions.

At no point has the sales industry wondered why their sophisticated technology doesn’t close more sales. Well, there’s been a bit of movement: When I began writing about internal buying decisions and decision makers (starting with my first book Sales on the Line in 1992 on facilitating buying decisions) the sales industry fought back (“I know how my buyers decide!!”). Eventually the field took decision makers into consideration (“Yup. A great way in! Let’s include them because they’re smart enough to buy when they hear the facts and how they need us.”), but only as a way to prompt sales.

At no point has the industry realized there might be something going on within a prospect’s environment that causes and maintains the problem the sellers want to fix. At no point has the system, the environment, that prospective buyers live in been a real consideration.

And so it continues. The thinking has remained steadfast: It’s all about the sale. Just find the eyeballs, predict and influence the behavior, and you’ll sell whatever.

SALES USES INCOMPLETE THINKING

Take a moment and think with me, given I suspect that if ‘need’ were the criteria for a purchase, more folks would be buying. And they’re not. Why? Maybe the problem isn’t about what you’re selling.

The industry recognizes that over 40% of a buying decision is based on internal change criteria (i.e. nothing to do with buying anything) and occurs before sales gets involved. So why aren’t sellers doing anything about this? Trying to ‘understand’ to get in and sell misses the point.

Let’s look at the facts. You’ve hired good professional folks, successful, with good instincts. Your marketing materials are great. You’ve learned how to pitch and present your material perfectly. And yet you’re closing less sales than occurred decades ago, when you didn’t have all the technology.

Obviously the problem is not your product or solution. The problem is on the buying decision end and more complicated than the sales model has tools for. There seems to be a gap between the moment people consider themselves buyers and seek solutions, and what and how sellers are selling; the push for eyeballs and understanding don’t address the Pre-Sales, non-buying portion of a buyer’s journey that is focused on change.

But you’re doing nothing about it. With a continued focus on placing solutions, it’s a different mind-set to think about change facilitation as a first step in finding a home for your products.

That’s where the bulk of real buyers are. And you’re ignoring them. They don’t heed your solution data, don’t want appointments, don’t read your marketing materials. They’re just not ready. But they will be. And they can be.

Think with me about the changes in decision making and leadership. Businesses have become sophisticated, as employees and customers and partners are global; leadership is no longer top-down and more inclusive and collaborative.

Given the complexity of environments and their increasingly multifaceted dynamics, and the issues that come up when a problem arises that needs resolving, it’s just not possible for anyone to purchase a new solution on their own. There are just too many consequences with relationships and job functions, chains of command and responsibility to other business practices and partners.

A BUYING DECISION IS A CHANGE MANAGEMENT FUNCTION

To address the complexity, a buying decision has become a change management function before reaching the stage of a solution choice problem.

And the sales industry hasn’t kept up. Instead of helping facilitate the change issues first, it’s still trying to sell, to place solutions, to find buyers, almost at any cost (hacking, spam, false advertising…), insuring they only close the 5% who have already completed their change process on their own.

But the answer is so much cheaper and simpler (and has integrity and far greater success): It’s possible to find those who will seek change in the area your solution can help by putting on a change facilitator’s hat and leading them through the changes they must address before seeing their way clear to buying. And then selling.

By then you’ll both agree to the need, and the sale will be based on values and a real relationship.

Walk with me now through the history of buying decisions.

LET’S LOOK AT BUYING

Originally if there was a need, whoever was in charge would just make a purchase. Now, there are complex decisions to be made even for simple purchases: the days of a single-person purchasing decision are gone; everyone must be involved to fix problems or find workarounds or manage change before any purchase can be considered.

Indeed, all purchases involve some sort of change. It’s a systems problem. You can’t just wake up one day and decide to buy something and ignore everyone else who has a stake in maintaining the status quo.

