Can Collaboration Work?
We enter into collaborations assuming we’ll succeed as teamwork partners. Yet we rarely achieve true partnership:
- Because we listen uniquely and through biased filters we sometimes mistakenly presume intent or misconstrue what’s been said and agreed upon. Problem: Flawed assumptions, wasted time and relationship capital, and restricted scope.
- There is often not enough diversity to enable maximum creativity and unrestricted solution options. Problem: Similar ideas and options constrain possibility and maintain the status quo.
- Agendas and goals are often established with less than the full set of essential participants. Problem: Hidden agendas and inadequate preparation.
- Not all vital collaboration partners are present. Problem: Incomplete input and limited output.
- Collaborators often enter with specific (albeit unconscious) goals and limited tolerance for risk. Problem: Restricted possibility and inspiration.
As a result, we end up with little real change, spend time waiting for takeaways that don’t occur, expend considerable relationship capital, or overlook the full range of possibilities.
- Biased communication. After spending 3 years researching and writing a book on the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I now appreciate it’s nearly impossible for collaboration partners to all walk away with the same understanding. Therefore, 1. Tape each session. 2. Get group agreement on what’s been said and action items before moving on to the next topic.
- Gender, age, and ethnic diversity are necessary. Consider your goal. Think about who you might invite to offer different perspectives. Invite Troublemakers.
- Make sure everyone has access to the agenda well before the meeting. There can be no hidden agendas; too much is lost that ends up being problematic later on.
- Everyone must attend meetings. If anyone can’t come to the meeting, cancel it or there will be a voice, an idea, an annoyance missing that would counteract the reasons underlying the collaboration. Anyone who will touch the final solution must be present to move forward or there will be fallout, sabotage, and resistance: there is no way to compensate (as per creativity or consensus) once a meeting is held with folks missing.
- No restrictions. Collaborators must enter with no assumptions. Collaboration means you either meld disparate ideas, or cultivate something new among you that’s never existed.
We all bring our natural biases and assumptions to the collaboration table, thereby restricting possibilities. Yet until we confront, challenge, and defy the status quo with new thinking, there can’t be change. And that’s the problem: Our results are in direct proportion to our ability to override our biases and assumptions.
BIAS RESTRICTS COLLABORATION
Since researching and writing my new book ( What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) I have realized it’s pretty impossible to accurately comprehend what others mean to convey. Here’s a summary of what I learned:
Not only do our eyes merely take in light that our brains then translate (through our filters uniquely developed since birth) into what we think we see, our ears merely take in sound that our brains then translate (through our filters) into what we think others mean – hence we each experience the world uniquely, through our personal translations. To make it truly pernicious, our brains only offer us the translation itself: we never know how far from the Truth we are, potentially causing misplaced resistance and misinterpretation.
For effective collaborations, we must move beyond our filters to hear others without bias during meetings:
- Notice resistance, feelings, annoyances, or immediate negativity the moment it happens and ask yourself: How can I hear what’s just been said in a different way?
- Since you don’t actually know if what you think you’ve heard is accurate, tell your collaboration partners what you think you heard and ask them if they heard the same thing.
- Make sure there are no strong feelings left unsaid after each discussion topic.
- At the start of a session, everyone must agree to goals/outcomes for each topic; as each topic is completed, everyone must agree on action items that will match the original goals. Everyone.
- At the end of the session, agree to all action items and take-aways. Do a review of what’s been accomplished according to original goals. Ask if anyone else needs to be included for the next session.
By minimizing biases, by including a full range of thought-partners, and by checking in with the other collaborators as to what’s been said and heard, it’s possible to form effective collaborations. Otherwise, we’re merely doing more of the same.
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More recently, Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? in which she has coded how we can hear others without bias or misunderstanding, and why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She is a trainer, consultant, speaker, and inventor, interested in integrity in all business communication. Her learning tools can be purchased: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.
Sharon Drew Morgen June 22nd, 2015
Get the Yes: Winning Funding, RFPs, and Grants
When we seek funding or respond to an RFP, our proposals meet the criteria requested, presenting well-positioned information to persuade the decision makers to choose us. But winners are chosen by some mysterious set of criteria not only unknown to us, but often unknown to them. I began thinking about this when a friend told me she was writing a grant proposal. With my systems-thinking brain I asked her:
- How will they choose you over other worthy requests?
- What personal and professional criteria will members of the funding team consider before dropping others to fund you instead?
- How do political in-fighting or long-term client/colleague relationship preferences factor in to the decision process?
- How does your request fit in with their annual strategic plan? The commitments to their funding sources?
She had no answers, but resolutely believed that importance of her mission would rule the day. She has a 10% success rate, even though in many instances she knows people on the committee. That means she wastes 90% of her valuable time. Her strong appeal, great writing, and the importance of her message are lost because the criteria of those who might fund her driven by more than merit.
DECISION MAKERS DRIVEN BY UNCONSCIOUS, UNSTATED CRITERIA
Unfortunately, there are no ready answers to the above questions, even if they are posed. Here’s why:
- There’s no ‘one’ person on the committee who can convey the personal and political communication patterns that are largely unstated.
- An outsider can never understand the non-verbal, implicit, historic criteria being applied that’s most likely different in each situation.
- The funding group itself doesn’t always have a consistent, conscious understanding of why it does what it does.
- The questions an outsider asks to ‘understand’ are biased, gleaning biased data – not to mention that Responder most likely isn’t speaking for the entire group.
