Blog – Page 19 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

At a neighborhood picnic recently, I introduced myself to five people standing together:

SDM: Hi. I’m Sharon Drew Morgen, and I use both names “Sharon Drew” as my first name. What’s your name?

JIM: Hi Sharon, I’m Jim. Nice meeting you.

SDM: Hi Jim. But, um, no. Actually my first name is Sharon Drew. I use both names.

JIM: Oh, that’s right, you just said that. Sorry. Nice meeting you, Sharon Drew.

SUSAN: Hi Sharon. I’m Susan.

SDM: Hi Susan. Actually, my first name is Sharon Drew and I always use both names.

SUSAN: Oh. Right. You just said that to Jim. Sorry. Hi Sharon Drew.

FELIX: Hi Sharon. I’m Felix.

SDM: Um, actually, my first name is Sharon Drew……

And so it continued around the circle. FIVE people – standing next to each other, and looking directly at me – didn’t ‘hear’ me explain repeatedly that I used two first names. Well, actually, they heard it. But because the name isn’t within their brain’s recognition of ‘typical’, it was filtered out of their conscious understanding. And we all do this on a regular basis.

WHY WE RESTRICT WHAT WE HEAR

We love, live, work, and play amongst those with similar values and beliefs, cultural norms and politics. We choose partners, jobs, neighborhoods, and friends that maintain our world views and allow us to lead relatively uncomplicated lives, seeking, avoiding or battling against ideas and people who challenge us. To accomplish this our brains filter what other say to us (regardless of the situation) biasing the message, making inaccurate assumptions, or following our brains through inappropriate memory channels and neural pathways to places that were unsaid and not meant. We hear what we want to hear and filter out the rest: it’s not our fault; our brains do it to us through filters and language itself:

Pattern habituation:
a. We speak in one unbroken stream of words (Spaces appear only between written words.), that are differentiated only by those familiar with the language and vocabulary (Have you ever asked a question from a language book in a foreign country and get a response in a continuous stream of words that can’t be isolated to allow you to look them up to translate? Everyone speaks in word streams.);
b. Our brains only remember spoken words for approximately 3 seconds. By the time our brains separate the individual words to glean meaning, we’re ‘behind’ the speaker, so we rely on our unconscious habits and thinking patterns to bridge, or fill in, gaps in understanding (as in my name issues in opening story). Obviously, it’s easiest to accurately understand people we’re similar to.
Subjective filters: Bias, assumptions, triggers, habituated neural pathways, and memory channels sift out what’s being said that’s uncomfortable or different from our beliefs, our lifestyles, our status quo, or are not in line within the realm/goal of what we enter the conversation actively sorting for.

We hear others uniquely and subjectively, making lots of guesses and habitual (and potentially incorrect) connections and assumptions; we end up mishearing directions, rules, warnings etc., take away mistaken comprehension, make agreements we’re not aligned with, ignore important or relevant ideas or requets, and on and on. As sellers we hear people in a way we construe they’re buyers; as coaches we hear people complain of stuff we know how to fix; as leaders we hear our teams convey they’re on-board (or not) with our ideas; as change agents we hear rejection.

We set up our worlds to hear what we want to hear regardless of what Others actually mean. When researching my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? about the understanding gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I discovered the complicated set of physiological elements involved.

FILTERS

We unwittingly listen through our unconscious, subjective, and predisposed filters. Unfortunately our brain omits to tell us what it has altered, keeping us unconsciously rooted in what’s comfortable and familiar. Biases (of which there are hundreds), assumptions, and triggers are major impediments to what we think we hear: our neural pathways, habits, and memory channels automatically get triggered by a word or phrase regardless of the efficacy of the choice and when there might be more relevant memory channels available. To fill in the language gaps, to garner understanding or to recognize a fight or flight situation, our brains unconsciously go through stages of filtering. Simplistically, here’s our unconscious process:

We first listen with filters for familiarity and sameness, seeking a match with our unconscious biases, beliefs, and values – and delete or alter what seems incompatible.
With what’s left from the initial round of filtering, our brains seek a match with something familiar by sorting for a similar memory, which could focus on just a term or one of the ideas mentioned, or or or, and throws away what doesn’t match (like what happened with my name above) without telling us what’s been omitted or misconstrued! We might accurately hear the words spoken, but unconsciously assign vastly different implications from the intended meaning.

And because we’re only ‘told’ what our brains ‘tell’ us has been said, we end up ‘certain’ that what we think we hear is actually what’s meant. Listeners always assume what they think they hear is what has been said. And where this diverges from the speaker’s intended meaning, we end up responding to an inaccurate understanding and never consider that just maybe we got it wrong. [Note: I’m always amused when men tell me they hear what their wives mean ‘better than they do.’]

It all happens automatically and unconsciously, and we have no conscious ability to tell our brains what to search for during the filtering process. In other words, we hear a fraction of a fraction of what’s meant (I’ve got an entire section in What? that thoroughly describes this nasty process.) and we then respond according to what we THINK has been said. So we might get self-righteously angry, or perceive we’re forgiven; we hear people as racists or healers or sarcastic or buyers; we feel slighted or complimented or ignored; we think ideas are stupid and opinions absurd. I lost a potential business partner who was adamant that I said something he found offensive, although both his wife and I assured him I’d never said that. ‘You’re both lying to me! I heard it with my own ears!’ And that was his truth. His brain did tell him I said that, even though I didn’t.

COMMUNICATION

Communication itself is a piece of the problem. We assume our Communication Partners (CPs) assign words the same meanings and assumptions we do, further restricting success, understanding, and relationships. It’s obviously problematic when our CPs operate from different norms (another reason we contain our lives to what’s familiar), especially when they’re unspoken or haven’t been agreed upon. When I travelled in Japan, for example, I found it disconcerting that my CPs would quickly gauge my reactions while they spoke, then added a “NOT” at the end of the sentence if my response wasn’t what they were after, negating everything that they’d said to make it more ‘palatable’ to me. Different industries, different cultures, different educational backgrounds, and even different neighborhoods, have different assumptions built in to their listening filters and communication habits. This, too, limits our worlds, leading to disastrous, or funny, results. Listen to this dialogue:

After an Identity Theft problem, my bank account had to be closed and a new one reopened. This is the conversation I had with the bank rep when he called to get me a new set of checks.

BANK: What number would you like your checks to start with?

SDM: Cool. Let’s see. One half? Hahahaha. Maybe 4,962?

BANK: Let’s start with Check #1.

SDM: Oh no. I’ve already used up about 100 or more checks.

BANK: Why didn’t you say that?

SDM: You never asked.

BANK: Yes I did. That’s exactly what I asked you.

SDM: No, you asked what number I’d like to start with.

BANK: Same thing.

Obviously, it wasn’t the same thing to me. In order to have understood what he ‘meant’ I would have to have recognized that this was ‘bank language’ and have implicitly ‘agreed’ to cooperate with his assumption. But I didn’t. I really never heard him ask for the check numbers I used. Indeed, I actually found his question fun until he pointed out that he meant something different than what I heard.

My bank story is a fun example of how uniquely and subjectively we hear each other. And due to our universal assumption that our CPs are intent on cooperating in a dialogue, we feel rule-bound to continue cooperating, nodding our heads, or say ‘uh huh’ to imply agreement and understanding. Whole industries train folks on what to listen for. Sellers listen for any modicum of need and ignore the underlying impediments to buying ability; coaches and therapists listen for the roots of a problem that they’re familiar with, asking biased questions that potentially miss the real problem; leaders listen for glitches in compliance and miss the underlying mismatch in beliefs that will cause implementation issues. Net net it’s difficult to fully understand what others intend to tell us unless we know our CP very well and understand their world view and reference points. And even then it’s iffy.

I’ve devised an approach I call Listening Systems to circumvent all listening filters and biases (see chapter 6 in What?) to hear what our CPs actually mean. For those who don’t want to learn how to do this but want a simple take-away, use this question at the end of an important dialogue or meeting: Do you mind if I check that what I heard you say is accurate? And remember: it’s just not possible to fully understand your CP in many conversations. Pick the conversations most important to you and continually check in. It will make the conversation a bit unwieldy, but at least it will be accurate. Or contact me – I’ve got a one day program that teaches teams to hear each other and their clients, accurately, without bias or filters.

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For those interested in learning how to recognize or avoid your listening biases, and ensure you’re hearing what your Communication Partner intends to convey, here are some options (Note: programs are for individual or team learners. The on-line How to Listen program is for teams reading What? together and follow the chapters in the book to install learning.).

