Blog – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

Most of us believe we accurately hear what’s been said. But given our historic brain circuits that translate incoming sound vibrations subjectively and out of our awareness, it’s difficult to be certain that what we think we heard is accurate. It is possible, however, to at least know what our tendencies are.

When I wrote my book WHAT? I discovered that words don’t enter brains as anything more than ‘puffs of air’ that go from sound vibrations into signals that get translated automatically by electro-chemical circuitry: what our brains tell us was said, what we think we hear, is merely our brain’s translation of these signals according to our historic circuits – what we’ve heard before.

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Unwittingly, we end up interpreting meaning according to we’ve interpreted before and new incoming data often gets misunderstood or mistranslated because there aren’t appropriate circuits to translate it. Obviously, there’s a good chance we’re biasing a lot of what we hear.

To help you understand how, if and when you uniquely (and unwittingly) bias what you hear, I’ve developed an assessment tool. Once you have a baseline knowledge of your unconscious choices you’ll know what areas to pay specific attention to and if you need to add new skills.

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PART 1: When do you take extra steps to ensure you accurately hear what your Communication Partner (CP) intends?

Directions: Check off any that apply.

Relationship-related

_When I’m with my partner/spouse (i.e. all the time).

_When I’m having a disagreement with my partner/spouse.

_When I’m trying to clean up a problem/misunderstanding.

_Only when it’s someone I care about.

_I don’t take extra steps. I just assume I hear the message as intended.

Circumstantial

_When something important is at stake in my life and I need to know the Other’s takeaway.

_When I’m aware I don’t understand someone.

_When I have a message I want to impart and want to make sure I’m being understood as I prefer.

_When communicating with someone of a different culture, background, and I’m not certain we’re mutually understanding each other. But I sometimes do nothing about it because I don’t know what to do differently.

Are there times it’s especially important to ensure you hear what your CP intends to convey?

_When the conversation is going badly.

_In all business-related, profit-related conversations, or where I’m getting paid.

_ In all/some conversations related to my spouse or family.

_No. I prefer to accurately understand what’s said in every conversation and am usually successful.

_I prefer to accurately understand all of my CPs but not sure that I do.

Take a moment to think about your responses in all of the above and answer the following questions, in writing, as a summary.

Are there specific times you regularly take responsibility, take extra steps, to make sure you hear your CP accurately?
Why are you more comfortable with your natural listening skills in some situations than in others? Are there patterns to when you have misunderstandings?
Are you fully aware of the outcomes of all of your conversations, and generally assume that everyone understands each other accurately?
How do you know if you’ve accurately understood someone?

PART 2: Do you know your communication biases?

Directions: assess your predispositions as a communicator on each of the following. Check off the ones that apply:

When I enter into a conversation, I enter with

_An ‘ear’ that listens according to my history with that person.

_An unconscious/conscious agenda of what I want from the conversation.

_ A need to be perceived in a specific way or to impart the message I want.

_An ability to enter each conversation without bias, with a mental ‘blank slate’.

_The needs of the Other in mind at the expense of my own.

_My beliefs about what this person might need from me given his/her background.

_An understanding that my unconscious biases might keep me from fully understanding so I regularly check that me and my CP are on the same page.

_ No conscious thought. I just assume I’ll hear what’s intended and respond appropriately, regardless of how different my CP might be from my own cultural experience.

During a conversation I

_Might get annoyed by something said due to my own preconceptions and history.

_ Assume I have the skills to recognize when there’s a misunderstanding and make things right if there is a problem.

_Notice when my CP is responding differently than I intended and say something to get us on the same page.

_Notice when my CP is responding differently than I intended and I say nothing.

_Don’t notice if my CP is responding differently from the message I’m sending and don’t know if I’ve hurt/annoyed them.

_Work hard at maintaining a ‘blank slate’ in my brain to listen through.

_Just be me, because I know I’m not biased and I listen accurately.

_Am aware I may not be speaking, listening, or responding in ways that regard the differences of my CP but don’t do anything to speak, listen, or respond differently than normal.

_Would prefer I’m not saying anything disrespectful, or hearing with unconscious biases, but I’m not sure if I know how to do this.

_Would prefer I’m respecting my CP but have done nothing to learn new skills to be able to speak or listen to match another’s unconscious cultural assumptions.

PART 3: Do you have the choices you need for an unbiased communication?

Directions: Please write down the answers to these:

If you don’t consider how accurately you hear what others intend to say (as distinct from what you think you hear) during a conversation, what you would need to know or believe differently to make this part of each communication? To think specifically if responses are congruent, if communication lines are balanced, if both CPs speak about the same amount of time and follow the same topic?

If you don’t know for certain if you’re hearing without bias, or if you’re listening with a ‘beginner’s mind’ to lessen your unconscious biases, what has stopped you until now from taking steps or learning new skills to listen without bias?

If you don’t know for certain if something you think you heard is inaccurate, what do you do to check? What stops you from stopping the conversation and asking?

How can you tell if your CP is understanding YOU accurately and without bias? Do you have the skills you need to monitor and manage this?

PART 4: Whose responsibility is a shared understanding?

Directions: Answer Yes or No for each of the following:

Beliefs

_I believe it’s the Sender’s responsibility to send her message properly to match the needs of the Receiver.

_I believe there’s a shared responsibility between CPs to understand each other; both are equally at fault if there’s a misunderstanding.

_I believe it’s the Receiver’s responsibility to hear what the Sender is saying, and tell the Sender when there is confusion or misunderstanding.

Responding

_I formulate a reply as soon as I hear something that triggers a response in my head, regardless of whether or not the person has finished sharing their ideas.

_I know I’ve been heard when someone responds according to my expectation.

_I know I’m hearing another’s intended message accurately when I feel comfort between us.

_If I disagree with my CP’s dialogue, I interrupt or show my disagreement without asking for an explanation.

_If I disagree with my CP’s dialogue I allow her to complete her message before sharing my disagreement.

_I try to listen without my biases and respond to what has been said, but I’m aware I probably can’t understand because of our differences. But I’ve not taken steps to learn how to listen without biases.

_If I have an idea to share that’s different from my CP’s topic, I just change topics.

_When I don’t understand my CP’s response to what I said, I just keep going or try to say something better.

_My responses conform to what I think I heard and I don’t check.

_I respond to what I think was said and don’t consider I might have biased and misinterpreted what I heard.

Understanding the message

_When I don’t understand someone, I can tell immediately and ask for clarification.

_I rarely think it’s me when there is confusion during a conversation and take no action, assuming it will work itself out.

_I can tell I’ve misheard/misunderstood when I get a negative reaction or a confused look.

_I can tell I’ve misheard only when I hear my CP say ‘WHAT?’ or ‘I don’t understand’ after my response.

_I cannot tell if I’ve misunderstood or misheard, and respond according to what I think I heard.

_I don’t know how to listen differently to people who are different from me and just respond like I do in any conversation.

_I assume I understand Others who speak English, regardless of our differences.

Communication problems

_As soon as I realize I have misunderstood someone, I ask her to repeat what she said so I can understand her message.

_When I realize I’ve misunderstood, I assume they aren’t being clear.

_When my CP tells me I misunderstood him I know it’s not my issue because I know I hear accurately.

_When my CP tells me she thinks I misheard, I ask what I missed so I can get it right.

_I can’t tell if I’ve misunderstood someone, and aren’t aware if there are negative consequences to my repsonses.

_I use my normal communication skills in all conversations regardless of cultural differences.

When you’re done, please write a paragraph on what you discovered.

Now, write a paragraph on this whole assessment experience. What did you take away? What do you need to do differently? Write down a plan to move forward in a way that will help you hear what others say with the least possible bias.

How did you do? Are you willing to make changes where you need them? Do you know how to make changes? Did you find areas you’d like to have more choice? Were you able to notice your predispositions?

It’s important to notice where you find yourself resisting change as those are the exact areas in which you might occasionally mishear or misunderstand. Determine if you want to continue your current patterns and don’t mind the cost of being wrong some of the time.

For those of you seeking more understanding on how our brains hear, check out my book: What? Did you really say what I think I heard? or call me to train your group: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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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 her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen May 19th, 2025

Posted In: News

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

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

I’d like to offer a different point of view on what questions really are and how they function. See, I find standard questions terribly subjective, don’t enable Responders to find their real answers, and often don’t get to the Truth. But it’s possible to use questions in a way that enables Others to discover their own, often unconscious, answers.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

Let me start with Google’s definition of ‘question’: “a grouping of words posed to elicit data.” Hmmmm…. But due to the way Askers pose questions and the way they’re interpreted in the Responder’s brain, they don’t often elicit accurate data. Here’s my definition. Questions are:

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

Our routine processes get in the way:

Language: Questions are posed using words and languaging unique to the Asker. Using their own (subjective, biased) intent and goals, their own idioms and word choices, Askers assume Responders will accurately interpret them and respond along expected lines. This expectation is most easily met between folks who are familiar with each other, but less successfully with those outside the Asker’s sphere of influence. Too often Responders interpret a query quite differently than intended, offering responses far afield from the Asker’s intent.
Listening/brain: All incoming words enter our ears as meaningless sound vibrations that neuroscientists call “puffs of air” and eventually get translated according to our brain’s historic neural circuits that have been set during our lifetimes. (For a complete explanation, see my book WHAT?) In other words, and similar to the language problem, Responders may not accurately translate incoming questions according to the intent of the Asker. The way Responders hear and interpret a question is at the mercy of the Responder’s existing neural brain circuits.