Using conventional practices of submitting a well-written, compelling, and provocative grant or proposal, or making a professional presentation, it’s a crap shoot. But it’s possible to have more success by facilitating the decision makers through their unconscious, mysterious process and helping them recognize, before they begin, the issues they will need to address to succeed.
CASE STUDY
My clients in large corporations (naively) believe they win on either price, relationship history, or quality/brand. Here’s a real story.
A global consulting client received an RFP from a Fortune 50 company – the company historically used Company X as their consulting provider. My client, delighted at the chance to win new business, assembled a large team to respond to the multimillion dollar RFP. When I asked them what’s stopping the Fortune 50 company from using Company X now, my client went silent. They called the Fortune 50 company and asked:
CONSULTING CO: What’s stopping you from using Company X again this time?
FORTUNE 50: Nothing. We’re going to use them again. We just needed a second bid.
True story. Since we now knew we wouldn’t win the RFP, we chose a different route. We offered a cover page and a couple of pages of Facilitative Questions [a new type of question I developed that enables Responders to assemble/recognize unconscious, systemic criteria – in this case, regarding implementation, buy-in/consensus, resistance issues that would be a natural fall-out from a project of this size]. We wrote a note:
“We are interested in winning your business, and we’ve included an overview of the types of services we provide. However, since you will be using Company X, we’ve decided not to respond to the RFP but instead offer you a real service. We’re sending along some important questions to answer before you begin your project to ensure a successful implementation. We hope you find these valuable. And if the time comes you would like to have a conversation around how we can serve you in projects such as these, we look forward to putting our best team together to help you be successful.”
I spent some time understanding the human systems that would show up during this project and formulated about 40 Facilitative Questions to help the client uncover answers to problems would come up but were not included in the RFP, such as
How will you know when you have assembled the appropriate group of people to give you the full set of correct data before you begin, to ensure you won’t use faulty or incomplete data moving forward?
What would you need to set up at the very beginning of the project to ensure continuing communication among all involved, at each stage of the project, to ensure there is no time or resource wastage due to insufficient information being circulated?
By answering these questions, the client would have 1. Knowledge of potential problem areas that didn’t show up on the RFP, 2. Knowledge that we knew how to achieve successful implementations, 3. Knowledge we were professional, focused on their success, and eager for the business. We didn’t hear back for two months. Then they called and hired my client because their chosen providers didn’t address any of the buy-in/consensus/resistance issues we highlighted, and they realized there would be costly (in the millions) implementation problems. My client won the business with no proposal, just the two pages of Facilitative Questions that helped their prospect put their ducks in a row and avoid potential problems.
WHY DOES EXCELLENCE TO OCCUR?
- If you merely offer a good proposal or presentation, you will never know how funders or clients will choose you.
- Groups who send out RFPs or offer funding only offer data points of what they think they need. They, themselves, most likely don’t know the idiosyncratic values-based, personal criteria each decision member will use when a vote is taken.
- Groups sending out RPS or funding sources seeking clients to back don’t know all the consensus or implementation issues that will occur during the implementation.
It’s possible to override these problems by helping funders/clients recognize what they need with by teaching them how to uncover and manage the hidden issues necessary for excellence to occur with minimal disruption. To differentiate yourself, use the opportunity of seeking business (i.e. doing a presentation), funding, or responding to a proposal to show them you can help them address their systemic shifts and give them the knowledge that you are a knowledgeable partner.
For my clients, I have created a decision facilitation model (Buying Facilitation®) that produces about 30% more success with proposals and presentations. You can create your own consensus/implementation model to add to your proposals and presentations, so long as they include the ability to help the clients manage the steps they’ll need for success.
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Sharon Drew Morgen is a decision strategist, an original thinker, and author of 9 books: one NYTimes Business Bestseller, and two Amazon Bestsellers. She has just published her newest book on how we can close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard (What? Did you really say what I think I heard? ). Sharon Drew is a consultant, trainer, coach, speaker, and inventor. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.
Sharon Drew Morgen June 15th, 2015
Help Marketing Know Buyers Well Enough…
Hi Everyone: I’m sending you something quite different this week; I hope you don’t mind but I find this topic important. My good friend Ardath Albee sent me this note below, asking us to vote for her to receive a grant for something near and dear to my heart: to develop new capabilities for the field of marketing enter the buy path earlier. Please read her sweet note and see if you can get behind this by voting for her. If she wins the grant, I trust that she’ll use the funds to help us all be more successful.
Hi Sharon Drew,
I wonder if you can help. I’m seeking a grant from Chase Small Business in the area you’ve been writing about for decades: facilitating buyer’s pre sales decision making. Since you’ve been the leader in the field, and your readers have been reading your articles on the subject, for years, I thought I’d explain what I’m proposing to do with the funds and your community might find it relevant enough to cast a vote to help my company be considered for the grant.
My plan is to develop materials, consulting programs, training courses – hopefully with your collaboration – to help the marketing field enter earlier along the buying decision continuum (pre sales) and find the most effective ways to help more buyers buy. You and I have had so many lengthy discussions about the opportunities for marketers on this subject; I believe it’s time for marketers to get in front of this process.
For those in your community who don’t know me, please let them know I’ve been on a crusade for years to help marketers become more relevant with their content marketing and engagement of buyers. To help your community decide if I’m worthy of their vote, here is a link to my latest book on emarketing and my site www.
Thanks in advance for your help. If my company wins the grant, you and I can get to work on the opportunities we’ve been discussing to help marketers build better relationships with buyers. Here is the link for those who want to vote: https://www.