On Line: Bias Assessment, How to Listen without Filters; Face-to-face ‘one day program’: How to hear what’s meant

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Sharon Drew Morgen is a thought leader in Change Facilitation, in sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, communication (www.didihearyou.com), and leadership. She is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and the Amazon bestsellers What? and Dirty Little Secrets and the inventor of Buying Facilitation®. Sharon Drew’s award winning blog www.sharondrewmorgen.com carries interesting articles on change, decision making, leadership, coaching, and how buyers buy. She has trained over 100,000 people in global corporations over the past 35 years. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen September 25th, 2017

Posted In: Listening

When you’re conversing with a prospect, a teenager, or a team member, how do you choose the most effective words – and how do you know if there is a problem with what you’ve communicated before it’s too late? How do you determine what to say, exactly, to effect real choice and change with folks who may have different mindsets and goals than you?

We’ve been through decades of Why, then What. But without the How, the Why and What can’t initiate choice or change: Recent brain research has proven that humans actually have no conscious access to the associations that drive our beliefs, biases, or behaviors. How do we get to our own, and Other’s, unconscious to enable change? How do we go beyond our own beliefs, biases, and behaviors to enable all that’s possible in any communication? How?

CONVENTIONAL QUESTIONS AND LISTENING FAIL

To get to the unconscious and real change, our habitual skills are inadequate:

Questions: our natural curiosity and inquiry-based questioning processes are biased – posed by Questioners from their restricted subjective experience (and prejudiced curiosity and assumptions) and predisposed goals; our conscious curiosity restricts possible outcomes and butt up against the limits of our Communication Partner’s (CPs) biases, assumptions, history, expectations and knowledge base. In other words, we’ve got bias bumping up against bias.

Listening: we only hear according to habitual filters (bias, assumptions, triggers, memory). I spent 3 years writing and researching a book (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) on how our brains reject anything we hear that makes us uncomfortable.

Goals: ‘Gather information’ and ‘Understand’ are biased by our own goals and biased questions and listening skills. Plus, we may be making false assumptions: our CPs have no conscious access to their full range of possible responses and may not be in a position to either gather accurate data or accurately represent stakeholders. We’re gathering incomplete and inaccurate data; we’re sharing data our CPs can’t make sense of or know how to listen to.

TOOLS FOR HOW

Doing what we’re doing now, it’s hard to facilitate change which demands that the underlying beliefs, values, agreements, and structural elements of a system (individual or group) must shift. In other words, our curiosity, our information sharing, our standard listening practices, are not change initiators and actually inhibit real change. Here’s the How of unconscious change:

Beliefs vs. Behaviors: our behaviors are representations and translations of our beliefs – our beliefs in action, if you will. And our beliefs are what makes each of us ecologically sound – they help us DO what we BELIEVE. Until or unless beliefs (mostly unconscious) are engaged, buy-in occurs, and any potential threats to the underlying system are managed, change will not happen. Too many of us – coaches, sellers, doctors, leaders, parents, to name a few – base our interactions and goals on offering and gathering information based on OUR biases and needs, causing us to succeed only with CPs whose unconscious beliefs are aligned. In other words, they’re not able to hear us or accede to our suggestions due to their unconscious filters: we’re merely pushing good data into a closed system and facing resistance. This is where we lose buyers, fail coaching clients, offer unheeded information to patients or teens, and have difficulties collaborating, implementing, or changing.

To enable change, we must have an array of unbiased communication tools to engage our own and our CPs unconscious beliefs, which can’t be done by gathering or offering information. [Note: information gathering and sharing is necessary only once the unconscious is ready for change.

Change: change occurs only when all of the elements (all) of our unconscious that have created and maintained our status quo buy-in to the new. If we try to push change without first getting buy-in, our unconscious thinks there’s a foreign element pushing in and rejects it. This is the problems with implementations: even when the change is ‘discussed’ beforehand, it faces resistance due to the nature of the ‘information-in’ approach without engaging the unconscious systems elements necessary, garnering resistance, sabotage, and misunderstanding.

Insider vs. Outsider: only people inside the system can understand, figure out, and make their own changes; they’re the ones living with their rules and values and history. Facilitators are outsiders and can never understand the system that re-creates the status quo every moment.

‘HOW’ DEMANDS REACHING THE UNCONSCIOUS

I have spent decades developing a ‘How’ model that’s used at the front end of questioning, data gathering, and data exchange. I know most folks prefer their habitual skills, intuition, and experience; but they rationalize any failure by calling buyers stupid, or patients un-educated or lazy, or say that clients don’t really want to change. Rather than considering the possibility that it’s our own skill sets that need enhancement, we continue what we’re doing and built our failures in (i.e. a 5% close rate in sales is deemed ‘normal’) as ‘acceptable’.

The real How requires helping CPs engage and manage their own unconscious. Facilitators must stop trying to meet their own expectations and facilitate Others in reaching their own – their way. Offering advice, pitches or information doesn’t make a dent, and as Outsiders, we’ll never understand anyway.

As a student of ‘How’ since I’ve been 11 years old, I’ve spent decades developing (and then training to global corporations) a ‘How’ process by unwrapping and scaling my systemizing Asperger’s brain, using NLP as a structural frame, and studying systems and brain science (a very cursory explanation of my lifetime of study and trial). My material uses a sequenced process of unbiased, systemic questioning and listening that gets precisely to the unconscious to make change, choice, and new decision. I’m eager to teach the material to anyone involved in facilitating excellence (sellers, marketers, coaches, negotiators, leaders, etc.) as I begin my retirement process.

Facilitative Questions: These questions enable the Other to sequentially engage their unconscious systems, pull information out of the relevant memory channels and are NOT inquiry-based. They follow the brain’s sequence of systemic change, and use specific words, in a specific order, to engage specific elements of our unconscious in the specific path our systems take to reorganize around change without disruption. Note: these questions have been tested and trialed over 30 years.

Listening for Systems: We’ve never been taught to listen for the underlying system or metamessage or unconscious patterns that form the status quo. By hearing what’s meant, rather than what’s said, we can formulate the right FQs. When listening for what we want to hear rather than what’s being meant, we listen with biased filters and circumvent success.

The Sequence of Change: There’s a generic, specific, systemic sequence that all change takes regardless of the circumstance (or industry, or situation. Change has identifiable, explicit, generic steps). Until or unless all elements (or stakeholders, or beliefs, etc.) are recognized, all the elements that maintain the status quo buy-in to change, and the system designs a route toward systems congruence, no change can occur.

Goals: We must become Change Facilitators first. Starting with ‘I need to know’ or ‘I seek a prospect with a need’ or ‘I need to offer this information’ impedes success. Without win/win, and Servant Leadership as goals, you’re a solution seeking a problem and merely find the low-hanging fruit.

WHAT TO DO?

So if you can’t ask questions, gather data, understand needs, or offer advice, what should you be doing instead? Here is the approach to How:

1.       Enter as a Change Facilitator/Servant Leader. Help others examine their unique unconscious system of beliefs and biases to determine what’s missing within their system to reach Excellence in the area of your solution. Ultimately, they’ll need to recognize what’s standing in the way of them having the beliefs and steps to support the congruent change and determine a way forward that incorporates all (all) of their unique criteria – and maybe your solution. They do this anyway – just without you.
2.       Begin the communication by listening for metamessages to trigger the
3.       formulation of your Facilitative Questions that
4.       lead your CPs through their unconscious status quo and enables them to discover
5.       what’s missing (at the unconscious level) for Excellence to occur, and notice any incongruencies.
6.       They must gather the appropriate people, policies, relationships, etc. and begin the change process. Once this is completed, THEN you can…
7.       Ask information gathering questions or give advice ONLY to those who are able to change congruently.

Always remain in a Witness, or Observer stance to remain unbiased (I have a chapter in What? that explains the process). Obviously there comes a time when gathering/sharing data, or offering important advice, is vital. But save it for end when there is a readiness for change. It’s a systems thing. And I can teach you how to do this.