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3. Curiosity: Often an Asker seeks answers according to their desire for knowledge, for research, interest, or ego, to exhibit their intelligence, prove their commitment, or lead Respondsers to answers the Asker thinks they should discover. Yet given the way information is stored and retrieved in the brain, a question may capture some degree of applicable data or a whole lotta subjective, unconscious thoughts that may or may not be relevant.

As you can see, standard questions have a reasonable chance of failure.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

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

Open question: To me, open questions are great in social discussions but less so when seeking precise data or leading Others to discover their own answers. What do you think you might do to avoid that going forward? can’t help a client find new answers. What would you like for dinner? will prompt an enormous variety of choices, some of which may be unavailable. Open questions cause brains to do a transderivational search that may unearth responses far afield from the Asker’s intent and the Asker is out of control.

Closed question: I love these. They are perfect when a specific response is needed. What time is dinner? Should we send answers now or wait until our meeting? Of course they can also be highly manipulative (Do you want me to take your order now or should I call back tomorrow?) when only limited responses are offered for potentially broad possibilities.

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

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

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

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

When I began developing my brain change models decades ago, I realized that conventional questions would most likely not get to the most appropriate circuits in someone’s brain that hold their best answers.

Knowing that our brain’s electrochemical search for answers leads to historic responses, I spent 10 years figuring out how to formulate questions to help people find where their answers reside.

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

Language to avoid bias and promote objectivity

Since the brain sends incoming questions as electrochemical signals down specific neural routes, I had to figure out a way to use language to broaden the brain’s choices and circumvent bias as much as possible – difficult as our natural listening is unwittingly biased as per existing superhighways that offer habitual responses.

Was it possible to use questions to find where value-based answers are stored (where our decisions emerge from)? To accomplish this, I tried different word combinations in different sequences until I found success with specific words in a specific order that led to the criteria where accurate answers – answered not uncovered with conventional questions – were stored.

As a result, my Facilitative Questions™ are directed not at Asker-led information gathering but at Responder-driven brain-directional discovery. I nformation gathering now occurs at the very end of the questioning process when the proper circuits have been engaged, leading to far more accurate answers.

Getting into Observer

To make sure Responders can listen from an unbiased place and have a chance of hearing without misunderstanding, Facilitative Questions™ contain no convincer strategies or biases. They merely direct Responders to their own answers without anything – like historic biases, mistaken assumptions, automatic resistance – getting in the way.

To accomplish this I put specific words at the beginning that put the Responder into an Observer (meta, witness, coach) perspective that overrides the brain’s preferred route to translation and leads to a more accurate, less subjective response. Here are two examples:

How would you know if…
What would you need to understand differently…

Notice they immediately cause the Responder to ‘observe’ and discover answers stored outside the automatic circuitry.

Change the goal

For situations involving decision making and data extraction, I also had to detail the wording. Here’s an example of a standard question:

“Why do you wear your hair like that?”

This question puts the Responder directly into their automatic, historic, unconscious responses, while

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

is a Facilitative Question™ that puts the Responder into Observer and uses specific words in a specific order to direct them to specific neural circuits where their own data and criteria are stored. My r ecordings provide examples of how I formulate and use them.

Questions follow steps to change

The biggest element I had to figure out was the sequence, to help the brain’s translation process be more accurate. Here are the main categories of the 13 sequential steps to all change and decision making:

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

In my book HOW? I’ve included an entire chapter on how to formulate Facilitative Questions™.

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WHEN TO FACILITATE UNBIASED DISCOVERY?

Facilitative Questions™ are especially helpful in

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

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

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

It takes a bit of practice to create these questions as they aren’t natural or curiosity based, but the coaches, sellers, doctors, and leaders I’ve taught them to use them to help Others discover their own excellence, avoid resistance, and maintain trust between the Asker and Responder. I encourage you to consider learning them. And I’m happy to discuss and share what I know. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com My hope is that you’ll begin to think about questions differently.

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Sharon Drew Morgen May 12th, 2025

Posted In: Communication

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Using current negotiation models, people feel they are giving up more than they want in exchange for receiving less than they deserve. As part of standard practice, negotiation partners going into a negotiation calculate their bottom line – what they are willing to give up, and what they are willing to accept – and then fight, argue, cajole, or threaten when their parameters aren’t met. People have been killed for this. But there is another way.

In 1997, Bill Ury (author of Getting to Yes) and I had to read each other’s books (my book was Selling with Integrity) in preparation for working together for KPMG. A week before our introductory lunch meeting, I read his book where BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement – originated, marked the areas I disagreed with in red, and sent the marked book back to Bill.

There was a lot of red: his book teaches how to get what you want (potentially win-lose) rather than how everyone can walk away satisfied (win-win) and I was quite pointed in my annoyance with win-lose. The next day I realized what an ass I was and called him, telling him not to open my envelope and I’d explain all when we met. But he had already received, reviewed, and agreed with my corrections!

We had a long chat comparing our models, concluding with a very interesting discussion about the different outcomes between a win-win and a win-lose negotiation. And net net, he agreed with me and we worked with KPMG using a win-win model.

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BELIEFS

Win-lose is an incongruity. Using benchmarks for ethics and integrity, if one person loses, everyone loses – hence there is only win-win or lose-lose. Yet in the typical negotiation process it’s hard to find a win when the ‘things’ being bartered are not ‘things’ at all but representations of unconscious, subjective beliefs and personal values without either negotiation partner understanding the underlying values these items represent to the other: i.e. a house in the country might represent a lifetime goal to one person, and just a place to live to another; a $1,000,000 settlement might illustrate payback for a lost, hard-won reputation to one person, and extortion to another.

It’s possible to take a negotiation beyond the ‘things’ being bartered, away from the personal and chunk up to find mutually shared values agreeable to both – and then find ‘things’ that represent them. So it might be initially hard to agree who should get ‘the house’, but it might be possible to agree that it’s important everyone needs a safe place to live.

FOCUS ON SHARED VALUES FIRST

Try this:

enter the negotiation with a list of somewhat generic high-level values that are of foundational importance, such as Being Safe; Fair Compensation;
share lists and see where there is agreement. Where there is no agreement, continue chunking up higher until a set of mutually comfortable criteria are found. A chunk up from Fair Compensation might be ‘Compensation that Values Employees‘;
list several possible equivalents that match each agreeable criterion. So once Compensation that Values Employees is agreed upon during a salary negotiation, each partner should offer several different ways it could be achieved, such as a higher salary, or extra holidays, or increased paid training days, or a highly sought-after office, or higher royalties;
continue working backward – from agreement with high-level, foundational criteria, down to the details and choices that might fulfill that goal, with all parties in agreement. The more time you spend getting agreement on foundational criteria, the easier it will be to get into agreement.

Discussions over high level values are often more generic, and far less likely to set off tempers than arguments over ‘things’: if nothing else, it’s easier for negotiation partners to listen to each other without getting defensive. And once values are attended to and people feel heard they become more flexible in the ‘things’ they are willing to barter: once Compensation that Values Employees is agreed to, it’s possible to creatively design several choices for an employee to feel fairly valued without an employer stretching a tight budget.

Think about negotiations as a way to enhance relationships rather than a compromise situation or a way for someone to win. There is nothing to be won when someone loses.

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Sharon Drew Morgen May 5th, 2025

Posted In: Listening, News

When Dale Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1937 he laid the foundation for sales thinking that continues today: find folks with a need, get into a relationship, and tell them about the features, functions, and benefits of your solution in a way that induces them to buy it. But it’s no longer relevant. The industry faces a less-then 5% close rate, a 55% turnover of sales professionals, and 75% of people prefer not to engage sales people at all.

What’s changed? Well for starters, it’s no longer 1937: When Carnegie was king there was no direct way to meaningfully connect with a prospect unless they lived nearby. Phones were party line; travel was with Model T Fords. And the main marketing vehicles were Look magazine and the Sears Catalogue. Your neighbors were your customers and you were a necessary element in their decision: people relied on sales professionals to understand features, functions and benefits of products that could help them.