Ardath
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Sharon Drew Morgen is the developer of Buying Facilitation® and has written 9 books, including one NYTimes Business bestseller (Selling with Integrity) and 2 Amazon bestsellers. A sales thought leader since 1985, she trains, consults, speaks to, and designs training for sales professionals in global corporations to facilitate buyers through the pre-sales decisions and steps they must complete prior to making a purchase. She recently published a new book on how to bridge the gap between what’s said and what’s heard: Get What? Did you really say what I think I heard? . She can be reached at sharondrew@
Sharon Drew Morgen June 8th, 2015
Posted In: News
Content Marketing that Converts
“Content is king”. I’ve heard that phrase for years. But what does it mean? Does it mean that by offering thought-provoking, useful, creative information buyers will be motivated to contact you at the right time along their complete (including pre-sales) decision path? By sending out veiled advertising in the form of ‘articles’ to random email addresses you can convert readers to action? How is ‘conversion’ defined – opening the email? Making a purchase that can be directly tracked back to the email? Let’s look at the problems.
- Wrong Time: Content is useful only at the time it’s needed and won’t be opened otherwise, even if your solution is needed later. Even when offering options, research, or educational benefits, your content currently targets the activity of product/vendor selection; you miss key opportunities to enter earlier, during the buyer’s necessary pre-sales activities – assembling the correct Buying Decision Team members, sorting out change issues and responsibilities, getting consensus, etc. – to become a true trusted advisor and support partner. Imagine offering the type of content that drives buyers during every decision and pre-sales activity. Then you’ve part of the solution, every step of the way, as they approach a final purchase. And they trust you.
- Wrong People: You get a 1% (or less) conversion rate because your missive connects with only those whose email addresses you have and, even if they might eventually be part of a Buying Decision Team, who consider it spam. It’s possible to offer content that readers seek out because it’s vital to their path toward excellence.
- Wrong Focus: Content is often merely an ad vaguely concealed as an ‘article’. Buyers know this. It’s possible to use content to facilitate the non-solution-focused consensus and change issues readers must attend to as they ready themselves to make a purchase.
The way you’re doing it now
- neither attracts nor retains a specific audience,
- ignores ways to enter and influence buyers early in their pre-sales decisions,
- doesn’t drive customer action unless they are at the specific point of readiness,
- merely annoys.
You’re finding the low hanging fruit who would have found you anyway. Content marketing can help prospective buyers dispense suitable information 1. into the hands of the right people 2. at the time they need it while 3. coaching them to get their ducks in a row to move forward.
It’s possible to write content on important relevant topics that readers WANT to read – i.e. the pros and cons of concrete over glass for housing, or how we can hear others without bias – and will help them go from an idea to a purchase through linking to your site, reading and saving other articles, and using them to help traverse their action route.
CASE STUDY
I get anywhere from 40-51% conversion with my content marketing. My readers take action from my articles: click on linked articles or sites; download free books/chapters; buy a product; share/RT/Like daily. Here’s what I do:
- I write well-written, provocative, 750-word articles that may have little to do with my services or books specifically but are of real interest to that population who may ultimately be buyers. (You found the title interesting enough to read this far, right?) I offer links that tie in to my books /services: I’ve written about diversity, leadership, collaboration, questions. Yet my services focus on facilitating buying decisions and bias-free communication.
- I only send articles to subscribers, and Friends, LinkedIn, and 15 ezines, such as HR.com, Sales and Service Excellence, StrategyDriven, who often publish them to vast readerships. (Sometimes 3 or more of my articles appear each week.) I have 3 blogs that often get onto best lists, such as top innovative content, top sales blog, top business blog. Net, net, I’m getting large distribution in really targeted fashion: those folks most likely to read and potentially need my services/products. Sort-of ‘hot leads.’ No spam.
- Like you, I let social media splash my content to enable interested folks to find it and start conversations. I get many new subscribers and ‘friends’ weekly. My lists grow with interested folks. Daily, I get Thank You notes that begin conversations and sell products.
Questions:
- Why would people open your content if they consider it spam?
- How can you compose true thought pieces that people want to open?
- How can you use your content to facilitate each stage of the pre-sales and buying decision path?
- Seriously: are you willing to try something different to get a higher ‘conversion’ rate? Seriously.
What you’re doing now only converts the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier by offering valuable intelligence that will encourage curiosity; introduce, explain and target the full set of decision stages; and keep your name topmost in buyer’s minds. You’re currently taking the lazy route: throwing spaghetti on the wall hoping enough of it will stick. Do you want to write? Or enable real business opportunities?
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Sharon Drew Morgen is a writer/author of one NYTimes Business Bestseller and two Amazon best sellers, 7 books on Buying Facilitation® and how buyers buy, and 1500 articles (www.sharondrewmorgen.com). She is a trainer, speaker, coach, thought leader, and content writer. Sharon Drew is also the visionary thinker behind What? – her new book on how to avoid the gaps between what people say and what is heard. (www.didihearyou.com for the book and online assessment tools). She can be reached at www.sharondrewmorgen.com.
Sharon Drew Morgen June 1st, 2015
Posted In: News
Meetings: The Purpose, The Pain, The Possibility
As business folk, we hold meetings regularly. Yet often we don’t accomplish what we set out to achieve. Why?
The Purpose
Meetings are held to accomplish a specific, beneficial outcome requiring the attendance of the right people with the right agenda.
The Problem/Pain
Often we end up with miscommunication, wasted time, incomplete outcomes, misunderstanding, lack of ownership and ongoing personnel issues – sometimes an indication of internal power and faulty communications issues.