If I had my way, every scientist, teacher, doctor, seller, coach, lawyer, leader, and parent would know how to do this. For me, we all should be Servant Leaders to each other to enable good decision making for effective interactions. Sellers can find the right prospects on the first call and attend meetings with every stakeholder present; marketers can enter the Buy Path much earlier in the decision cycle by using Facilitative Questions; parents/doctors can inspire appropriate action; leaders can eschew their biases and facilitate change without resistance. I’m here to help those companies and individuals interested in learning the How of change.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of 9 books on decision facilitation, Buying Facilitation®, and listening, including her newest book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? and her NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity. Her award winning blog (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) has 1600 articles on sales, facilitation, change, bias, listening, questions, etc. She has trained over 100,000 people in dozens of corporations globally, and is recognized as a visionary and thought leader. Sharon Drew trains, keynotes, consults, and coaches sellers, coaches, and leaders. www.didihearyou.com; www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com 512 771 1117. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen September 18th, 2017

Posted In: Communication

In 1993, when my first book came out and before he died, David Sandler called to buy out my Buying Facilitation® model. We couldn’t agree on terms, but he was excited by my differentiation between the sales model and the buying process: “I recognized that the problem was on the buy side, and thought my Sandler method was thinking out of the box. Reading your stuff, I now recognize my focus is still on getting solutions sold,” he said. “I hadn’t realized that ‘outside the box’ meant to shift the focus first to facilitate buying. Well done.”

And yet, after all these years, the problem remains: we’re limiting success and wasting an untold amount of resource seeking those few who are ready, willing, and able to buy: we’re missing a much larger, untapped market of potential (but real) buyers we ignore because our sales outreach doesn’t affect them. By broadening the goal to include facilitating change with those in the process of becoming buyers, by recognizing that a buying decision is a systemic, change management issue before it’s a solution choice problem, it’s feasible to engage earlier (albeit in a different way) and find a much larger population of real buyers.

HOW SALES RESTRICTS SELLING

The sales industry has a singular goal of placing solutions. It’s an industry with solutions looking for a problem. And the paltry results of a 5% close rate have been baked into the system: you accept low closing ratios as the best you can do, hire more sales people than you need, suffer from a sales cycle that is months/years longer than necessary, and lose buyers that will need your solution but don’t yet need or notice the information you provide.

Have you never asked yourself why, with all the capability of finding prospective buyers at your fingertips, you still close only 5% – down from 7% a decade ago (and with much less technology)? And why you continue to waste untold bazillions on staff, technology, and time, chasing folks who will never buy. Have you not recognized that

the people you target aren’t necessarily buying or buyers,
you’re expending too much resource on those who will never buy,
you don’t know the difference between those who will and those who won’t buy?

With the best technology available, the most professional branding and marketing, great content, and a good solid product, you’re losing far more sales than you need to. This much should be obvious: No matter how much new technology, or how many sales methods available to you – regardless of all the ‘new new’ things at your fingertips – you’re still merely closing the low hanging fruit (those 5% who have determined they are ready, willing, able to buy).

A buying decision is a change management problem before it’s a solution choice issue. By adding a few bells and whistles to your sales efforts you can find people who will be buying but aren’t yet buyers and facilitate their strategic Pre-Sales, non-solution-based decision path that concludes with them buying. Then you’ll close far more than you’re closing now with half the staff and half the time. But it needs different thinking.

SELLING VS BUYING

People become buyers only when there are no other options and a purchase is their last hope for problem resolution. They can’t even accurately define a ‘need’ until the full complement of stakeholders are involved and the scope of any resultant change is recognized. Sales ignores this group because their touch points are different and they are definitely not yet buyers. Yet it’s here they’re more open for support and connection: their path to congruently resolving a problem is confounding; they may forget to bring in “Joe from accounting”, or can’t recognize the full scope of issues until they’ve falsely started down one path to resolution and must start all over.

You’re a subject matter expert in the area of their problem resolution and could really be a support here – so long as you avoid trying to sell and focus on facilitating change first. This is where they will be eager to connect. By only focusing on selling/placing your solution, you ignore 40% of real buyers who haven’t gotten there yet but will.

Ask yourself this: Do you want to sell – or have someone buy? They are two different activities with different rules, needs, and behaviors. Sales is tactical. Buying is strategic. Your tactical focus on placing solutions with Buyer Personas, Opportunity Management, content differentiation, and yes, even Sandler, SPIN etc. offer biased questions and content focused on those few who have defined, and understand, their need and change issues, overlooking those people in the midst of strategic decision efforts who will develop into buyers once they get their ducks in a row. Sellers actually sit and wait while prospects do this anyway. Why not help them! Here what sales ignores:

A buying decision includes a 13 step change management process, the first 9 steps of which are systemic change (not purchase or need) focused; they aren’t ‘buyers’ until step 10 when all of their systemic/change management stuff is worked out, and there is agreement that a purchase is their only option.
A problem doesn’t equal a need; a ‘need’ doesn’t equal a purchase. It might turn out that maintaining the status quo is a better option for them; as an outsider, you can never understand why.
People aren’t buyers until they’re out of options to fix their problems themselves AND they’ve gotten buy-in to bring in a ‘foreign’ element. The last thing they want to do (precisely, the last thing) is to buy anything. The buyers you seek/find are already at the end of their decision path.
Your terrific content isn’t being noticed by people who haven’t yet determined, defined, agreed upon a ‘need’ even though they may become buyers later, or even really need your solution.
Your content/selling push assumes that with the right content and message, offered to the right demographic, at the right time, focused on the right need -> purchase scenario, you’ll get in/close – but you’re only reaching those few who are ready OR those in the midst of their research (who may never buy but may call you with questions or take an appointment). They won’t even read or heed your outreach.
You’re using a ‘need’ and ‘solution-placement’ filter which restricts your results 95% of the time, causing you (beyond all logic) to push push push push harder or better, against a closed system of people and policies that’s not ready, willing, able to buy.

The problem is not your solution (It’s great. And people can find the content they need on line when they’re ready.); the problem is that the sales model places solutions with people who need them, but does nothing to help facilitate the change elements people traverse en route to becoming buyers and are not buyers yet. Here are the main stages people execute as they seek to resolve a problem (The full set of steps are laid out in my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell.):

Assemble the full set of stakeholders (including “Joe in accounting”) who spend time understanding the scope of the problem, how it got initiated, and how it maintains itself;
Once a problem is defined by all stakeholders, the group tries to resolve the issue with familiar resources to minimize fallout. (This is where they might contact you with questions. They’re doing research, not buying.)
Once it’s decided to seek an external solution, they must find a route to resolution that maintains Systems Congruence. So if your users refuse new technology, or your teams function well as they are, you might find a way around a purchase if the disruption is too great. An Outsider can never understand the unique nature of internal dynamics. Can I ever really understand why you don’t stop smoking, or stay in a dysfunctional relationship, or stay in a job/relationship that makes you miserable? Change is always personal.

Notice how these stages are change- and systems-focused, and not accessible to Outsiders with a ‘sales’ hat on. And until they are addressed, there’s no ‘need’ and no ‘buyer’. Btw, I developed these stages decades ago; they apply to anyone making a decision including coaching clients, patients, and employees, and all buying situations regardless of the size of the change/purchase. Whether you merely need to buy a new phone, or go through a merger, the steps of change must be traversed in a way that maintains the status quo (even when it’s unconscious) regardless of need. You wait while people do this anyway; why not find those who CAN become buyers (rather than ‘should’), facilitate their change quickly, and be there with them as they buy – and be with them as they figure out their own unique strategies for change – so long as you avoid trying to sell anything as they’re not buyers yet.

Is it sales? No. It’s a Change Facilitation process I call Buying Facilitation®. By first enabling people to facilitate their buying decision path, you’ll have less competition, close more, stop wasting time selling to those who can never buy, and be true Servant Leaders; you can use your technology, your content marketing, your sales efforts as you are now, but with an additional focus.

WHY AREN’T THEY BUYING? SDM ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS

Using the above thinking, here’s a ‘Q&A’ to help you better understand why you’re getting the results you’re getting.

What’s wrong with seeking buyers to place our solutions? Isn’t that what sales is?

Sales is perfect for finding and educating buyers with a need, but not for facilitating the buying decision path. There’s a 13 step decision path between recognition of a problem and a purchase. Sales only handles the limited portion (steps 10-13) that occurs once people reach the point where a purchase is their only option AND they have buy in from the full complement of stakeholders for non-disruptive change (step 9) (Think about it. You won’t buy a new car, or a new X, until you’ve tried to fix the one you’ve got, AND you have the funds now, AND your spouse/team agrees, AND you’ll still function as well with the new item.). No Outsider can make these determinations, they’re not based on buying anything, and your content is irrelevant until then.

Why do they keep talking to me if they’re not going to buy?