• If you’re a member of a family and considering moving to a larger house when the kids get older, you don’t begin by calling a realtor. You begin by discussing everyone’s problems and needs, first figuring out if it’s possible fix your house to avoid the disruption of a move. It’s only when the full fact patterns emerge from everyone – needs, fears, current responsibilities, future plans – does the group come up with a solution. It’s not about the house.
• What about buying a CRM app? I bet you don’t read about a new one on Monday, buy it on Tuesday, then tell everyone it’s arriving to be implemented on Wednesday. Why not? Because whoever uses the CRM needs to be consulted; tech folks need to give a heads up; and then users would have to buy-in to any changes. You’d probably first try to fix what you’ve been using to avoid the downtime or cost. It’s got nothing to do with the new CRM app.

People who need to fix a problem must not only rearrange some of the status quo, but also must have the buy-in and implementation procedures in place before they buy anything. It’s imperative: they must do this anyway, with you or without you. Might as well be with you. You wait (and push, and lower price) while they do so.

But you’ll need to begin with a different thinking and skill set. Rather than pushing pushing pushing product data at someone you guess might have a need, just learn to recognize someone who WILL buy once they’ve managed their change and facilitate them through the steps of change that lead to a purchase.

DO YOU WANT TO SELL? OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY?

Why continue to build your strategies on selling solutions when the sticking point is in the buying? People don’t really want to buy anything, merely resolve a problem at the lowest cost to the system. And change is the key at this early stage. Regardless of need or the brilliance of a product or the efficacy of a new solution, nothing will be bought, no solution will be purchased, if the new disrupts the system.

A buying decision is a change management problem well before it’s a solution choice issue. Making a purchase is the last – the last – thing anyone does. Indeed, among the 13 stages of a buy cycle buying is stages 10-13 and the decision/change process stages 1-9 (See my book on these stages.).

This is where you’ll find the greatest concentration of new buyers. And they really, really need help, as figuring out all the stakeholders and the downsides of the change takes them quite a long time… it’s the length of the sales cycle.

Why has the sales industry overlooked this? It’s where the real decisions get made. Nothing, nothing, nothing, to do with your solution and the reason folks still in their change stages don’t heed your marketing or pitches or don’t return calls.

When they’re considering their change issues, they are not yet buyers. Maintaining a working system is their highest criteria: they people will not buy if the ‘cost’ of the fix is greater than the cost of the status quo.

Here are a few bullets to think about:

1. Without the ‘buying’ the ‘selling’ doesn’t have a role. Yet sales continues to think of ‘buying’ through the lens of ‘selling’. It’s wrong. The ‘buying’ should be looked at through the lens of ‘change management’ first.
2. Sellers can’t understand buyers. They’ll never know the weight of influence of ‘Joe in Accounting’, or the history of two feuding teams who have to share budget to buy a new solution, or the relationship shared between their old vendor they’d need to get rid of to buy your solution. People who might become buyers must manage all this before looking for outside solutions. It has nothing to do with sales, solutions, needs or selling.
3. Sellers can never know what that that a prospective buyer’s change configuration is as outsiders can’t know or assess the variables that capture the ‘cost.’ The current state has been good-enough for now; it can continue if the cost of change is too high.
4. Just because someone has a need doesn’t mean they’re a buyer.
5. The time it takes all stakeholders to
   1. know they must seek an external solution because their workaround doesn’t help,
   2. change with the least disruption,
   3. manage the implementation with the least fallout,
   4. get buy-in from all who will be effected by bringing in something new,

6. By focusing only on finding folks with ‘need’, sales reduces the number of potential buyers down to the low hanging fruit (i.e. a 5% close), those who show up after having completed their change.
7. By entering with a change management hat on and focusing first on facilitating change it’s possible to find 8x more prospects – those in the process of becoming buyers but haven’t yet completed their change management – and facilitate them down their decision path. My clients using my Buying Facilitation®method close 40% against the control groups that close 5.2%.
8. It’s possible to find those who will become buyers on the first call – but not with a sales hat on.

It has nothing to do with need, seller, or solution. I can’t say this enough.

It’s time for sales to begin the sales process by facilitating buying decisions as an add-on to their approach. I am not taking away selling from the equation, just adding new thinking to help people buy. After all, without buyers, what are you doing anyway?

________________________

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.sharondrewmorgen.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.