The Possibility
With greater success we can: stimulate thinking; achieve team building, innovation, and clear communication; and efficiently complete target issues. Here are some problem areas and solutions:
People. When outcomes aren’t being met effectively it’s a people- and management problem including: fall-out, sabotage, and resistance; long execution times; exclusion of peripheral people; restricted creativity and communication; exacerbated power and status issues. Are the most appropriate people (users, decision makers, influencers) invited? All who have good data or necessary questions?
- Rule: unless all – all – relevant people show up for the meeting, cancel it. It’s impossible to catch people up or have them collaborate, add creative thoughts, or discuss annoyances. Once it’s known that meetings aren’t held unless all are present, the frequency, responsibility, and motives shift.
- Rule: unless all – all – of the people who will touch the outcome from the meeting’s goals are in some way represented, the outcome will not reflect the needs of all causing fallout later, with resistance, sabotage or a diminished outcome.
Agenda. No hidden agendas! Recipients of potential outcomes must be allowed to add agenda items prior to the meeting.
- Rule: unless all – all – of the items of ultimate concern are on the agenda, the meeting will be restricted to meet the needs of a few with unknown consequence (resistance and sabotage).
Action. Too often, action items don’t get completed effectively. How do action items get assigned or followed up? What happens if stuff’s not done when agreed? How can additional meetings be avoided?
- Rule: put a specific, consensual, and supervised method in place to ensure action items get accomplished as promised.
- Rule: as meeting begins, get consensus on what must be accomplished for a successful outcome. This initial discussion may change agenda items or prioritize them, detect problems, assumptions, resistance before action items are assigned.
Discussion. How long do people speak? How do conversations progress? How do the proceedings get recorded? What is the format for discussions? How is bias avoided?
- Rule: record (audio) each meeting so everyone who attends can have it available later. Folks who didn’t attend are not privy to this audio. (See People above).
- Rule: design a time limit for speaking, and rules for topics, presentations, discussions, cross talk.
- Rule: include periods of silence for thought, notes, reflection.
Understanding. Does everyone take away the same interpretation of what happened? How do you know when there have been miscommunications or misunderstandings?
- Rule: unless everyone has the same perception of what happened for each topic, there is a tendency for biased interpretation that will influence a successful outcome.
- Rule: one person (on rotation) should take notes, and repeat the understanding of what was said to get agreement for each item before the next item is tackled. This is vital, as people listen with biased filters and make flawed assumptions of what’s been said/agreed.
Transparency. Agendas should be placed online, to be read, signed-off, and added to.
- Rule: whomever is coming to the meeting must know the full agenda.
- Rule: everyone responsible for an action item must be listed with time lines, names of those assisting, and outcomes.
Accomplishments. Are items accomplished in a suitable time frame? What happens when they aren’t?
- Rule: for each action item, participants must sign off on an agreeable execution. A list of the tasks, time frames, and people responsible must accompany each item, and each completed task must be checked off online so progress is accountable.
- Rule: a senior manager must be responsible for each agenda item. If items are not completed in a timely way, the manager must write a note on the online communication explaining the problem, the resolution, and new time frame.
Meetings can be an important activity for collaboration and creativity if they are managed properly and taken as a serious utilization of time and output. Ask yourself: Do you want to meet? Or get work accomplished collaboratively?
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Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? and NYTimes Business Bestsellers in the area of sales, decision facilitation, change management, and helping buyers buy. She is developer of Buying Facilitation® and a recognized thought leader in communication and decision making. She is a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant. For those in sales, coaching or leadership want to communicate better Sharon Drew Morgen has the tools to help make improvements with online learning, group coaching, or on-site training. Sharon Drew can coach and train your sales teams or license trainers to prospect and get more appointments by finding real buyers on the first call. She can be reached at: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.
Sharon Drew Morgen May 25th, 2015
Posted In: News
When Should a Seller Gather Information or Understand Needs?
Part 2: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy?
Part 1 redefines buying thus: The process a buyer goes through to get their ducks in a row to manage all of the factors involved prior to, and including, making a purchase. It explains why the sales focus of seeking appointments, gathering information, offering solution data, and understanding needs doesn’t lead to a higher percentage of closed sales:
- you’re asking biased solution/problem-focused questions
- based on what you want to sell, and listening for problems you can resolve,
- that probably captures partial or incorrect data
- about problems that may not be recognized by the prospect,
- (someone who most likely doesn’t know or trust you) and
- may not represent the group of people who may or may not be the ultimate buyers
- who may only have partial knowledge of, or authority over, the final situation
- and may only partially represent a larger group
- who may not have officially assembled or reached consensus yet
- to seek answers they don’t yet have questions for.
You’re connecting with potential buyers who aren’t at a point where they can buy: regardless of your skill set, or the validity of the solution, questions or need, buyers can’t have useful data to share until
– whoever touches the final solution (Buying Decision Team) assembles and
– agrees to resolve a problem
– with an effective route to managing any change issues with minimum disruption.
Otherwise, even those who need your solution won’t take a meeting, speak with you, or possibly even know they have a need: the adjustments/consensus/change management necessary for making a purchase is so much bigger (regardless of the prize, size, or type of solution) than choosing a solution. To understand this better, read Part 1.
CASE STUDY
Sellers currently waste over 90% of their time trying to understand needs or gathering data (or seeking an appointment or presenting to ‘decision makers’) before a buyer would even know how to accurately respond to their questions. It’s like trying to guess a picture on a jigsaw puzzle with only 2 pieces visible.