Until the entire scope of change is understood and integrated, people don’t understand the perimeters of their need (and when you ask biased questions, the flawed answers you receive often cause you to chase those who will never buy). Before becoming buyers, people must recognize that the cost of change (buying) is less than maintaining the status quo: their ‘system’ is sacrosanct. Would you buy a new car if your spouse would divorce you? Would you bring in a new CRM system if half of your user team would quit, or refuse to use it, or until the tech folks have the time to implement? You know you have to go to the gym more, and eat/drink less. You’ve got a need. Have you signed up for the gym? Stopped drinking beer?

Why are we still getting such a low close rate when we’ve got so many terrific tools at our disposal to introduce our features AND find the right demographic?

Because only a small percent of people you focus on are buyers. Until they’re out of other options AND determined they must bring in something from outside AND have all of their internal ducks in a row, AND have buy-in (Buyer Readiness), your tools aren’t recognized.

Why do they keep talking to me if they’re not going to buy?

During their change process, people research all possibilities. Your solution may be one of them; they’re actually using you for reference to report back to their team, or to figure out their own workarounds, or mention to their current vendor. It’s possible to know on the first call who will be a buyer and who is merely seeking data that will never lead to a purchase – but not with a solution-placement focus.

Why don’t buyers realize they need our solution when it seems so obvious?

It’s only ‘obvious’ to you. The best content, the most relevant solution, will be ignored until they reach step 10 when they become buyers.

Why is the sales cycle so long when there is a solid need/solution match?

The time people take to figure out how to manage change congruently is the length of the sales cycle. As Outsiders, we can never understand the depth of the change management issues: Who is fighting with who? What is the tech schedule? Who will need to be let go? How do internal politics show up? How does their history/future factor in?

The system that holds the problem in place is much more powerful than any solution you can offer. They need buy-in from EVERYONE and EVERYTHING that created the status quo and will touch the new solution. You’ll never recognize “Joe from accounting” who is an unsung influencer, or the fight going on between the sales and marketing folks who need to share budget. It’s not about their need – until it is. And they can’t tell you because they don’t know, or they won’t have found the nut of the problem yet, or you’re asking the wrong questions biased by your need to sell.

Why do buyers make promises they don’t keep? Are all buyers liars?

Buyers don’t lie. The one person you’re speaking with is responding to your biased questions, getting out of the thrust of your sales push, and is giving you the best data they’re willing to give you, or as much data as they have at that point in their 13 step change path. Whatever data they offer is limited by their access to the full Buying Decision Team, and the stage they’re at in their change management. You are, after all, strangers approaching them with a solution placement hat on, asking the wrong questions to the wrong people at the wrong time. As an Outsider you can never, ever have a clue as per the political, personal, strategic decision issues they face. But you can understand they system they decide in, a per your expertise in your field.

Why isn’t our great content being read or acted upon by the larger audience who really needs it?

Needs it according to who? Your research? Your biased questions? Your focus on placing solutions limits your audience and keeps you from getting into the decision path earlier. Are they at the point of seeking workarounds? Is there a team buy-in problem? Have they forgotten to assemble some of the appropriate stakeholders? Are they finding a glitch (political, personal, management-based, etc.)? Your sales, marketing, content, and technology restricts your target market to the low hanging fruit who have clearly defined their need, know they cannot fix their own problem, and have a route to congruent change.

When I gather info about a need, and it seems obvious there is one, what am I missing?

You’re merely asking biased questions to elicit the data YOU want to elicit from one person or a few research visits to your site, to find people who SEEM like they have a ‘need’ and spend a lot of resource chasing after them whether they are real buyers or not. Plus, because someone has a need doesn’t mean they are ready, willing, or able to buy; because the one person on the team you’re speaking with does NOT seem to have a need, doesn’t mean they don’t have one. You’re a solution looking for a problem. Enter first with a Facilitator hat on, help those that CAN/WILL become buyers traverse the route to change, and THEN sell.

It’s not as hard as you think. I developed a new form of unbiased question (Facilitative Question) to facilitate change (part of the Buying Facilitation® process) and pose these down the Pre-Sales steps to help the ‘right’ people become buyers. Here are two examples of responses to a Facilitative Question used on a first call. I bet you can tell which one CAN buy:

SDM: How are you currently adding more tools and capability to your sales team for those times you seek to reach an expanded market?

SALES DIRECTOR #1: I read a couple of sales books annually. If I like them, I’ll pass them on to my sales managers and tell them to get the sellers to read them, and run meetings to discuss their takeaways [Note: this was a real response.]

SALES DIRECTOR #2: I’ve had a helluva time trying to find new tools to use. I’ve tried several, and keep getting the same results. I’d be glad to use something new if I could be assured it was really new, and it would work.

My opening FQ, different for each situaltion, begins by shining a light on the system the person is operating in, and provides an invaluable insight into the state of possible change. It also begins making the person a Coach/Witness to her own status quo by asking for an overview of the system. This particular FQ helps #2 take an unbiased view of how she’s managed change until now. Buying Facilitation® then proceeds down her change steps so she can address each step efficiently, with me by her side. Director #1 had a need, but wasn’t a buyer.

When I form a wonderful relationship with a potential buyer with a need, where does he go? He seems to take calls and stay in touch, and then disappears. Where does he go?

He was never a buyer. He either couldn’t get the buy-in from the Buying Decision Team (BDT), or came up with an alternative solution, or decided not to move forward because the cost of disruption was too high. He stays in touch as long as there is a possibility he needs to buy something (he hasn’t yet gotten team agreement or become a buyer), or so long as the data you’re offering is useful to their ultimate decisions. 80% of our prospective buyers will buy a solution similar to ours within 2 years of our connection. That means they had a need but couldn’t figure out how to congruently manage the change.

When I’m months into a sale, and everything that was going well suddenly stops, where did it go?

See above. The person wasn’t really a buyer yet or the team wasn’t bought-in to change.

Are buyers spending a lot of time trialing and speaking to other providers before they choose us?

Possibly. People research the best alternatives to managing change with the least disruption.

Why aren’t we more successful when we check that they’ve brought in all stakeholders and help them achieve buy in? That’s managing Buyer Readiness, no?

You’re an Outsider. You’ll never understand what’s going on; the questions you pose and the direction you offer are solution placement based; you listen with a biased ear, etc. (Seriously: Read Dirty Little Secrets then call me and I’ll teach you how to do it.) Did they bring in “Joe from accounting”? How are they managing the fight between sales and marketing? Oh – one other big reason: you’re merely speaking with one, at most two, people; you have no reach through the sales model to facilitate change. I can’t say this enough: you’re an Outsider.

If you start as a Neutral Navigator, listen for systems and facilitate them through their OWN decisions with NO BIAS to selling, you can quickly find and serve those who WILL become buyers and help them efficiently manage change. Using Buying Facilitation® KPMG went from a 3 year sales cycle to a 4 month sales cycle with a $50,000,000 solution; Wachovia small business bankers went from a 2% close over 11 months to a 29% close over 3 months; Kaiser went from 110 visits and 18 closed sales to 27 visits and 25 closed sales. By adding BF to their dummy terminals, Barclay’s helped customers define, and buy, the exact solutions they needed. Help them traverse their change path and sell to those who will buy.

Why don’t more people show up at appointments? Why are so many buyers reluctant to take appointments?

All of the stakeholders aren’t involved yet so they don’t even have a clear, complete description of ‘need’. Those who take appointments are doing research (and do WHAT? with your content) and haven’t gotten team buy-in, or the full decision team isn’t on board yet;
They know from the first moment of a call that you’ll be pushing YOUR solution and not facilitating them in discovering THEIR own solution. It’s only if you can be an asset to them that they’ll be willing to see you.

What’s wrong with trying to place a solution by ‘understanding need’, or creating a need, or selling?

You can do that, for those who are already buyers understand their need.

I’ve paid a fortune for technology, research into demographics, opportunity management software, scripts, and experienced sales folks – but I’m still not closing all I deserve to close. Why?

Because your efforts are focused on ‘buyer’ ‘need’, and neither of those necessarily correlate with buying anything for those who aren’t yet buyers.

How does Buying Facilitation® find, and close, more real buyers?

Buying Facilitation® is a Change Facilitation model that works with sales (and coaching, etc.) and includes Facilitative Questions, Listening for Systems, Presumptive Summaries – wholly different skill sets than sales, and includes no bias. It traverses the first 9 steps of change management, in the ares your solution operates in, beginning with immediately ascertaining who is set up to be able to buy, or has a possibility of systemic change and then teaches them precisely how to discover their path to change. By adding BF you not only find the right buyers, but teach those who may not have been able to buy how to facilitate change.