Those days are gone, but the sales industry continues to apply the same story:

just find people (the new art of finding names is a billion-dollar industry)
with needs that match what we’re selling (seemingly evident from the biased questions we pose to ‘expose a need’) and
provide well-composed (another billion-dollar industry) content using our charming personalities
to push solutions (people can find online) onto those we’ve found and they’ll buy.

But they don’t. Yet the industry continues to seek out people with ‘needs that match what we’re selling.’ When they don’t buy we say they’re stupid, ill-informed, seeking a lower price, or….

We’re merely finding the people who were going to buy anyway, the low hanging fruit, at the end of their decision cycle. No one’s noticed the foundational premises we’ve used for close to a century, techniques designed for a different time, are no longer relevant:

Folks with a seeming ‘need’ are now dispersed teams, making it difficult for them to understand their full problem set, let alone agree to something they need;
Getting into ‘relationship’ with, or gathering information from ‘a prospect’ is moot as there is no longer ‘a prospect’;
The features, functions, and benefits of our solutions are posted online, well outside the need for a human to introduce them.

With fewer and fewer buyers, less and less income, and more and more frustration, sellers are leaving their jobs to play musical chairs for jobs with higher earning potential (and commission guarantees) that don’t procure them higher income beyond the guarantee. Because people aren’t buying.

Why aren’t alarm bells ringing? We continue doing what we’ve always done when all rational indicators tell us we’re doing something wrong. The sales industry is suffering from ‘Problem Blindness’: assuming our failures are just ‘the way it is’ as we build more and more tools to fix the very problems they create rather admit failure and change the system altogether.

In this article I will lay out the reasons sales as we’ve known it has become irrelevant, the current struggles of the Buying Decision Journey (a term I coined in 1985), and how sales can reposition itself to become a highly respected and relevant profession. Again.

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PART ONE: Why our standard sales thinking no longer works

OUTDATED ASSUMPTIONS

There are several stories here:

Sellers are leaving jobs for similar ones in the hopes they’ll close more sales and earn more money. But without changing the core skills and premises of sales, fewer and fewer people need sellers and close rates will continue to fall. We need a new vision of sales.
Sellers are no longer needed to place solutions; details can be found online. We need a new function that prospects need us for.
Buying decisions involve complex environments and ever-changing norms to be managed. Problem solving is confusing and time-consuming. People need help making their change-related decisions that won’t reverberate back to leadership, job descriptions or the bottom line. These are change management issues that must be resolved before they can consider buying anything.
We treat failure in the industry as if it were inevitable and aren’t attempting to fix it at the source, using the same thinking that cause the very problems they’ve created.

First we must acknowledge there’s a problem: we haven’t progressed beyond using sales as a needs/solution placement tool and face decreasing, and costly, results. Then we must redefine our jobs beyond finding and instigating people to buy and add new tools at the front end to facilitate people through their decision factors.

Right now we’re stuck in a cycle that perpetuates the problem.

Here’s an analogy: Let’s say you open a clothing store with the best cash registers available for efficient transactions, and you’ve overlooked installing fitting rooms, depriving customers of help where they really need help in making a choice. Hmmmmm. Sales keep decreasing! You decide to fix the situation by adding new capability to the cash registers: robots to make transactions even MORE efficient by finding folks in the aisles as they shop. But now, prospective customers feel pursued! Robbed of a way to make their best choice and pursued, they stop shopping in the store altogether. And it’s never occurred to you to bring in fitting rooms.

Sales continues to use the same baseline thinking used since 1937, but now prospects no longer live next door and don’t need anyone explaining features and functions. Yet we continue using what worked for Carnegie, but with sophisticated technology and more manipulation tools, doing the same things over and over again, hoping for different results. All assuming if we can find-em they’ll buy.

We continue thinking of sales tactically. But that’s not how people buy: they buy relationally, and they’re resolving their problems without us. And we’re not helping them where they need help.

I have a question: Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? I assume most sellers would respond ‘Have someone buy’. But that doesn’t seem to be true: using any rational standard, what you’re doing now is failing. Your answer, it would seem, is you’d prefer to sell, regardless of whether or not anyone is buying – which is indeed what’s happening.

Indeed, we haven’t defined the real problem we face as sellers, making it impossible to resolve: instead of finding and providing real support for prospective buyers where they really need our help, we expect them to be where we are looking for them – and blaming them for not being there! Like the joke of the man looking for the lost lug nuts under the lights because he can see better, instead of searching where he lost them.

I have proven out-of-the-box ideas and models that I’ve been teaching in the sales industry for 35 years. They truly serve employees and prospects, find real buyers efficiently, and increase closing rates dramatically in far less time. But they’re not sales! And they don’t equate with anything you’re now doing, so could potentially be rejected. Yet they solve the problems you face. Are you willing to consider doing anything differently?

Before I even introduce you to my new information, the industry must first resolve the core issue: we must stop denying there’s a problem. And then we must stop using sales for prospecting. It was never meant for that.

WHY IS A 5% SUCCESS RATE OK?

When I ran my first Helping Buyers Buy program to KLM in 1987 close rates were 10%. They’re now less than 5% and dropping, an indication that the original thinking is no longer relevant. Yet we accept ‘failure’ as normal for the sales industry. “It’s just the way it is.” But failure is not inevitable. We’re just using the wrong tools for this time in history and bringing on the failure ourselves.

Failure (a 5% close rate is a 95% fail rate) has been accepted as a ‘given’ that’s been normalized and built into the cost of doing business. Sales directors understand this, hire more sellers to make up for the lower closing rates, and do some creative accounting that ignores the real cost of a sale. A sales director recently told me he closes 30%. Thirty percent of what? I asked. Of folks we meet with. What’s the percentage from first prospecting call? Less than 2%. It goes without saying that the prospecting group is listed as a cost center and closed sales are in the profit center.

Let’s get real: Would you go to a dentist with a 95% fail rate? Or get on a plane with a 5% chance of getting you to your destination? You wouldn’t even go to a hairdresser with a 95% fail rate.

Why do we condone and maintain the thinking that leads to a 95% fail rate? Why do we accept the cost of hiring 8x more sales folks who waste most of their work hours chasing people they can’t reach, putting invalid prospects into the pipeline who disappear and won’t take calls, or seeking appointments they can’t get or which don’t end in a sale? Why is it ok to have low close rates and high turnover rates? Why?

Why aren’t these factors a sign that something is wrong? What does the industry need to believe differently so failure is not a ‘given’ and can be rectified?

We are using the sales model for tasks it wasn’t designed to do. It’s a solution placement model, evolved by necessity to include prospecting and qualifying, seeking appointments, and sharing content details – all in the name of making a sale. And for a long time, it worked. But now, in the 21st Century, it’s relevant only in the final stages of a buying decision once people have self-identified as prospects.

REASONS FOR FAILURE

All rational indicators broadcast that what you’ve been doing isn’t working. But until you admit your current practices don’t capture the clients, the revenue, the numbers you seek (i.e. until you admit failure), you will continue selling less, wasting more time, earning less money, having more turnover, and helping fewer people than you deserve.

All the new apps, the new companies that promise to help you close more by finding you names of ‘real’ prospects, are the only ones making money. I recently asked a noted Lead Gen group what the close rate was for the leads they handed over. “I have no idea. That’s not our job. We only send names and have nothing to do with what our clients do with them.”

It doesn’t need to be this way. The sales model as we’ve known it is no longer relevant as the sole tool to make sales. Designed for different times, the originating assumptions capture a tiny subset of people:

those who have figured out that making a purchase is the only way to resolve a problem and worth the risk of change;
those situations in which the full set of stakeholders are involved, bought in, and are ready NOW;
those who carry the cultural- and values-centric criteria of the full stakeholder team.

Even with a real need, a great solution, and a trusting relationship with a vendor, no purchase occurs until everyone buys into the risk of change; the cost of disruption is too high. And sales just keeps trying to push solutions and determine need before folks are actually buyers, before they’ve assembled the complete Buying Decision Team, before they’ve understood their risk of change.

Sample

Sales overlooks the change issues that must be addressed before people decide to bring in an external solution (i.e. buy). It’s here we can add a new tool kit and become relevant.

By breaking a buying decision into two segments – the Buy Side change management process AND the Sell Side solution placement process – we 1. begin by finding those on route to becoming buyers and facilitate their change management process as they morph into buyers extremely quickly, then 2. sell. By then they’re ready, willing, and able to buy, already know they need us and are in relationship with us. Right now we have one tool kit: we rely on our solutions as bait.

By recognizing the two legs of the Buying Decision Journey and save the sales element until the first leg is complete, it’s possible to find real prospects on the first call and reduce the sales cycle by at least half. But it gets better: it’s possible to make sellers a sought-after group who can provide real help during the decision process.