Here’s a Case Study in which I used Buying Facilitation® (a model I developed to facilitate the pre-sales processes) with a global bank. Note: even though the buyer was the ‘The Decision Maker’ with the budget, there was a complex set of behind-the-scenes issues that needed resolution and wouldn’t have been uncovered had I begun by trying to understand his need or gathering information. In this scenario – as in most, even in a small sale – until the full Buying Decision Team was formed (many of whom my client hadn’t thought of including) and discussed their unique problems, the full set of needs couldn’t have been defined. And I would have wasted about a year and possibly never made the sale.
BANK: I’m the head of Commercial Banking at B Bank. I wonder if you can help. Our tech guys are creating a program for customers in our 4,000 branches so they can choose the most appropriate of our 200 products. Is there a way to add Buying Facilitation® to help them?
SDM: Sure. But what’s stopping your techies from wanting to do it themselves?
BANK: Nothing. They’re reading two or three of your books and trying to get the essence of Buying Facilitation® into their programming.
SDM: So how would your decision team know that working directly with me would give them a different capability than working with the tech guys using my books?
BANK: They wouldn’t. They would prefer to use the in-house guys.
SDM: So how would they know which route would best get their goals met effectively?
BANK: I would have to put together the Buying Decision Team so they could determine what they need to figure out. Would you be willing to have a conference call with them?
SDM: Sure. Who do you think should be involved?
BANK: We only need the Head of Technology I think.
SDM: Well, with 4000 branches [represents at least 40,000 employees] I bet HR might want to be involved.
BANK: Oh! We always forget her, and when we finally bring her aboard she creates havoc because she demands so many changes. Good to bring her in in the beginning!
SDM: And do you have user groups to represent the 4000 branches?
BANK: Ah. Let’s bring in the representatives of the two user groups.
Four days later we had a conference call that included: the heads of HR, Branches, Technology, Retail Banking, Commercial Banking, Training, Internal Consulting, and Marketing. During introductions the President of the bank got on the phone! He wasn’t a decision maker; he didn’t have a budget; he wasn’t part of the project.
BANK: What are you doing on the phone, Mr. X?
PRESIDENT: I saw all you heavy hitters on one call and wanted to find out what kind of trouble you were getting into.
During the call the President kept objecting: “I’m not letting you folks do that!” “What a mess that will cause!” I intervened with Facilitative Questions that got them to collaboratively think about how to manage that issue and move forward. At the end of the call I was firmly on the Buying Decision Team. I had not mentioned my solution; there was not enough consensus among them for them to understand their needs. I helped my prospect assemble the right people in 10 minutes (might have taken him a year), and then help them recognize the issues they needed to contend with before they could consider buying or changing anything.
FACILITATING THE CHANGE AND CONSENSUS FIRST
For a month emails went back and forth. I kept posing Facilitative Questions to help them figure stuff out. Within the month, they had consensus, decided what they needed and how they would move forward – with the blessing of the President. They then paid to bring me to the UK – and THEN I gathered information from the right people – all of whom were present and understood their needs – and THEN I made a targeted sales pitch to all of the decision makers! Without my expertise, the buyers would have been bogged down with their change issues and internal objections and the sales cycle would have taken more than a year. If they were ever going to buy, they needed to do this anyway: This is the stuff buyers do outside of our purview; we’re just not usually there when it happens.
I facilitated and expedited their change in the area that my solution would fit. It would have been inappropriate to pitch during the month-long decision facilitation process – they had no idea what they were going to buy, if they could buy, or if they couldn’t do it themselves. I would have missed the opportunity to help them get ready to buy, earn their trust, and understand the full complement of needs they didn’t initially know they had. I had nothing to sell until they had something to buy.
My job – which took me just a few hours for a 6 figure engagement – was to first facilitate their ability to change, and then buy.
I’m not suggesting you give up information gathering or understanding needs, although starting here gives you a paltry close rate and wastes 95% of your time. I am suggesting that you first facilitate the complete decision path (some folks call this pre-sales) – and then use sales. Buyers have to do this anyway, with you or without you. You might as well learn a new skill and stop chasing the low hanging fruit.
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I’ve developed Buying Facilitation®, which is an add-on to the sales process to help buyers understand and collect their pre-sales decision factors. It includes a different set of skills than sales, including Listening for Systems, and uses a new form of question called a Facilitative Question. Contact me to discuss training, coaching, and consulting: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.
Sharon Drew Morgen May 4th, 2015
Posted In: Listening
Questions: The Problems and the Possibilities
I recently accepted a cold call from an insurance guy because I was thinking of switching providers. Instead of facilitating my buying decision, the bias in his questions terminated our connection:
TODD: Hello Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd with XYZ. Are you interested in new car insurance?
SDM: I am.
TODD: Is your main concern lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: You don’t care about saving money?
SDM: Of course I do.
TODD: So your main concern IS lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: So what is it?
SDM: I’m interested in a personal connection, in knowing that if I have an accident I will be handled by someone who will take care of me.
TODD: I can promise you I’ll take care of you. My clients love me. Do you want to discuss how much you’ll save?
And, we were done.
Good sellers and coaches pose better questions than Todd’s, of course. But the conversation exemplifies how a Questioner’s biased questions can significantly influence outcomes.
THE BIAS INHERENT IN QUESTIONS
Questions restrict answers to the assumptions and biases of the Questioner; Responders respond within the limits set by the question. Asking someone “What did you have for breakfast?” won’t elicit the answer “I bought a lamp.” Even questions that attempt to open a dialogue, like “What can you tell me about the problem?” or gather data, like “Who’s in charge of decision making?” merely elicit top-of-mind responses that my not effectively represent – and indeed might cloud – the issue. Biased question; biased answer.