With Director #1 above, it would take so long to convince him that his plan was flawed, and then get the other managers who have complied with his plan to acceded to change, that it’s not worth the effort. BF progresses down the change steps and teaches them how to bring in the right people, discover if workarounds are worthwhile, and why they haven’t worked until now. Then it helps them determine how change would need to be addressed – and with BF you can do this on the first call. It will ignore the ones who will never buy, and help the real buyers be ready to buy. So much easier than finding those relative few who have already done this. And it’s much easier than it sounds: you’re just not used to it yet.

IN CONCLUSION

Here is a rule: as long as the sales model tries to ‘find buyers’ and ‘place solutions’, you’ll never sell to anyone other than those who have determined they’re buyers, leaving you continuing to push your solution into their closed system. You can

discover who is, or will be, starting down the journey that will lead to a decision to purchase something,
figure out, with a change management hat on, what the journey in your industry, and among your buying market, looks like (or call me and I’ll help),
then enter with those few on their change journey as they quickly (with your help) figure out how to manage stakeholders, buy-in, workarounds, etc. and become buyers.

By adding outreach, vocabulary, content, that first focuses on facilitating the buying decision path earlier you’ll enlarge your range of buyers by 5x. After all, people must do this anyway before becoming buyers; we might as well join them where they are and facilitate the right ones.

Call me. Together, we can create content, software, scripts to find the right ones – those who WILL become buyers – and facilitate them down their decision path toward effective change and buying.

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For more reading on the subject, here are some ideas: Practical Decision Making, Questioning Questions, Buyer’s Journey, Do You Want to Sell? Or Have Someone Buy? , Influencers vs Facilitators. Or contact me to discuss. Am happy to share what I know. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon Drew Morgen is a thought leader and original thinker, as well as the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers Dirty Little Secrets and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? She has designed a Change Facilitation process for sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, health care, leadership, change management, and influencing, training it to such companies as DuPont (8,000 people), KPMG (6,000 people), Wachovia, Kaiser, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, IBM, P&G, Sandler Sales, ATT, Bethlehem Steel, Sandia Labs. Her blog www.sharondrewmorgen.com is recognized as one of the top business blogs, with articles on decision making, listening, questions, sales, coaching, etc. She is a trainer, speaker, consultant, and coach. Sharon Drew can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen September 11th, 2017

Posted In: Change Management, Sales

The hot new sales tool is Opportunity Management automation. Just another in a long list of New New Things that seem like THE answer to THE way to efficiently close more sales. But is it? Over the past 10 or so years you’ve tried Buyer Personas, Understanding Need, marketing automation, Relationship Management, Trusted Advisor, Challenger, Sandler, SPIN, and lots of technology to push content. All hoping hoping hoping that THIS is ‘the one’ that will help you close more. But you’ve ended up with the same 5% close rate you’ve had for decades (It used to be 7%, remember?), regardless of the approach or the way an opportunity is managed.

Don’t get me wrong: opportunity management apps help sellers optimize their time and track results. But to what end? The tools can’t close more sales if the opportunity itself is flawed. What if you could find more viable opportunities by expanding your definition of ‘opportunity’?

WHAT’S AN OPPORTUNITY?

As I’m sure you’re aware, an ‘opportunity’ is often not an opportunity at all, or has only a small chance of being one. What if buyers aren’t your target audience? What if the larger opportunity is in a different place along the buying decision journey?

With the sales model based on entry points of ‘buyer’, ‘need’, Buyer Personas, and ‘need/solution’ match it’s impossible to close anyone but the low hanging fruit – buyers seeking a solution. This definition

restricts your close rate to those people or groups who have gotten themselves ready to bring in an outside solution (5% with sales outreach; 0.00059% of online marketing outreach) and are ready, willing, and able to buy;
assumes that those with a seeming ‘need’ is a prospect (They’re not. ‘Need’ does not equal ‘Buyer’ – but you know that by now);
focuses questions, content, and relationship-creating skills with a bias toward placing a solution (ignoring the vital non-solution, systemic, change management, Pre-Sales steps that have no relevance to, but precede, buying anything);
doesn’t sort for differences between someone who is strategically en route to becoming a buyer vs someone you’ve determined SHOULD buy and has a 95% chance of NOT buying;
uses tools to pushpushpush what YOU want to sell (into a prospect’s private, personal, closed system of cultural norms and givens that outsiders aren’t part of), and closing merely 5%;

and restricts you from finding those who WILL close, aren’t quite ready, and could use your help efficiently getting there. The confusing part for sellers is that these folks – these real, potential buyers – are off your screen: they aren’t buyers, aren’t seeking a solution, haven’t determined they want to buy anything yet, haven’t yet fully determined the scope of their need, aren’t attracted by your content.

And therein lies the rub: before people become buyers they merely want to resolve a problem in the most efficacious way and their route to competence is initially not directly related to what you’re selling. Before people become buyers, before there is a sales opportunity, they must first conclude there is absolutely no route to resolving their problems with known resources AND have a route through to congruent change – internal adoption, buy-in, Systems Congruence, and change management. The last thing they want to do is go outside their system to buy anything – they never start out as buyers until they run out of options to fix a problem themselves. By putting on a wholly different hat, we can find and facilitate the ones who will BECOME buyers and vastly increase our pool of opportunities. But we can’t use a ‘sales’ hat to find them.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT PRECEDES BUYING

A buying decision is a change management problem first before it’s needs- solution-based. Buyers are merely people who have gotten to the point in their change management procedures when an external solution (i.e. making a purchase) is their only viable alternative to Excellence. The fact that people have a ‘need’ that your solution can resolve does NOT mean they are, or will ever be, ready, willing, or able to buy. There is a 95% chance that those who seem like buyers aren’t buyers at the point where your content finds them. And sadly, your content won’t get them there: they won’t even notice it because they’re not yet looking for it even though they may eventually seek it.

It’s possible to shift the ‘opportunity’ criteria to people who WILL be buyers but aren’t ones yet – and know how to recognize real buyers from ‘tire kickers’ on the first contact; there are far easier entry points into a buyer/seller dialogue than what might seem to the outsider like a ‘need’.

Before becoming a buyer, or having a fully defined need, people traverse a specific path (I’ve spent decades coding and defining, training and testing, the 13 steps in a buying decision path, as explained in www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com) between recognizing a problem, assembling the proper stakeholders to buy-in, managing any negative consequences of change, and deciding to make a purchase; they become buyers only at step 10 once they agree that making a purchase is their best option.

In other words, there are 9 non-buying change management (Pre-Sales) steps people take as they figure out how to congruently solve their problem and manage the change an external factor will cause. Using a Change Facilitation lens, with a bias toward the steps of congruent change, we can enter earlier to efficiently facilitate real prospective buyers and be part of their system as they begin the buying process. It’s possible to expand your criteria and tool kit to connect along different stages of the decision journey and recognize/facilitate exactly who WILL become buyers but aren’t there yet. But your initial focus must be systemic change, not selling. Different questions, different listening.

Using ‘need’ and ‘solution placement’ criteria, the only way to attract an opportunity is to find those relative few who have gotten to the point of recognizing they cannot resolve their own problem. Until then, they cannot buy: they haven’t fully defined a ‘need’, don’t have their full Buying Decision Team (BDT) in place, haven’t gotten buy-in, and aren’t actively seeking to buy anything. Selling is tactical: buying is strategic.

WHO IS A BUYER?

Think along with me for a moment. A person or group doesn’t become a buyer unless they’ve determined they cannot fix their problem themselves with familiar resources AND they are set up (environment, culture, technology, implementation, buy-in) to manage any fallout from having a foreign element (a purchase) enter their system. Maintaining Systems Congruence is vital; the last thing, literally, that a person wants is to buy anything due to the possibility of disrupting their status quo that is functioning ‘well-enough’. Indeed until they

have a plan to manage their strategic, idiosyncratic, private activities and are convinced they will end up with Systems Congruence;
have assembled their full complement of stakeholders and understand their full complement of buy-in and change issues (including ‘need’);
are congruently ready to seek purchasing options;

they’re only ‘people’ meandering through a confounding route to Excellence, facing political issues, personnel/personal issues, buy-in issues, tech integration issues, etc. They’re not buyers regardless of what you consider to be an ‘opportunity’, how many appointments you make, or how well the folks like you. And the way sales is implemented and biased toward solution placement, the questions posed, the answers sought, you’re only seeking and attracting those who have already reached step 10 and consider themselves buyers.