But as I’ve said, first you’d need to acknowledge what you’ve been doing is failing and look at the problem from a different angle.

PART TWO: How Buyers Buy

WHY ISN’T SALES RELEVANT NOW?

Let’s begin at the beginning: Buying is not the first thing anyone does. If your car doesn’t start you don’t go straight to a dealership and buy a new one. If your team isn’t communicating skillfully your first action is not to hire a consultant. No. Before you recognize you need to bring in an external solution you’ve got work to do, things to consider, people to assemble to understand the full scope of the problem and brainstorm with, workarounds to trial.

When people first notice a problem they’ve got internal issues to resolve that carry far-reaching consequences if not delicately handled. And while they might eventually require a purchase – eventually being the operative word – these early steps are not based on buying anything. Hence, the sales model doesn’t work here.

Sales overlooks what people must do anyway: the change management piece. In fact until everyone involved buys-in to any changes caused by fixing/reconfiguring the status quo, folks cannot make a purchase regardless of their need or the value of the solution.

Need and solution value are no longer buying motives: risk avoidance is. And because each prospective buyer lives in unique cultures, they face singular, often hidden, and hard-to-discern risks; the goals, apps, and thinking used for selling don’t apply! In fact, until the risks of change are addressed and managed, people aren’t in the market to buy anything and, again, don’t even self-identify as buyers.

Here is a Truth that must be the foundation of sales thinking:

People don’t want to buy anything, merely fix a problem with the least risk to their system. And the time it takes folks to figure all this out is the length of the sales cycle.

Making a purchase is the last – the last – thing people do, and only then when everyone has bought-in and the cost of disruption is manageable. This is what they’re doing when we sit and wait! And we’re not helping them:

figure out how to assemble the right stakeholders (not always obvious and always unique),
find the right workarounds that avoid disruption,
weigh the disruption/change a new solution will generate,
facilitate their journey as they figure out how to inspire buy-in within their culture.

Until these are resolved, folks don’t even self-identify as buyers and will not heed your well-considered content, your charming personality or your great solution.

By avoiding facilitating the journey people must handle on the Buy Side, we’re only finding/closing folks who have determined the cost of change is less than the cost of the status quo and have gotten buy-in for change. Until then they won’t notice, or heed, your efforts as they don’t consider themselves buyers.

PROVIDE THE HELP FOLKS REALLY NEED

A buying decision is a change management problem before it’s a solution choice issue. And this change management process is a conundrum, filled with confusion, false starts, and unfamiliar options – the reason the sales cycle is so long. Sellers sit and wait, push and lower the price, and refer to this as ‘no decision’. But it’s not ‘no decision’, it’s just ‘no purchase’.

The tasks people must complete are cultural, idiosyncratic, and unique to each group. Using the needs-based, solution-placement sales model, there’s no way to connect until they’ve completed their objectives. Until then what they need is different from what we’re offering. This is why they won’t take an appointment, call us back, or read our marketing materials. They’re not ready.

But it’s here that 40% more real prospects reside, people who WILL buy once they’ve completed their change management steps. And it’s here we can become relevant: we can first help them manage change as a precursor to selling.

But we need different assumptions, goals, and skills: we begin by seeking those on route to change and help them traverse the confusing bits that are risk- and change-oriented. Instead of pushing and hoping they’ll close, we can put on a ‘facilitation’ hat and help them do what they must do anyway.

MY JOURNEY TO THINKING DIFFERENTLY

I learned the differences between the Buy Side decision process and the Sell Side solution-placement process when I went from being a highly successful sales professional to starting up a tech company in London. As a new ‘buyer’ who had just left the sales profession, I now realized why many prospects hadn’t closed: I needed to consider my staff, my investors, the market, our strategies and goals, before we considered (together) the most effective routes to problem resolutions. As a seller I had thought because I could see a need that they were buyers. They weren’t.

As I worked at resolving our problems I took 13 very specific steps. I didn’t even fully understand the ‘need’ until step 7, or realize we needed to go ‘outside’ to buy anything until step 9 when I realized we couldn’t fix the problem inhouse and we all understood the risk, the cost, of change. We finally considered ourselves buyers at step 10 – where the sales model is needed to clearly define how the solution would fit our need. (I describe the steps in my book Dirty Little Secrets).

Here’s a summary of what my team (all teams!) considered on route to fixing our problems with the least risk:

All stakeholders must be assembled. This isn’t always easy. Sometimes HR needs to come aboard. Sometimes there’s a hidden influencer (Joe in accounting) who needs to join the decision team. But unless the full complement of folks are onboard, the full fact pattern of the problem cannot be understood. This fact alone takes quite a bit of time. And speaking with one person and assuming a need is just silly.
All possible workarounds must be tried: known vendors, other teams.
The ‘cost’, the risk, of doing something different must be fully understood as less than the ‘cost’ of the status quo. If the cost is too high – if they must fire people, reorganize, go against policy, etc. – they will continue doing what they’re doing.
Once the cost is understood – the new job descriptions and responsibilities, the habits they’d need to change, the new norms – everyone must buy-in.

It’s ONLY when everything plausible to fix a problem has been tried AND the ‘cost’ is manageable that people consider seeking an external solution. And the time it takes to complete this process is the length of the sales cycle. I’m sure you also noticed that none of these steps include a desire to buy anything.

Why not use different thinking and new tools to help? We’ve overlooked serving people where they really could use expert help. It’s here you’re needed now and would be welcomed, so long as you refrain from pushing your solution until they become buyers.

PART THREE: How Sales Can Be Relevant

FACILITATE CHANGE MANAGEMENT FIRST

We must modernize sales by adding new goals and tools to facilitate the Pre-Sales, non-solution-oriented journey people must traverse BEFORE self-identifying as buyers and find – and serve – people during their change management process and on route to buying instead of using our solutions as bait.

During my experience as a buyer, I developed a model that facilitates the change management portion of the Buying Decision Journey. I named it Buying Facilitation®. I trained it to my own staff and we tripled our sales in months. Then I trained it to my tech folks who used it to understand a client’s full problem set upfront and lead them through to their best decisions before they even began programming, and halved their time to complete. And then I trained it to 100,000 sales folks globally with 8x results over the control groups.

Buying Facilitation® finds those people on route to becoming buyers (the 40% actively trying to resolve a problem but haven’t yet self-identified as buyers), helps them assemble real decision makers and define their needs from many viewpoints, figure out the best workarounds to consider, and sanctions the risk. By then sellers are in real relationships with real buyers, with a real need, eager to buy. And as true servant leaders we will rise above the competition.

But it’s predicated on sellers beginning with a wholly different goal: find and serve folks actively involved in resolving a problem in the area your solution can provide support, then lead them through their change management steps to the point they’re ready – and asking! – for a pitch.

Yes, during your facilitation process a percentage of them will discover ways to fix their own problems; these weren’t prospects anyway and you’ll both realize this in ten minutes on your first call. And yes, because of the way you enter a call, with a goal to serve not sell, more people will take your calls.

Once you recognize your real buyer population you’ll sell faster, with no objections and no price issues. The KPMG Partners I trained went from a three year sales cycle to a four month sales cycle for a $50,000,000 solution; working with phone sales at IBM they began making one-call closes that originally took three months. Remember: people are happy to resolve their problems quickly; they just don’t know how.

Here’s one more thought: we must – and this might be difficult for sellers accustomed to having all the answers – trust that each client has their own unique, culturally-appropriate answers. While we are well-versed on product details for our solutions, we truly have no idea what people are going through in their own environments – a boss that won’t approve funds for training, a newly hired director who’s not up to speed.

Let’s help people use their knowledge of their own unique environments as they go through their problem resolution discovery. With our knowledge in our fields that gives us an understanding of the types of change required, we will be recognized as real assets and become a part of the Buying Decision Team. It’s a perfect way to serve, be competitive, and close more sales.

Btw I’m not overlooking the selling function. By the time the facilitation process is complete, the sales process is used for what it was originally intended to do: sell solutions to those who know exactly what they need and are already bought-in to buying. It’s SO much easier! And sales becomes a needed service and relevant again.

DIFFERENT THINKING; DIFFERENT GOAL

It’s possible to make sellers a sought-after group who can provide real help during the decision process. But given the new function and new prospect base, different thinking and assumptions are needed:

1. Instead of seeking folks with ‘need’ seek out folks in the process of resolving a problem in the area you can potentially provide a solution. This is where folks really need help.

a. They don’t always know the right folks to involve, and until all relevant stakeholders are involved they can’t fully understand the problem to be fixed. Plus, with everyone on board they think, create, decide quicker.

b. They need to be assured they cannot fix the problem themselves and need help determining relevant workarounds.

c. Folks don’t self-identify as ‘buyers’ until they’ve recognized that they can manage the risk of disruption when something new enters (i.e. hypothetically, if they must fire 8 people to buy a new CRM system, the ‘cost’ may be too high.) Sometimes, the status quo is their best option.