Sometimes questions are so biased and restricted that the real answer might get overlooked. ‘Do you prefer the red ball or the blue ball?’ excludes not only the green ball, but a preference for a bat, or a discussion about the Responder’s color blindness. But a question such as: ‘What sort of a game implement could be easily carried and engage all employees?” might elicit a response of a ball or marbles or Monopoly and include more team members.
Most questions pull or push the data sought by the Questioner, making it difficult to know if
- the communication partners make the same assumptions;
- the wording of the question is ideal;
- a better answer exists outside the limits of the question;
- the question encompasses the full set of possible responses.
What if the best answer is outside of the framework of the question? Or the question isn’t translated accurately by the Responder? Or there is an historic bias between the Questioner and Responder that makes communication difficult?
FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS
Questions can be used to facilitate choice, to lead Responders to new options within their own (often unconscious) value system, rather than as set ups to the Questioner’s self-serving objectives. Using a Facilitative Question, the above dialogue would sound like this:
TODD: Hi Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd, an insurance agent with XYZ Corp. I’m selling car insurance. Is this a good time to speak?
SDM: Sure.
TODD: I’m wondering: If you are considering changing your insurance provider, what would you need to know about another provider to be certain you’d end up getting the coverage and service you deserve?
The question – carefully worded to match a Responder’s criteria for change – shifts the bias from Todd’s self-serving objectives to enabling me in a true discovery process; from his selling patterns to my buying patterns. How different our interaction would have been if his goal was to facilitate my buying decision path rather than using his misguided persuasion tactics to sell.
I developed Facilitative Questions decades ago to enable any Questioner to facilitate someone’s route to congruent change. With no manipulation or bias, they require a different form of listening, wording, and objectives, thereby avoiding resistance and encouraging trust between sellers, coaches, consultants and their clients.
Take a look at your own questioning strategy to see if they might work for you:
*How are your questions perceived by your Responders? How do you know? What’s your risk?
*How do your questions address a unique Responder’s decision criteria?
*How do your questions bias, restrict, enhance, or ignore possibilities?
*What criteria to you use to choose the words to formulate questions?
*To ensure any new skills would work effectively with your successful skills, what would you need to know or consider before adopting additional question formulation skills?
Remember: your innate curiosity or intuition may not be sufficient to facilitate another’s unconscious route to change – or buy – congruently. You can always gather data once the route to change is established and you’re both on the same page. Change the goals of your questions from discovering situations you can provide answers for, to facilitating real core change. Before buyers or clients will work with you, they have to do this for themselves anyway. You might as well do it with them and create a trusting relationship.
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Facilitative Questions follow a specific path and wording. I’ve trained sellers to use them for lead generation, to make appointments with the right decision makers (often helped by gatekeepers) and teach prospects to assemble Buying Decision Teams and reach consensus; to help coaches find – and keep – ideal clients, and facilitate their change efficiently. They are great for small and complex sales, for prospecting and lead gen, for team building, for coaching clients seeking change, for change implementations. And for doctors, lawyers, communication professionals, therapists, school administrators, and leaders.
If you’d like to learn how to formulate Facilitative Questions, either get this Learning Accelerator, or contact me to discuss team training or coaching: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. You can read about the use of Facilitative Questions and the full path of change in Dirty Little Secrets: www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com.
Sharon Drew Morgen March 30th, 2015
Motivation Is An Inside Job
Why do we do what we do? What causes us to succeed, fail, procrastinate? Is it our environment? Our biology? Our New Year’s resolutions? There’s much debate why our motivation goals fail and how to resolve them. I believe we’re addressing the wrong issues.
WHY PROMOTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE CAUSES RESISTANCE
Everything I’ve read on resolving “motivation” issues focus on behaviors: why, how, when. Courses, keynote speakers, books, attempts to pump up, stimulate, and otherwise inspire. All trying to cause the ineffective behaviors to change to effective ones. But change doesn’t happen this way. Motivation involves both shifting beliefs, and creating new habitual behaviours, that our unconscious status-quo will accept and adopt over time.
Here’s why: A behavior is the action – the representation – of a (largely unconscious) belief. Lasting behavior change occurs only when there is first a shift in the beliefs responsible for the behavior (Complex, due to the habitual and systemic nature of our belief→behavior connection).
So: a belief change will trigger a new behavior to match the new belief.
Trying to change a behavior, without changing the underlying beliefs first, causes pushback because our status quo is being disrupted and threatened. So new behaviors to respond to Commit! Achieve! will create resistance without the necessary buy-in from the foundational beliefs that caused the problem.
To effectively motivate ourselves and others, we must facilitate an unconscious shift from the ineffective beliefs to successful ones, and then introduce new commensurate behaviors. While there are certainly helpful training and coaching approaches to accomplish this, one way to get there is by listening to our Internal Dialogue.
A CASE STUDY IN MOTIVATION
I’m going to use myself as a case study, as I have had a continual issue motivating myself to get to the gym. Basically, I trigger my healthy beliefs whenever I hear my Internal Dialogue rationalizing why I don’t need to go. Motivation is an inside job.
Here’s how I do it. I deeply believe I’m a healthy person, and that the gym is a necessary evil to maintain my identity. Whenever I hear my inner voice making excuses [“It’s so cold outside. You really would be better off staying inside where it’s warm.”] I have a trigger that pings me to shift me over to my higher-level beliefs Self, Health, Excellence – who I am. “No, you idiot. You’re a healthy person because you work out, so shut up and bundle up and get out the door.”