What’s the difference between an ‘opportunity’ and one that’s NOT an opportunity?

There’s no opportunity to place a solution with a prospect until they’vea. fully assembled their entire BDT including ‘Joe’ in the back office who you never get to speak with but who’s a huge influencer,
b. tried workarounds to fix the problem themselves with familiar resources,
c. fully recognized the change management issues that would potentially cause a breakdown should they bring anything in (buy something) without appropriate change management and
d. determined that the cost of a purchase is less than continuing their status quo.

With a bias toward placing a solution, you try to ‘get in’, ‘find a need’ and ‘have a relationship’ based on your desire to sell, gathering biased, wrong or incomplete data, leading to false assumptions of Buyer Readiness. Until they’re buyers, they haven’t fully defined their need or what it would take to fix (although BDT members might research your solution or reach out to you to gain knowledge).
When you make an appointment to ‘begin a relationship’ and the full BDT is not present, you are neither connecting nor starting a relationship. What portion of the BDT does the person you’re meeting with represent? Where are they along their decision path? How do you know the rest of the full BDT agrees with that assessment? How will they use, or convey, the data you present? Are you pitching what THEY need to hear to address their internal change problems?
Until the prospects recognize they cannot fix their problem with known resources AND have a strategic plan to implement any necessary change that a new solution might cause (even for a cheap, or personal, or small, item), they’re not buyers. Just because you think there’s a need doesn’t mean they will end up buying anything.
On route to fixing a problem with known resources, people often have a plethora of choices that you’re not familiar with that may provide them with a congruent outcome that does NOT include a purchase. I can’t say this enough; the last thing people need is to bring in an unfamiliar vendor/product: the cost of disruption may not be worth the price of a fix.

Your identification of an ‘opportunity’ is currently based on your biases, assumptions, conversations with a fraction of the full BDT, assessments, research, etc. based on the fit that YOU perceive between what YOU’VE determined (or that one outlier from the BDT) they need – and your solution. What you think is an opportunity most likely isn’t. Otherwise you’d be closing more than 5%. Data collected from my control groups when I train show it’s possible to close about 5X more than you’re closing now by entering earlier along their change path and using a Change Facilitation skill first. More on this in a moment.

WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY SOUNDS LIKE

Here’s what you’ll hear when there is a real opportunity (and yes, even on the first call, using a Change Facilitation skill set focus):

All stakeholders are on board already. When you speak with someone who still needs approval, or hasn’t assembled the full complement of stakeholders yet (and even your prospects often don’t know the full complement of stakeholders). Note to sellers: you cannot ask someone specifically if their BDT is fully on board – they won’t know , and can’t offer, an accurate answer until near the end of their journey. But you can help them assemble the right people quickly – just not with the sales model. They always forget ‘Joe’ and HR, for example, and then must go back to the beginning;
All change management elements are recognized with a plan to move forward. I.e.: the users are developing their criteria for a new piece of software, and the techies have a specific integration and implementation plan; participants for a training program are ready to interview you to see if you meet their criteria, etc. In other words, they’re aware of their stumbling points and are already in the process of handling them;
The prospect wants to set up a meeting with you and the rest of the Buying Decision Team to discuss their expectations and criteria for choosing you.

When you make an appointment with only one or two people you don’t have a real opportunity. If the person you’re speaking with thinks s/he has a need but hasn’t gotten team buy-in yet, or doesn’t know the complete set of potential disruptors that need managing, there’s no opportunity. If your prospect is going to take your information back to the boss/manager, there’s no opportunity. If a prospect calls you for information, there’s most likely no opportunity (although you can use this time to begin the Change Facilitation process).

I don’t consider a 95% failure rate success; you’ve just convinced yourself that this is the way it is for your industry. Let’s change it to be more successful. Instead of running after people once they become buyers, why not find those who are already en route to buying, use a different focus and new skill set such as Buying Facilitation® (the model I’ve developed to handle Pre-Sales Change Facilitation) or some change management tool to enter earlier in their change/decision journey, quickly facilitate them through their change, and THEN sell.

It’s not rocket science. You’re current selling/solution-placement modality restricts you to fighting for those who have defined themselves as buyers. People really need help determining how to change congruently. But the time it takes them to do so is the length of the sales cycle. You’re wasting your time chasing the 5% and ignoring the 80% of prospective buyers who WILL buy within two years of connecting with you but can’t until they’ve got their ducks in a row. But you can hasten their journey by first becoming Neutral Navigators doing a Change Facilitation process and THEN wear a ‘seller’ hat. Then you’ll stop wasting time and resource with those who aren’t buyers and truly serve those who WILL buy become buyers much quicker. But no amount of content, relationship, or Opportunity Management will force those who aren’t, or who will never be, ready. You’re waiting while people do this anyway. Help them. Close more. And have more opportunities to manage.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is the developer of a Change Facilitation model used in sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, leadership, healthcare, and management. She’s been running Buying Facilitation® and How Buyers Buy training programs in global corporations since 1985. She is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell ,and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew has trained over 100,000 sales people globally, and is currently running Listening programs to facilitate unbiased listening. Her blog is consistently ranked in the top 10 of all sales/marketing blogs. Sharon Drew is considered an original thinker and thought leader, doing keynotes, coaching, and consulting to enable servant leader skills. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen August 28th, 2017

Posted In: Change Management, News, Sales

I recently heard yet another excuse as to why a buyer didn’t buy. This one was a hoot – seller/buyer misalignment. Seriously? Because the seller didn’t close a sale (That was expected by the seller? In the mythical pipeline?) there was a relationship problem? Because the buyer didn’t buy (according to the expectation of the seller) there was a bonding problem? No. The problem stems from sellers not understanding what a buyer is. In this case, there was no buyer to be ‘misaligned’ with.

FROM PERSON TO BUYER

A decision not to purchase has very little to do with the seller, the solution, the relationship, or the need. In fact, a purchase is the very last thing a buyer wants. Just because a situation seems like a perfect fit with your solution does not make it a buying/selling opportunity; just because someone really needs your solution does not mean they are ready, willing, or able to buy.

Let me begin by defining ‘Buyer’: a person (or group) who has

assembled all people, causes, and elements that created their problem AND
recognized they cannot fix the problem with familiar resources, AND
gotten buy-in from everyone/everything involved with the changes a fix would affect, AND
met a collection of personal/group criteria that assures eventual stability, AND
decided that the cost of a fix is lower than maintaining the status quo,

and decides to purchase an external solution as their only option.

As the thought-leader behind how buyers buy (programs developed, books written, modelsinvented, steps defined, terms coined, since 1985) I’d like to offer some thoughts:

1. A buyer isn’t a buyer unless they’ve bought something. Until then they are people with a problem that may, if all else fails, require an external solution.
2. People first recognize a problem that keeps them from the type of Excellence they require. They may or may not decide to fix it. It never begins as a decision to make a purchase (unless a small personal item).
3. There are usually a range of ‘fixes’ available for problems. Workarounds are always the first option, a purchase the last.
4. All people (buyers, groups, individuals) live in a unique unconscious, human system (rules, relationships, beliefs, experience, goals, etc.) that created the problem and maintains it as part of their status quo. The system exists AS IS, with problems factored in. If an element is recognized as problematic, the system would need to agree on possible forward routes. Any change would need to end up as an integrated part of the core system.
5. A purchase means something new will enter the system and replace or reconsider what’s already there without leaving a mess. It’s only when there’s agreement from all elements that created the problem that
* it can’t be fixed with known resources or workarounds,
* the cost in resources/change is lower than the cost of fallout,
* a path forward is defined by everyone who will touch the final solution,
that the full scope of a solution is understood. Until then ‘need’ isn’t fully defined. Here is where sellers often get caught thinking there’s a ‘need’ before there is one.
6. There is a defined series of 13 (generic) steps that all systems traverse (often unconsciously) to decide if, when, why, how, what to change. Until they’ve agreed they can’t fix the problem with familiar resources AND developed a plan for congruent change, (step 10), there is no willingness to seek an external solution. In other words, people become buyers at step 10; before that they’re merely people trying to fix a problem themselves.
7. During the steps of change, people within the system do research to find a variety of ideas that could possibly help them fix their problem themselves. If they have contacted a solution provider during their research phase (and have not yet gotten group buy-in) they’re not buyers regardless of their apparent need and the efficacy of a seller’s solution.
8. Making a purchase is first a change management issue, last a solution choice problem; the first question people ask is how they can achieve Excellence without leaving an internal mess; the last question they ask is what solution they’d need from ‘outside’. Using the sales model, only solution placement criteria and activities are considered and any questions posed are biased to inspire agreement, admission of need, ‘relationship’ – all with an intent to sell something (i.e. steps 10-13); there is no element of the sales model that facilitates systemic change to enable sellers to enter earlier.
9. Until any disruption caused by a purchase (i.e. all purchases are ‘foreign’ elements) is understood, planned for, and agreed to, no purchase will take place. The existing system is sacrosanct; keeping it running smoothly is more important to them than fixing a problem that’s already been baked into the system.
10. Everyone and everything who created the current problem and would potentially touch a new solution must agree to any modification (possible purchase). Until then, they won’t, they can’t buy and they are not buyers.
11. The time it takes people/buyers to discover their own answers and know how to manage change in the least disruptive way, is the length of the sales cycle. It has nothing to do with selling, buying, need, relationship, content, or solutions until the route to congruent change is defined and agreed to. It’s change management issue before it’s a solution choice issue.
12. The last thing people want is to buy something. With their only criteria of ‘solution placement’, sellers often enter at the wrong time in the buying journey, ask the wrong questions, and offer the wrong data – and sell only to the low-hanging fruit (the 5% who have planned their route to change already).
13. Buyers buy using their own buying patterns, not a seller’s selling patterns. Using a specific type of sales effort further restricts the population of those who will buy.
14. There is a difference in goals, outcome, capability of changing, and level of buy-in between those who CAN/WILL buy (based on congruent change) vs those who sellers think SHOULD buy (based solely on need/solution match) and hence waste a helluva lot of time.
15. The time it takes people to come up with their complete set of buy-in and change-based answers is the time it takes them to make a decision to seek an external solution – i.e. become a buyer. It has nothing whatsoever to do with their need, your solution, or your relationship until they are certain they will end up with Systems Congruence. And THEN they are ready to discuss the full complement of needs, criteria for buying a solution, and seek a compatible relationship with a seller.

By only listening for clues that lead you to assume a ‘need’ for your solution, by entering into ‘relationships’ based on what you’re selling, by only asking questions to ‘prove’ a need/solution match (too often with only one or two members of the full Buying Decision Team [BDT]), you’re not only biasing the interaction, but limiting your sales to closing those who have gotten to the point when they’re ready, willing, able to change – the low hanging fruit; you’re missing the opportunity to enter earlier, develop a real relationship, and facilitate the path that people who CAN buy must take before they are buyers. The sales model does not facilitate systemic change issues; buyers can’t buy unless this occurs and sellers aren’t helping them, merely waiting for them to show up rather than doing the real job of relationship managers and facilitating through their necessary change issues.

HOW SALES RESTRICTS POSSIBILITY

Because we’ve restricted selling to placing solutions, people with problems we could resolve slowly figure out their own path to change while we sit and wait for those who have completed their process to show up. Prospective buyers, facing confusing choices, would be happy to have help navigating through their Pre-Sales systemic decision/change process and adding a true facilitator onto their BDT.

Right now, you’re seeking out those people you’ve determined SHOULD buy (and getting ignored, misaligned, dropped, etc.) and ignoring ways to facilitate those who CAN buy but haven’t yet become buyers. If you enter with a Change Facilitation focus, it’s possible to find those who CAN buy on the first call, and use your relationship and knowledge to facilitate them through the steps of the change management process first, and THEN be there as they determine the need for your solution.

By adding a Change Facilitation processes to your upfront tools (seller-, marketing-, or software-led) you can enter at any step along the Buying Decision Path and be part of the BDT to help them get their ducks in a row. Then you’ve gotten ahead of the competition, reduce your sales cycle by half, only connect with those who WILL buy, close a helluva lot more sales (my clients close 5x more than the control groups using the same lists), and truly serve the people who need you.

I’ve developed a model (Buying Facilitation®) that uses wholly unique skills (Listening for Systems, Facilitative Questions, etc.) to facilitate the discovery of a congruent route to Excellence. A generic model used for coaching, management, leadership, healthcare, I’ve been quite successful teaching it to global corporations ( i.e. IBM, Kaiser, Wachovia, KPMG, etc.) to increase their sales. Currently you’re now wasting 95% of your time running after those few who have finally arrived at step 10 – the low hanging fruit – ignoring the much larger pool of those who are on route, and fighting for a competitive advantage.

By adding new functionality to your sales model, you can enter earlier, be a Servant Leader, and facilitate congruent change and THEN be on board and accepted as a provider as they go through their buying decision process. It’s NOT sales; it’s NOT selling/purchase-based; it IS change-based. Right now you’re waiting while buyers do it anyway (or merely running after those you THINK have a need but end up fixing the problem in other ways). Why not add a skill set, stop wasting time/effort, and close more. Then you’ll never be ‘misaligned.’

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Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker and thought leader. As the originator of Change Facilitation, she invented Buying Facilitation® for the sales industry; she’s trained over 100,000 sellers globally to diverse industries and cultures. Sharon Drew is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers D irty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew works with individuals and teams as a coach, speaker, trainer, and consultant, in sales, change implementations, healthcare, technology. Her work on listening without bias has been called ‘game-changing’ and is used by corporations globally. Contact her at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen August 14th, 2017

Posted In: Communication, Sales

Part 1. Do you know the difference between how you sell and how buyers buy – and why the difference matters? After a conversation with my colleague Erik Luhrs I’d like to expand the definition of ‘buying’. But first, a question:

Would you like to enter, influence, or understand your buyer’s buying process earlier in their process?

To do so, it will be helpful to better understand the differences between how you sell, and how buyers buy.

SELLING VS BUYING

Let me start with a made-up story:

Background: Pretend you’re a sales person selling smartphones in a big box store. You know your product well and are great at selling it. When buyers come in you carefully pose questions to understand their problem and need, and then position your answers accordingly to help them choose their solution.

A buyer comes in. She has performed some or all of these by the time she meets you:

She thought long and hard about replacing a phone she loved, and somewhat reluctantly decided it might be time to buy a new one; she had been resisting due to her comfort with the (limited) functionality she enjoyed.
She called friends to find out the upsides and downsides of what they liked about their phones and providers, to add to her list of considerations and comparisons.
She went online to gather data from what she learned from friends and ads she’d seen.
From her thinking and online research, she put together her list of buying criteria she’d need to have before being fully comfortable with any change: the pluses and minuses of changing phones, functionality, models, and/or providers; the ease of learning a new phone. Also, she included the trust factors she’d need to consider for new providers.
As per friends’ advice she contacted her current provider to learn of any deals for the models she was considering; she looked up prices on Amazon, Best Buy, etc. to compare prices and functionality. She weighed all of her criteria and made a decision.
Choice/decision made, she went to the store to purchase the phone with the help of the seller.

Until Step 5 this buyer had not fully defined her problem or her complete set of needs (some of which having nothing to do with a specific solution). Understanding the specifics of her problem or one phone over another was only a portion of her many decision criteria.

Until Step 5, her activities were idiosyncratic, criteria-driven, not fully formed, and independent of a specific solution, and included other ‘decision makers/influencers’ (her friends).

If a seller had entered before Steps 5, asking about needs would ignore some of her most important decision factors and not address her ability to define her personal criteria, not factor in her friends’ recommendations, or her ease and resistance to anything new as per her current phone.

To summarize, by the time this customer shows up to buy, she has

gone through an idiosyncratic, personal discovery process
to understand and get comfortable with the range of criteria she wants to meet
to decide whether or not to buy a new phone and
researched and considered all angles of all types of solutions and providers
before finally deciding to buy.

To clarify jobs and roles:

Seller: meticulously understands the product he is selling; differentiates his solution and brand from the competition; works with buyers to gather data, understand needs and underlying problem, place the appropriate solution. THIS CONSTITUTES SALES.

Buyer: figures out her emotional- and values-based criteria for buying something and for making a change; figures out what, when, if to buy; gets references from friends on several possibilities; does research; contacts current vendors; compares prices and solutions. THIS CONSTITUTES BUYING.