2. Instead of assuming the person you’re speaking with has answers, assume they are part of a decision team in the middle of discovery and don’t represent the full fact pattern.

a. You can help this person assemble all the right people who must be on board to assist in decision making, information sharing, and buy in.

3. Instead of listening to make a pitch, listen for where they need help determining their risk of change.

4. Instead of trying to make an appointment, use your first call to discover who is actively seeking change, help them assemble the full Buying Decision Team, then lead them through their change issues. (Again, read Dirty Little Secrets where I lay out the decision/change steps.)

5. Instead of a purchase being the goal, help people recognize the ‘cost’ – the risk to their culture – of bringing in something new.

6. Instead of posing curiosity-based questions to discover a need, use Facilitative Questions to help them through their unique discovery.

7. Instead of entering with a goal to place a solution, make your first goal to facilitate change.

This thinking will find people on route to buying – a much higher probability of buying than random names chosen with a mythical ‘needs’ criteria. The hard part will be to make sure you don’t try to slip in a pitch or biased question as you facilitate change. Because if you do, you won’t be trusted and prospects will feel manipulated.

NEW MEASUREMENTS OF SUCCESS

Buying Facilitation® is a Pre-Sales skill set. It’s

NOT sales, although it works with sales;
NOT based on selling a product, although 8x more products will be sold;
NOT ‘needs’ based, although our solution has a high likelihood of handling needs;
NOT based on understanding a problem but based on facilitating folks through their change management problems that only they can understand as insiders.

Buying Facilitation® employs an entirely new form of decision-detection question (took me 10 years to invent Facilitative Questions), a new form of listening (not for need!) and facilitates people through their 13 steps of change. And there are different measurements of success:

A much higher close rate – 40% of would-be buyers can be found on the first call using a relevant list.
Minimal turnover as sellers make more commission and face less rejection and frustration.
Uncovers people who are real prospects but haven’t yet self-identified as buyers.
An accurate pipeline.
Fewer price issues.
Prospects request appointments; all stakeholders are present.
Competition shifts to recognize sellers who best facilitate change.
Maintain the client base.
No time wasted following people who will never buy (and sellers know the difference).

Success will be measured by closed sales (I know companies that now pay sellers per visit, assuming if you get an appointment you can make a sale!); by brevity of the sales cycle; by accuracy of the pipeline; number of referrals; ratio of active prospects to closed sales. Even Lead Gen would bring in prospects with a 40% close rate and not merely uncover names of people who agree to hear a pitch.

To make sales relevant again, the sales profession needs to help people where they need help: add a front end to facilitate the Buying Decision Journey. Then prospective buyers will recognize sellers as professionals who can truly serve them and then everyone wins: clients get their problems resolved sooner, you get to close more sales, and everyone is happy. Win/Win. Worth a try, no?

For those wishing more information on Buying Facilitation®, go to: www.sharon-drew.com. Read the section: Helping Buyers Buy. There are several articles linked, plus hundreds more in the blog section. Or contact me with questions: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon Drew Morgen April 28th, 2025

Posted In: Change Management

Last week I was locked out of my Paypal account. With no explanation offered on why this was happening, I called them to get it fixed. This is the conversation I had with the Customer Service rep:

SD: Hi there. I’m attempting to have money sent to a vendor but am getting an error message saying that my business isn’t verified. What does that mean? And what must I do to correct it?

Rep: You need to verify your business.

SD: OK. What does that mean? I’ve had my account with you for 10 years without doing anything like this!

Rep: You know, verify.

SD: What?

Rep: You know, verify. Like send us documentation that you’re a business.

SD: But I’ve been set up as a business from the beginning. What type of documentation do you need?

Rep: You know, verification.

SD: What type of verification? All I have is my EIN. Here it is…that’s legal verification.

Rep: Please hold while I check out if we can use this….. I’m sorry. We don’t consider that verification.

SD: But it’s a government verification number. What else would you need?

Rep: You know, like a court order. Just make a copy and put it in the mail.

SD: [now talking loudly] A COURT ORDER? What are you talking about?

Rep: That’s the only verification we can accept.

SD: WHAT??? Let me speak to your supervisor.

Rep: You don’t need him. I’m giving you accurate data. If you can’t send it we’ll have to close your account.

SD: [now screaming] CLOSE MY ACCOUNT??? I WANT YOUR SUPERVISOR!

Rep: You’ll have to wait for an hour. Just do what I said. He’ll tell you the same thing I told you.

SD: [still screaming] I WANT YOUR SUPERVISOR!

The rep put me on hold; the Supervisor got on the phone in 2 minutes. He said, “The rep said WHAT?? He said he’d close your account? Did he explain what he needed verification for? I’m so sorry! I can understand you’d be upset! Not only is what he said inaccurate, but I don’t even know what he was talking about! We had a systems failure here a few days ago and just need to verify your Soc Sec# to make sure we have you listed accurately!

“Thanks for giving me the number. Ok. You’re good. We appreciate your business. Again, I’m so very sorry you had to go through that. And yes, we’ll supervise that employee.”

The rep not only didn’t know what he was talking about or tell me the issue they were handling, but rather than excuse himself to get the right information, he assumed he was ‘right’ and was willing to close my account! And he didn’t want to pass me on to the supervisor for fear of getting in trouble.

This man put his ego above caring for a screaming customer. Not to mention he didn’t even have a desire to learn the real data.

Do you know what your reps are saying to your clients? When was the last time you listened in to any of their conversations? Or call an unhappy customer to make sure the problem wasn’t caused by one of your own reps.

Remember: without customers, you’re not in business. Make sure your reps are properly trained, and understand they’re there to serve, not admonish. Good customer service is good for business.

_____________________

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 her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen April 21st, 2025

Posted In: Listening

There’s been an age-old argument in the communication field: who’s at fault if a misunderstanding occurs – the Speaker communicating badly, or the Listener misunderstanding? Let’s look at some facts:

1. Speaking is an act of translation: putting into words what’s going on internally for us (the unspoken feelings, needs, thoughts) to enable others to understand what we wish to share. But the act of choosing the words is largely unconscious and may not render an accurate representation to our Listener.

2. Listeners translate what they hear through a series of unconscious filters (biases, assumptions, triggers, habits, imperfect memory) formed over their lives by their:

world view
beliefs
similar situations
historic exchanges with the same speaker
biases on entering the conversation (like sellers listening exclusively for need).

To make things worse, sound enters our ears as electrical and chemical vibrations (Neuroscience calls words ‘puffs of air’) that go through rounds of filtering and discarding before being turned into signals in our brains and then get matched for translation with existing circuits that carry ‘similar-enough’ signals – a mechanical, electrical process between signals that we have no control over, and fraught with subjectivity. Then our brains In other words, whatever we think we hear is some unknown fraction of what was intended- a mechanical, electrical process between signals that we have no control over, and fraught with subjectivity.

Not only are we inadvertently listening subjectively but, because the brain discards unmatching signals without telling us, there’s no way of knowing what parts of what’s been said have been omitted or misconstrued.

So we might hear ABL when our communication partner said ABC! And because our brain only conveys ABL, we have no way to know it has discarded D, E, F, etc. and have no option but to believe what we thought we heard is accurate! No wonder we think others aren’t hearing us, or are misunderstanding us purposefully!

3. According to David Bellos in his excellent book Is That a Fish In Your Ear?, no sentence contains all of the information we need to translate it. And this, too, provides a great opportunity for our brains to make stuff up…without telling us.

For Listeners, this results in impediments to hearing others accurately: even when we want to, even when we’re employing Active Listening, or taking notes, the odds are bad that we will accurately understand what our communication partner intends to tell us and instead hear a message we’ve unintentionally misinterpreted. The studies I’ve read vary between a 10-35% accuracy rate.

From the Speaker’s standpoint, they attempt to use the best languaging for our communication partner and wrongly assume they will be understood.

WHY WE CAN’T UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER

Since communication involves a bewildering set of conscious and unconscious choices, and so much activity is going on automatically in our brains, sharing mutually understood messages becomes dependent upon each communication partner mitigating bias and disengaging from assumptions – taking responsibility in different ways.

While researching my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? I realized that the responsibility for effective communication seems to be weighted in the court of the Speaker.

Sample

But given that Listeners are at the effect of their unconscious brains regardless of how carefully a Speaker chooses their words, what must Speakers do to be understood accurately?

It’s an interesting problem: because the Listener has no way of knowing what’s been mistranslated, the Speaker is the one who must investigate by asking:

“Can you please tell me what you heard so I can say it better in case there’s a misinterpretation? It seems to me you might have misunderstood and I want our communication to be accurate.”