Indeed, by listening to my Internal Dialogue in many situations, I’ve trained myself to automatically counter non-motivating behavior with my higher-level beliefs that will then motivate me. [I have written a chapter on how to shift from behaviors to beliefs in my new book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? ]
MOTIVATING OUR TEAMS TO EXCELLENCE
We can adapt this for our teams. Right now, we tell them ‘how’ and ‘why’ to succeed. We are hiring keynote speakers to ‘Motivate’ our sales forces and leaders, bringing in consultants to ‘Motivate’ more success. But all this is accomplishing is pushing new activities into the habitual status quo and merely getting some meager shifts that last a brief time. Then we blame the failure on our staff or the training.
Let’s motivate by teaching folks to listen to their own Internal Voices. Here are a few pointers (and again, my new free book has an entire chapter on how to accomplish this):
- Listen to your Internal Dialogue when you hear yourself making excuses. Behind every resistance is a belief that is holding the ineffective behavior in place.
- Notice the underlying beliefs that keep your current ineffective behavior in place and see if you have other beliefs that might be reweighted to take over for the ineffective ones (In my case, I move ‘health’ up on top of ‘comfort’ when it comes to the gym).
- Shift/reweight beliefs to put the effective ones on top.
- Add new behavioral choices that match the reweighted belief.
It’s more complicated than merely attempting to add some new behaviors, of course. But the change will be permanent. And you can use the skill any time change is required.
Begin the process of listening to yourself more closely and more often. If you want to learn more about bridging the gap between what’s said and what’s heard (www.didihearyou.com) I’m offering the digital book to make sure everyone has the capability to communicate, change, and motivate by truly listening. Or go to www.sharondrewmorgen.com to learn more about facilitating change in sales.
Sharon Drew Morgen March 9th, 2015
Posted In: Listening
Using Buyer Personas During Pre-Sales Stages
Buyer Personas do a great job targeting marketing and sales campaigns to reach the most probable buying audience. But it’s possible to make them even more efficient.
Here’s a question: Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy? The belief is that if you can sell/market appropriately – the right campaign to the right buyer with the right solution at the right time – buyers will buy. If that were true, you’d be closing a helluva lot more than you’re closing. Sure, Buyer Personas make a difference in your close rate. But it could be higher.
Currently, your targeted campaigns blanket probable audiences and find buyers at the exact moment they are considering buying, merely closing the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier and facilitate (and influence) the complete buying journey.
STAGES IN THE BUYING DECISION PATH
Sales and marketing address activities surrounding solution placement: solution pitch details, solution features, etc., vendor details, gathering needs. But neither facilitate the entire decision path which constitutes issues beyond choosing a solution. Some might call these ‘Pre-Sales’ events. I call it the Buying Decision Path, along which sales is merely one of the entry points needed to close a sale.
Briefly, here are the stages buyers go through prior to purchasing a solution ((Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it fully details each stage www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com
1. Idea stage.
2. Brainstorming stage. Idea discussed with colleagues.
3. Initial discussion stage. Colleagues discuss the problem, posit who to include on Buying Decision Team, consider possible fixes and fallout. Action groups formed. Research begins. New Team members invited.
4. Contemplation stage. Group discusses
* how to fix the problem with known resources,
*whether to create a workaround using internal fixes or seek an external solution, and acceptable type/amount of fallout from each,
*people who would need to buy-in.
5. Organization stage.
6. Change management stage. Group determines
*if more research is necessary (and who will do it),
*if all appropriate people are involved (and who to invite),
*a review of all elements of the problem and solution,
*the level of disruption and change management as per type of solution chosen,
*the pros/cons/possibilities of external solution vs current vendor vs workaround.
7. Coordination stage. Review needs, ideas, issues of any new members invited aboard and how they affect choices and goals; incorporate change considerations for each solution; delineate everyone’s thoughts re goals and change capacity; appropriate research responsibilities.
8. Research stage. Specific research for each possible solution; seek answers to how fallout or change would be managed with each solution.
9. Consensus stage. Buying Decision Team members meet to share research and determine the type of solution, fallout, possibilities, problems, considerations in re management, policies, job descriptions, HR issues, etc. General decisions made. Buy-in and consensus necessary.
10. Action stage. Responsibilities apportioned to manage specifics of Stage 9. Owners of tasks do thorough research and make calls to several vendors for interviews and data gathering.
11. Second brainstorming stage. Discussion on results of data gathering including fallout/ benefits of each. Favored vendors pitched by Team members.
12. Choice stage. New solution agreed on. Change management issues delineated and leadership initiatives prepared to avoid disruption. Vendor contacted.
13. Implementation stage.
Buyers have to manage these stages (most of which are not solution- or problem-specific) with you or without you. Without being directly involved with behind-the-scenes politics or processes you’re left waiting, pushing product data, and hoping to be there when they’re ready. And knowing the details of your Buyer Persona is insufficient.
Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy? Right now your efforts to sell and market are bringing in no more than 5% close rate (net). To become the vendor who truly helps buyers buy, to get an early leg-up on the competition and become part of the Buying Decision Team during the Pre-Sales process, sales (entering at stage 1) and marketing (entering at stage 3) can add another layer of skills, tools, goals, and touch points.
Buying Facilitation® is a Pre-sales Management model that I’ve developed and taught for 30 years with profoundly different results from using sales and marketing alone. It uses neither sales nor marketing thinking: it employs a new form of question, a different type of listening, and a systems-thinking role consistent with true consulting to facilitate the issues that bias the buying decision. And then you can sell earlier and faster, to the right people, on the solution placement end.