That way you can keep a conversation on track and not assume the person just isn’t listening.

And If, as a Listener, you want to make sure you heard and responded accurately, ask:

“I’d like to make sure I heard you accurately. Do you mind telling me exactly what you just heard me say so I can make sure we’re on the same page going forward?”

Using these tactics, there’s a good chance all communication partners will go forward from the same understanding.

Here are the questions we must answer for ourselves in any communication: As Listeners, how can we know if we’re translating accurately? Is it possible to avoid bias? As Speakers, are we using our best language choices?

As you can see above, the odds of communication partners accurately understanding the full extent of intended meaning in conversation is unlikely. The best we can do is figure out together how to manage the communication.

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Sharon Drew Morgen April 14th, 2025

Posted In: Listening, News

Are you seeking funding for a truly unique solution and it’s not getting the attention it deserves? Do you have a great solution you’ve created great content for and it’s still not closing as many sales as it deserves to? Do you have an idea that will correct long-held problems, but no one wants to hear it?

You know your solution is terrific and your pitch (deck) is creative, professional, and represents exactly what you want to say.You know your idea is important and sorely needed and your case study is on target and proves your conclusion. And yet. People aren’t buying; funders aren’t funding; people have no interest in adopting your idea. What’s the problem?

The problem is that information – regardless how necessary, relevant, or inspirational – doesn’t necessarily convince or cause action. Let me explain.

INFORMATION AND DECISION MAKING

As a culture, we tend to believe that content is a necessary part of decision making. This is true…but only marginally: people need content after they’ve already determined if, when, how, and why they would consider doing something different.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you need to purchase new software. Your team has theoretically agreed to make a change, but want to understand the risks: the amount of resource needed to maintain the new, the ‘cost’ (downtime, familiarity of use, etc.) of integrating the old with the new, or how jobs and daily work routines will be affected. Until they’re ok with the risks, they won’t make the purchase.

Ultimately change is a risk issue: the cost – the resource, the output – involved in doing something different must be less than the cost of maintaining the status quo; otherwise the risk of disrupting what works is too high. And until the risks are known, marketing information is irrelevant, and pitching, lecturing, graphics, storytelling and proof will be ignored, regardless of the efficacy of, or need for, the new ideas.

Unfortunately, most startups/scaleups seek funding on what they perceive to be the strength of their content and overlook the private risks, values-based criteria, and prior relationships, that funders must address. Professors, coaches, and leaders want their ideas to be heard, but often they end up being disregarded because the old ideas are normalized and imbedded into standard practice. [Watch my video on a new training model that works with the brain first before offering content resistance.]

The acceptance, the funding, the recognition you deserve won’t be acted upon because of the strength of your content; unless folks understand their risk of changing what they’ve got in place – the relationships, promises, beliefs, habits – they will hear you with biased ears.

Sample

CONTENT DOESN’T PERSUADE

We spend large sums of money to generate content for marketing, ads, sites, pitch decks, graphics, training, and outreach. But it only works when it works… and even then we don’t know how or when or why. A sales pitch closes 5%; Behavior Modification has a 3% success rate even though folks really want to change bad habits; doctors, coaches, leaders, and parents provide important details for change, and it falls on deaf ears.

The problem is how, when, why we share information. Pitching and content sharing assume that, if presented properly, good ideas and solutions will be accepted. But there’s no way to track, discover, expand, or connect with the unconscious decision-making criteria of the audience.

I recently got a call from a Venture Capitalist who’d been referred to me by an internationally famous change agent. He said he invests in Behavior Modification apps for weight loss and habit change, admitting that they were only 3% successful and the folks who purchased his apps would probably fail. Could I develop a change facilitation model that would really work? I knew he wasn’t familiar with my innovative ideas, so before pitching I asked:

SD: How would you know that my brain-change models would offer value?
DH: If you’ve been published in “Science.”

And there’s the crux of the problem. Yes, I’m an original thinker with bestselling books and proven models. And I was referred to him by the best. But I don’t have a PhD, causing science journals to reject my work. Our conversation was over. My great content, referrals, and accolades – even his own failure rate!… were useless because I failed to meet his criteria based on his idiosyncratic beliefs.

OUR BRAIN IS THE PROBLEM

It’s only when

we recognize it’s time to make a change,
the status quo isn’t working,
there’s no familiar workaround to fix the problem,
our core beliefs are in agreement,
the risk of change is understood and planned for

that content is sought. Indeed, several industries fail because of their over-reliance on content:

The sales model assumes that content – pitching, marketing, advertising – causes sales. Although using the sales model alone (see my Buying Facilitation® Pre-Sales change management model) merely closes 5% – a whopping 95% fail rate! – sales continues to push content as a purchase motivator, blaming the ‘stupid buyers’ for the problem.

Healthcare pushes habit change and fails 97% of the time.

Trainers and coaches push new ideas and come up against resistance 80% of the time.

Leaders push initiatives and fail to generate lasting change 95% of the time, and managing resistance in the process.

Climate Tech startups and scaleups have been depending upon pitch decks to explain the value of their solutions, believing that a compelling story will raise funds. But given the range of new solutions entering the market, it’s necessary to address a funder’s possibly unconscious beliefs.

You see, decision making depends on our brain:

Our brain may not decipher intended meaning. Because of the way sound vibrations enter ears and get dispatched for translation, we only translate incoming content according to the brain circuits we already possess (causing our biases). Our brain may not interpret new information properly and actually mistranslate or misunderstand, regardless of the relevance or presentation style of the data. I wrote a book on this (WHAT? Did you really say what I think I heard?).
Everything we do is systemic. We’re each a unique system of rules and roles, history and hopes, values and beliefs. Decisions get made systemically and systems fight hard to maintain themselves. When one bit of the system is being asked to change without buy-in from the rest of the system, we get (you know this!) resistance and failure.
Everything we do and say arises from our brains. Without our neural circuits prompting action, no decisions occur. And unless the risk of change is known and each relevant element of the failed system is managed, the brain won’t know how to make use of content as it will be too busy defending its system.
Change, decisions, actions, arise from our baseline beliefs. Indeed, behaviors are beliefs in action. If any of the content elements you’re offering goes against the Other’s system or beliefs it will be rejected, mistranslated, or ignored, regardless of its intention or relevance.

Our devotion to content is costing us lost sales, shortened lifespans, and failed relationships.

WHAT DO WE DO INSTEAD?

I suggest we begin by helping Others figure out their own criteria and then offer the content that fits.

How does your audience know when it’s time to make a change? How do they recognize incongruences that are costing them failure and possibility? (Hint: unless an incongruence is noticed, the brain will fight change.)
How would they know that you would be a successful leader? A good steward for a start up in your industry?
What would investors need to consider to believe a new solution would be relevant and successful?

This tactic would not only begin a collaborative dialogue before you present your content, it would cause an interaction that would promote a real relationship. Plus, once you’ve brought the unconscious beliefs to the surface, you’ll have a pathway to discuss how they might be ameliorated if a problem emerges. My clients create pitches and pitch decks that match unique beliefs and considerations, showing only those that apply.

For those wishing to learn how to formulate your specific upfront questions, I’d be happy to discuss them. In the meantime, go to www.sharon-drew.com and do a search for ‘questions’ and read my articles on the specific topic.

________________________________

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 her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen April 7th, 2025

Posted In: News

How do we manage change in our organizations? Not very well, apparently. According to statistics, the success rate for many planned change implementations is low: 37 percent for Total Quality Management; 30 percent for Reengineering and Business Process Reengineering, and a whopping 3% for some software implementations.

Regardless of the industry, situation, levels of people involved, or intended outcome, change seems carry a real possibility of failure:

Internal partners fail in attempts to promote and elicit proposed initiatives across departments.
Leaders get blindsided by unknowns, creating more problems or becoming part of the problem when attempting to find a fix.
Improper, or non-existent, integration between developers and users cause lack of buy-in and resistance.
The change doesn’t get adopted as conceived, with financial and personal fallout.

Change initiatives can be far more successful if we include systems thinking in our change management models.

THE SYSTEMS ASPECT OF CHANGE

I believe change is a systems problem. But let me start at the beginning with my definitions of change and systems.

CHANGE: Change is an alteration to a system and entails modifying an existing structure that has been working well-enough for some time, accepted by all, and habituated into the daily norms while maintaining balance.

All change must include a way for the elements – the existing behaviors, roles, policies etc. – to buy-in to, and incorporate, new outputs while maintaining the rules and beliefs of the foundational status quo.

SYSTEM: Any connected set of elements that agree to, and are held together by consensual rules and beliefs that generate a unique set of behaviors and exhibit a unique identity. Because change represents risk to the status quo, systems defend themselves by resisting when feeling threatened.

In order to facilitate congruent change, it’s necessary to get agreement from all who will touch the final solution. A good way to encourage this is to not only include everyone involved with the status quo (including front line workers) in the problem definition and brainstorming of possible solutions, but to develop a path forward (There are specific, sequential steps in all change processes.) that is agreeable to all.

When leaders define the problem and solution and then attempt to get agreement, they run the risk of insulting the core Beliefs that are the very foundation of everyone’s jobs.

Too often change is approached with an eye on altering activity without ensuring that the core system maintains balance, thereby putting the system at risk. When we attempt to push behavior change before eliciting core Belief change, we

cause the system to defend itself (i.e.resistance);
overlook helping the system design it’s own version of congruent change;
are left managing the fallout when the stable system is forced to defend itself.

Herein lies the problem: until or unless the full complement of elements that created and maintain the problem and will be affected by the new agrees to change, the system will resist change regardless of the problem that needs fixing. The system is sacrosanct.

Here’s where change agents face problems: In general, outsiders cannot know what norms must be maintained. Change is an inside job. Congruent, resistance-free change must teach the system how to change itself. My new book How? explores this topic thoroughly.

Sample

ALL CHANGE MUST ADDRESS SYSTEMS

Most influencing professions (leadership, coaching, consulting, sales etc.) begin with a goal to be met, adopt an outside-in approach that uses influence, advice, ‘rational’ scientific ‘facts’, and overlooks the fact that anything new, any push from outside the system, represents disruption.

We put the cart before the horse, attempting to change behaviors and elicit buy in before the system is certain it won’t be compromised. Until the system knows it will remain in balance, whatever problem is being resolved will continue as is – it’s already built into the system:

The full complement of elements that created the existing problem must be assembled and recognized;
The risk the system will face when doing anything new;
Everyone/everything within the system must accept that it’s not possible to fix the problem with known resources;
All of the elements (people, policies, rules, relationships, etc.) that will be affected by a new solution – i.e. change – must understand, buy-in to the ways they’d be changing to ensure they end up balanced.

Until all above are managed the system will resist change (or buying, or learning, or eating healthy or or) regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution. Indeed outside influencers actually cause resistance.

But we can actually lead Others through to their own change:

Maintain Functional Stability. Any change initiative must maintain the foundational balance of the original system. Change is not so simple as shoving in a new Behavior.
Achieve Buy-In. For a system to be willing to change successfully, to avoid resistance, a system must understand the risk of change; recognize exactly what fallout will occur when anything is added, and how each affected element must modify to maintain the integrity of the system.
Maintain Underlying Rules and Beliefs. Great data or solutions, important needs or dangerous consequences do not influence change if they run counter to the system’s beliefs and rules, overt or covert. (It’s why your Uncle Vinny still smokes with lung cancer, and why training doesn’t cause new behaviors.)
Avoid Risk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other way ‘round: when we attempt to push a new behavior – say, asking a heart patient to change her diet or exercise program – before eliciting belief change from the entire system, we will achieve resistance as it may be seen as a threat.

Note: the issues that must be addressed for change without resistance are the same regardless of the problem or number of people of people involved – a company resisting reorganization, a patient refusing meds, a user group resisting new software, a buyer who hasn’t figured out how to buy, or a group not taking direction from company leadership. As outsiders we too often push for our own results and actually cause the resistance that occurs.

It’s possible to use our positions as outside influencers eschew our bias and be real Servant Leaders and teach the system how to manage its own change.

CASE STUDY: SYSTEMS ALIGNMENT

Here is a case study that exhibits how to enable buy-in and change management by facilitating a potential buyer through her unique series of steps to change.

I was with a client in Scotland when he received a call from a long-standing prospect – a Learning and Development manager at a prodigious university with whom he’d been talking for 11 months – to say, “Thanks, but no thanks” for the product purchase. After three product trials that met with acclaim and excitement, an agreed-upon price, and a close relationship developed over the course of a year, what happened? The software was a perfect solution; they were not speaking to any other providers; and price didn’t seem to be a problem.

At my client’s request, I called the L&D manager. Here is the conversation:

SDM: Hi, Linda. Sharon Drew here. Is this a good time to speak? Pete said you’d be waiting for my call around now.

LR: Yes, it’s fine. How can I help? I already told Pete that we wouldn’t be purchasing the software.

SDM: I heard. You must be so sad that you couldn’t purchase it at this time.

LR: I am! I LOVE the technology! It’s PERFECT for us. I’m so disappointed.

SDM: What stopped you from being able to purchase it?

LR: We have this new HR director with whom I share a leadership role. He is so contentious that few people are willing to deal with him. After meeting with him, I get migraines that leave me in bed. I’ve decided to limit my exposure to him, discussing only things that are emergencies. So I’ve put a stop to all communication with him just to keep me sane. He would have been my business partner on this purchase.

SDM: Sounds awful. I hear that because of the extreme personal issues you’ve experience from the relationship, you don’t have a way to get the necessary buy-in from this man to help your employees who might need additional tools to do their jobs better.

LR: Wow. You’re right. That’s exactly what I’ve done. Oh my. I’m going to have to figure that out because I’ve certainly got a responsibility to the employees.

SDM: What would you need to know or believe differently to be willing to work through the personal issues and figure out how to be in some sort of a working relationship with the HR director for those times your employees need new tools?

LR: Could you send me some of these great questions you’re asking me so I can figure it out, and maybe use them on him?

I sent her a half dozen Facilitative Questions to facilitate a path to a collaborative partnership with the HR Director. Two weeks later, Linda called back to purchase the solution. What happened?

1. While the university had a need for my products solution, the poor relationship between the HR director and the L&D director created hidden, ongoing dysfunction. The information flow problem could not be resolved while the hidden problem remained in place – details not only hidden from the sales person but used as a deterrent by Linda (who resolved the problem by walking away). So yes, there was a need for the solution and indeed a willing partner, but no, there was no buy-in for change.

2. The only viable route was to help her figure out her own route to a fix.

3. This was not a sales problem but a change management issue. I helped Linda resolve her own problem. Current change management models attempt to rule, govern, constrict, manage, influence, maintain the change, rather than enable the system to recognize and mitigate its own unique (and largely unconscious) drivers and change itself congruently.

Linda was willing to do something different once she knew how to avoid personal risk.

Rule: Until or unless people grasp how a solution will match their underlying criteria/values, and until there is buy-in from the parts that will be effected from the change, no permanent change will happen regardless of the necessity of the change, the size of the need, the origination of the request, or the efficacy of the solution.

Too often change management initiatives assume that a ‘rational’, information/rules-based change request and early client engagement will be enough to inspire change; they forget that until the proposed change meets the foundational values and beliefs of the culture, the status quo prevails.

Rule: Whether it’s sales, leadership, healthcare, coaching or change management, until or unless the folks within the system are willing to adapt to, and adopt, the requested change using their own rules and beliefs, they will either take no action or resist to maintain the system.

Until the elements within the system understand the risks of the proposed change, they cannot agree to it. Too often, outsiders try to push change when it doesn’t match the unspoken rules and beliefs of the system.

Rule: Until the risks that a proposed change are known and agreeable, until it’s understood that the risk of the change is less than the risk of staying the same, no change will occur.

Conclusion

Before introducing any change initiative, give up the need to push the change, listen without bias, and enable Others to traverse their route to discovery:

what elements created and maintain the status quo,
who needs to be included (often a larger group than anticipated),
recognize what would get in the way of success and what needs to happen to mitigate that interference,
figure out how to manage the workarounds in place that attempt to mitigate the problem,
notice levels of buy-in and help those who resist shift their personal criteria to become part of the group,
get agreement, steps, criteria, and Behaviors for an intact, non-resistant, functioning system that welcomes the new initiative. Then introduce the change.

Until now, we’ve assumed that resistance is a normal part of the change process. But we’ve effectively been pushing our own biased needs for change into a hidden system. We’ve forgotten that the change we are suggesting will encounter resistance if it doesn’t match the system of the original culture. It’s possible to get buy-in without resistance. Change really needn’t be hard.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen March 31st, 2025

Posted In: Communication

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, some don’t. Some want a different solution, some discuss a new workaround to try. Some might think it’s not time.

Most likely, the full decision team hasn’t interacted with you, and you’ve got no control of how you were interpreted, what was said, or to whom. Most likely, the prospects do nothing because the risk of disturbing what’s working is too great.

You’ve engaged with them to place your solution. They’ve engaged with you to discover if there’s a way they can resolve their problem with minimal disruption. Two different agendas, two sets of needs with conflicting objectives.

Selling and buying are two different things.One aims to place a solution, the other is merely trying to figure out how to solve a problem with minimal risk and disruption, but can’t take action until they’ve gotten buy-in for change and they’re just not ready to buy.