I can teach your sales team how to become facilitators, or show your marketing team ways to design the right questions to help buyers traverse each stage of their unique buying journey. See more articles on www.sharondrewmorgen.com. Or call me: Sharon Drew 512 457 0246.
Learn how to hear buyers effectively with Sharon Drew’s new book What?
Sharon Drew Morgen March 2nd, 2015
On Becoming 69 by Sharon Drew Morgen
Today I turn 69. As I look back over my life I feel quite gratified that I have used what I was given to make this world a better place. But I was merely following directions. Let me explain.
By any objective standard, there was no path from where I started to being an authentic person and well-respected visionary/thought leader. I had one of those childhoods that would make a terrific movie (Friends say I was either going to be a saint or a serial killer). I had to get through unimaginable violence, Borderline Personality Disorder, and PTSD. The Asperger’s diagnosis didn’t come until I was 60.
GETTING FROM THERE TO HERE
I have always been aware that managing the hand I was dealt would shape who I became. I remember the moment I was given my marching orders. When I was 11, and slowly becoming conscious following an incident, I heard a voice in my head clearly say: “GET UP! You’ve got work to do! You need to get healthy! The world needs your ideas!” At that age I somehow knew enough to get up and start ‘getting healthy’ (whatever that meant), that failure was not an option.
I began running away to a friend’s house to get counselling from his mom. Over the next 40 years I had decades of psychotherapy to work through my rage, fear, safety and mistrust issues; mentoring and decades of training with Stan Grof (Holotropic Breathwork) to integrate my heart, mind and body (which had become dissociated); years of NLP certifications to code my systemic thinking; and still-continuing Vipassana silent retreats to open my heart.
I was scared and confused almost all the time – for decades. That never stopped me, even when it became clear that the way I think was so very different than the norm. Eventually I realized that I could code what I was learning to help others produce internal change and make congruent decisions: we could all serve each other if we could communicate authentically.
Looking back, I marvel at the risks I took, the relentless dedication I had to not letting anything stop me:
• With no funds or ability to get a scholarship, the Dean of Students got me work cleaning houses and a place to live as a nanny so I could attend Syracuse School of Journalism.
• With no knowledge of Wall Street I became a Stock Broker in 1979: I barged in to the CEO of Merrill Lynch (seriously – past the secretaries!) and told him to hire me. He did. “If you could do what you just did I’ll teach you the rest,” he said. I was rookie of the year, and one of the first women Brokers on Wall Street.
• I founded a non-profit for kids with my son’s rare neurological disease to fund wheelchairs and eating implements and get meds shared between countries. The foundation now helps kids all over Europe.
• In 1983 I started up a tech company in London. By 1987 we had a $4,000,000 revenue in three countries, and a 42% net profit – in a depression and before the internet, email, search engines or social media. With no knowledge of how to run a business, I had everyone (except the techies) pay themselves as profit centers (including the receptionist!). We doubled revenue every year.
• I ran my first “Helping Buyers Buy” program to KLM in 1985 after I developed Buying Facilitation® for my sales staff. Using the model, I went on to write 7 books (one NYTimes Bestseller Selling with Integrity), train 25,000 sales people globally, and language the thinking about the behind-the-scenes buying decision path (buy cycle, the buying patterns, etc.).
• A major publisher accepted my out-of-the-box book What? that codes how our brains cause us to mishear, bias and misunderstand, and how to rewire our listening to hear each other accurately. I pulled the book and self-published it as a free digital book so there would be no barriers to learning the material. 10,000 books were acquired the first 2 months.
• I am currently developing an advanced program for coaches to hear clients without bias and make appropriate interventions.
I cannot imagine how I had the courage to do what it took to get healthy, work through my myriad mistakes and keep going, gain the skills I needed to work in so many different industries, figure out how to code my unique ideas and get folks to use/buy them, or have the moxie to push so many conventional envelopes. I guess I always had that voice in my ear telling me to GET UP. And thankfully there have always been people to buy my original models.
OLD AGE
So now I am officially an ‘old woman’ although I often grab my passport to travel somewhere intriguing (I’ve been to 63 countries) and date men decades younger. Life is easier now that I have found Me. I recognize problems before they happen or retreat immediately; know what I want and don’t want. I know to apologize and not let my ego get in the way. Gone is the confusion, the fear, the search for safety. I have more empathy and acceptance of human nature, fewer questions, more answers, more flexibility, and more curiosity. I acquire less and enjoy more. I am clearly a demanding pain in the ass. I carefully choose who I share my time with. And my clarity has given me the freedom to create and innovate: without drama, conflict, confusion, or difficult people, there is an ever-increasing slow burn of original ideas pouring out of my brain. That’s my life’s work. Different from most, I know. But I feel honored to have made a difference.
So what next? Who knows? A mystery. I’m healthy, authentic, deeply spiritual, have a voice and an audience, and have fulfilled my legacy. I’m now 69. And it’s exhilarating.
Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. While written in the ‘sales’ genre, the material is generic, and systemically codes how to facilitate all decision making/change processes. www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com
What? Did you really say what I think I heard?. This funny, practical book filled with original thinking and breaks down how our brains cause a gap between what’s said and what’s heard, and then offers a model to hear each other without bias. www.didihearyou.com Take a look at learning tools also.
Read any of 1300 articles about how buyers buy, Buying Facilitation®, how to ‘close’, and where/how/why sales fails. www.sharondrewmorgen.com. To see how to learn the material through products, go to www.buyingfacilitation.com.
Sharon Drew Morgen February 16th, 2015
Posted In: News