Sample

THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

Unfortunately for sellers, the sales model provides no control over what buyers are doing. Before making any kind of a decision, they have change/risk management work to do: they must first get all the right stakeholders involved, try workarounds to attempt to resolve the issue on their own, and ultimately must understand the ‘cost’ of doing something different – the risk that bringing in an external solution might cause unintended disruption.

In other words, there are several steps they must take on route to a buying decision that are idiosyncratic and beyond the scope of sales.

Until now, the Buy Side Buying Decision Path hasn’t been a focus of sales, although by ignoring it sellers close a fraction of the prospects they could be closing.

But by

putting a Facilitation hat on to first lead folks through discovering their change criteria before product focus,
using a ‘change’ focus instead of a ‘need’ focus,
adding Buying Facilitation® to the front end of selling,

it’s not only possible to find high-probability prospects on the first call, but help them figure out their Pre-Sales decisions quickly so they are ready to buy and choose you as their trusted advisors.

When sellers start off with a goal to sell a solution (and ‘gathering information’ poses biased questions that neither help people navigate their change decisions nor give you good data) you’re a solution looking for a problem and get lucky when you find a match.

Those who haven’t yet gotten a full understanding of how to go about resolving their problems – they’re not finished seeking a workaround, or haven’t yet understood the risk of change and will become buyers once they know their risks and get buy in – aren’t ready to hear about your solution. In fact, until they’ve done all this, they can’t even accurately define their need.

In other words, only folks who have done all their change work will have interest in what you’re selling, narrowing 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 doing something different;
tried several workarounds that don’t work out;
recognized the ‘cost’ of bringing in something new;
have figured out how to manage any change with the least disruption.

Buying occurs only after a prospect has managed change and has buy-in for the risk of bringing in something new. And unfortunately, selling doesn’t cause buying. A new skill set is necessary to facilitate a buying decision.

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

This is important to know 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’, they might 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 people know the ‘cost’ – the risk – of making a change, they don’t self-identify as buyers: if the risk of bringing in something new is higher than the ‘cost’ of maintaining the status quo, they won’t buy, regardless of the problem or the efficacy of your solution.

Indeed, the status quo has been good-enough for some time. One more thing. Before people are buyers, they must be absolutely certain they can’t fix the problem themselves. They must do this with you or without you. And the sales model won’t accomplish this. It’s the reason you’re only closing 5% – the low hanging fruit.

SELLING IS TACTICAL, BUYING IS STRATEGIC

A purchase is systemic and strategic – a change management issue before it’s a solution choice issue. 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 (would-be buyers, but not yet self-identified) 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 as they haven’t yet defined their needs or risks, nor are they absolutely certain they can’t fix the problem themselves.

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. 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?

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. In other words, before they become buyers, people must go through a change management process and are able to manage the cost 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.sharon-drew.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. www.sharondrewmorgen.com

_________________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen March 24th, 2025

Posted In: News

Your important nonprofit or exciting startup will help the world be a better place. But now you’ve got to raise money. You’ve created a terrific pitch deck; have a highly competent management team and terms; have access to good outreach lists; are sending out slick marketing missives that show your professionalism and integrity; and have identified donor prospects with major gift potential. You’ve designed a multi-channel approach to build relationships with small investors and donors to excite them to give more.

Why aren’t you raising all the funding you deserve?

It’s not you, your message. or your organization;
It’s not the strength of your relationship or who you ‘know’;
It’s not the market, your competition, your return potential or your marketing materials.

It’s a decision issue. Somehow your investors must choose between giving their money to you or putting it somewhere else that seems equally promising. With a finite amount to donate, they must decide where to put their funds.

CRITERIA VS. CONTENT

Ultimately, people choose to donate based on their own choice criteria and beliefs. While your purpose is undoubtedly important, unless folks know how to choose one worthy beneficiary over another, they will do nothing, regardless of how compelling your goals, marketing, market share, or growth potential.

In reality, funds are not sitting there waiting for you to show up. You may be requesting money that

is earmarked for something/someone else;
needs stakeholder buy-in;
may be outside their stated goals, relationships, strategy, beliefs or agreements.

Knowing we’ve got an important offering, we assume a great marketing piece or a great pitch will engage, excite, and explain, and entice a donor’s better angels. So why aren’t we attracting more funding?

We forget that, for the most part, decisions are made unconsciously, before content is even considered; we have no access to the hidden or historic arrangements, political mind-fields, or unconscious biases that dictate someone’s choice criteria.

The more successful choice is to help people or groups discern their decision/choice criteria and then offer the exact pitch to match it.

HOW PEOPLE CHOOSE

Since most decision-making criteria is unconscious, raising funds must assume:

Outsiders (sellers, fundraisers, etc.) can never understand the behind-the-scenes, idiosyncratic criteria used to decide. Each person, each group has their own unique sets of rules, beliefs, values, vision they choose from;
Until the idiosyncratic choice criteria are factored, until it’s determined that donating or investing in one group vs another does not put the investor at risk, no decision to donate will be made regardless of the marketing or outeach efforts;
Our information is only relevant after it fits into defined idiosyncratic initiatives and parameters.

In other words, just because we’ve got a worthy cause or important product, people won’t give us money unless it meets their unspoken criteria.

While we don’t have access to anyone’s personal decision-making strategies, we do know: unless it’s a small donor, there’s usually a decision team who decide together – several people or just a spouse; there’s a set of criteria that govern their choices – political, humanitarian, profit, trust, etc.; there are personal standards that must be met; and content details are only useful once primary choice criteria are met.

I suggest we begin with questions to lead people directly to their unconscious choice criteria, such as:

How will you choose between causes to give money to? What criteria will you use? What flexibility do you have?
How will you and your decision team decide on the amounts and types of groups or organizations to invest in?
What would you need to see from a group you’re considering investing in to be certain our group meets your criteria?

These questions (a form of question I invented [Facilitative Questions™]) enable the Other’s discovery and make it possible to expand their criteria beyond their automatic choices. So if I never contribute to causes that involve for-profit business, if a big-box store is fundraising to give their employee’s children better healthcare and I recognize I must go beyond my unconscious criteria, I might have greater choice.

At my suggestion, one of my clients posed an initial Facilitative Question™ when seeking Round B funding, before pitching. As a woman, she understood she had less than a 4% chance of getting funded and hoped to trigger the investor’s better angels:

What would you need to know about me, my level of skill and professionalism, and my ability to manage a start-up, to trust that as a woman I was worthy of your investment?

Two of the ten potential investors walked out. The other 8 actually applauded, saying they hadn’t realized they had an unconscious bias against women before they even walked in. She had no problems getting funded.

WHEN AND HOW

There’s a difference between sending out marketing content or speaking with someone personally: in one-to-one conversations it’s possible to continue questioning, for example, or provide further information. And of course sharing the details of your organization is necessary.

But both vehicles share the same rules: offer content after helping the donor/investor understand their unconscious criteria for giving you money. Obviously, in personal conversations, use the uncovered criteria as the focus of your pitch.

For people who have donated or invested previously, the focus should be on how they’ll decide to invest or donate again. These folks seem to be obvious patrons, but unfortunately not all recommit.

While we assume we can encourage them to donate or invest more, we might not know what they need to hear from us to do so: What do they need to know about what we’ve accomplished in the meantime? Are they looking for some sign of ‘success’ or to know if we’ve made the change or addition they were hoping for? Do they still trust us? Again, we can assume, but we don’t know for sure.

Good questions might be something like:

What would you need to see from us to be willing to donate/invest again this year?
Due to the political climate and our dedication to an agenda that supports equality, fairness, and food/shelter for all here in Portland, we are asking our current patrons to increase their contribution this year if possible. How will you know that we will use your funds to meet the goals you espouse?

Ultimately, investors and donors need to know they’re giving money to groups that match their goals and beliefs, and your content and marketing must be creative and representative.

But don’t rely on the details of your organization to be the only selling point: either do market testing to discover the beliefs and goals of your population, or rely on questions that help them recognize their unconscious biases and then offer content that meets most criteria.

Giving money is a choice that involves personal criteria: don’t assume people will invest or donate merely because you’ve got a great idea.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen March 17th, 2025

Posted In: Communication, News

Listening Assessment: Do you have listening biases?

Do You Know What A Question Is? No, really. Do you?, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Making Negotiation Win-Win, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Let’s Make Sales Relevant Again: it’s time for innovation, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Are Your Customer Service Reps Costing You Business? by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Speaker or Listener: Who’s Responsible For Misunderstandings? by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Content Doesn’t Persuade: why pitching, marketing, idea-sharing, and training get limited success, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Why Change Seems So Hard: Essay on facilitating buy-in and avoiding resistance, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Conclusion

A View from the Buy Side: why selling doesn’t cause buying, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Successful Fundraising: beyond persuasion, by Sharon-Drew Morgen