THE BUYING DECISION PROCESS IS ONLY PARTIALLY SOLUTION-DRIVEN

You do some of the same things during your buying decision process. We all do. Our prospects and clients do also. No one begins at the end – the point of choosing a solution. No one (especially the more complex B2B sales) begins by knowing their full landscape of considerations. Usually others are involved with defining the full range of unique criteria. Always, there are hidden aspects of historic considerations that come into play. And all this must happen well before defining solutions. That means buyers cannot know the full complexity of the problem or need at the point sellers usually attempt to gather information.

I would hereby like to (re)define the term Buying Decision (a term I coined in 1985) to mean: The process a buyer goes through to get their ducks in a row to manage all of the factors involved prior to, and including, making a purchase.

Is there a case to be made for assuming all buyers – regardless of the solution they seek – go through some form of ‘Pre-Sales’ decisions? That Steps 1-6 (there are 13 steps in B2B sales) are part of the Buying Decision Path – and not just step 6 in which the sales person and specific solution are involved?

Is there something to be gained by entering and influencing the Buying Decision Path before buyers have clearly defined their problem? If so, the sales process is not the best way to begin: it limits sales people to finding those buyers who have gone through their pre-sales processes already.

Part 2 (next week) explains what happens when we sell too early, and introduces a way to facilitate each stage of the pre-sales, criteria-based buying decision path. Right now, sellers close approximately 5% of their prospects (starting with first call) because the sales approach is directed toward understanding problems and placing solutions before they have been fully formed. But we can get much better results by entering earlier. We just can’t do it with the sales model alone.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is a Change Facilitator, specializing in buy-in and change management. She is well known for her original thinking in sales (Buying Facilitation®) and listening (www.didihearyou.com). She currently designs scripts, programs, and materials, and coaches teams, for several industries to enable true buy-in and collaboration. Sharon Drew is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestsellers Dirty Little Secrets – why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew has worked with dozens of global corporations as a consultant, trainer, coach, and speaker. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com 512 771 1117

Sharon Drew Morgen July 31st, 2017

Posted In: News

For years I’ve written about how sales suffer because the sales model, designed to seek buyers and place solutions by information sharing and gathering, ignores the vast opportunity to close more sales by adding the function of facilitating Buyer Readiness (i.e. systemic change). The absence of this capability restricts sales to searching for those ready to buy, and causes objections en route:

You’re getting objections not because of your terrific solution, your professionalism, your lists, your competition, the buyer’s need, or your price (It’s never ever about price.). Nor because buyers are liars (David Sandler once told me he never meant the take-away that that expression has evolved into.), stupid, or connivers.

You’re getting objections because you’re using content push and various methods of information sharing as your main vehicle to selling, before buyers are ready or able to buy, before they know why, or when, or if to hear your message. As a result, you’re getting objections because you end up merely seeking those who SHOULD buy, ignoring the vastly larger group who CAN buy but haven’t yet gotten ready (and who won’t object once they get their ducks in a row).

You’re getting objections because you’re reducing your entry points, and along the way, annoying those who don’t (yet) know how to respond to what feels like an invasion.

Sales is designed to

find those ready to buy: the low-hanging fruit – those who have already recognized that making a purchase is the only way to resolve a problem, have the buy-in to proceed, and know how to manage any change a new purchase would demand;
seek those who are ready, willing, and able to listen to/hear you;
ignore those who haven’t yet decided on bringing in an external solution but will ultimately be buyers (Read my article on the 13 step Buying Decision Path.);
make information/content the preferred focus with which to close sales, and as a result,gather needs (as per your biased criteria), understand (as per your biased criteria), pitch/place data (which often overlooks their real internal change challenges), and/or seek appointments (based on who’s willing to spend time with you) to pitch solutions without recognizing an additional entry point might be to find/facilitate far more real buyers through the Pre-Sales, change management portion of their decision path (causing countless wasted appointments with those merely seeking data to use internally, or using your content to try to persuade other team members);

and as a result you’re getting objections. With a function limited to using solution-based information as the route to placing solutions and searching for those who SHOULD buy – and getting objections from those who don’t find relevance in your offering, or may feel insulted or made ‘stupid’ – sales overlooks the possibility of facilitating the far larger group who CAN buy. It’s only when they’re certain they can’t fix the problem themselves AND get buy-in, do buyers consider going ‘external’ for a solution. And objections are merely a reaction to feeling pushed by your content and goal to place a solution.

WHY YOU GET OBJECTIONS

I define ‘buyer’ as a person/group who has discovered they can’t fix a problem internally, traversed their change management issues, and has gotten agreement to seek an external solution. The very last thing buyers need is your solution – literally.

So here, in no particular order, is a list of reasons why you get objections, and why/how the limited solutions-push focus of the sales model merely handles a small fraction of a Buying Decision Path instead of actually enabling buying. And fyi: by adding the functionality to help potential buyers traverse their systemic change management issues first, you’ll never get objections.

Selling doesn’t cause buying. Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? Two different activities and mind-sets.
Buying involves both systemic change AND (when there’s no other option) solution choice. Using solution data as the main skill to make a sale restricts possibility, getting you objections from those who don’t know how to hear it (Remember: we all listen through biased filters.)
Buyers buy according to their buying patterns, not your selling patterns.

Pushing solution data too early causes objections, regardless of need or the efficacy of your solution.
Until buyers recognize how to solve a problem with maximum buy-in and minimum fallout to their status quo (i.e. when they have their ducks in a row), they aren’t buyers regardless of what you believe to be their ‘need’. If they buy without first managing congruent change, they’ll cause internal disruption.
Until buyers are certain they can’t solve a problem themselves with their own resources, they can’t recognize, and don’t have the full data set to understand, what they might need to buy and will resist/object when having seemingly pointless content shoved at them.

Sales and marketing pitches use biased language to describe solutions, further restricting the buying audience. Until buyers can handle their change, and know the full extent of internal givens (i.e. personal, systemic) they have to deal with, they don’t know how to listen to your content details effectively, and object when pushed. It’s possible to design unique pitches that facilitate change and Systems Congruence for each stage of their non-solution-based, Pre-Sales Buying Decision Path.
By restricting the sales model to finding interest using the solution data, you’re only handing the last 30% (steps 1-9) of the 13-step Buying Decision Path. The first 9 steps (Pre-Sales) are a change management exercise, focused on fixing their problem in a way that minimizes disruption and maximizes buy-in, recognizing a need for an external solution only at step 10. When sellers try to place solutions before they’ve gotten to step 10, buyers object.
Sales ignores the possibility of influencing the path of (Pre-Sales) change that is driven by the buyer’s system of unique rules, people, history, etc. that protects itself at all costs (i.e. objects).
Your sales and marketing efforts seek those who you’ve determined will have a likelihood of buying (the low hanging fruit), and you’re competing for this small percentage, ultimately closing only 5% of a much broader set of possible buyers.
There is an entirely different goal, focus, solution, thought process, skill set, necessary to become part of, and facilitate, the Pre-Sales, systemic, Buying Decision Path that must, as per the laws of Systems Congruence, enable change congruently before any purchase is considered.
You’ll avoid objections when you first facilitate and expedite the change that those who CAN buy must handle, and THEN use your information-centric approach to sell to those you’ve helped be ready to buy. The time it takes buyers to get buy-in for congruent change is the length of the sales cycle, regardless of their need or the efficacy of your solution.
Pitching, content marketing, presentations, cold calling, etc. get objections because they push solution data into a ‘closed system’ that feels compromised by the push, and must resist until there is systemic agreement to go external for a fix.
Judgements regarding the reasons buyers offer objections are subjective, biased interpretations contrived by sellers to make buyers ‘stupid’ when they aren’t getting the outcome they sought. Sellers rarely consider that they’re entering at the wrong time, in the wrong way, for a situation and unique set of internal, systemic dysfunctions they really (really) have no understanding of, or that the buyer is in the early steps of change and hasn’t yet recognized a need to buy.
You can accelerate a buyer’s route to decision making by helping them traverse their route to congruent change, but not with a restriction that begins by using solution-based information as the vehicle to influence buying. It’s possible to close five times more than you’re currently closing.

You’re actually causing your own objections. You get no resistance when facilitating prospects through their own steps to congruent change first, get them ready to change, and continue on to placing your terrific solution content with those specific prospects who CAN buy. (Read my article on the Buyer’s Journey that lays out the entire Pre-Sales buying decision process.) But you’ll need to take a different – additional – path through a different lens. You’ll need to understand the change management issues within your industry. And no, you cannot use your current sales skill to accomplish this.

FOCUS ON FACILITATING BUYER READINESS FIRST

Here is the deal. Until now, you’ve waited while buyers do this change stuff: they must do this anyway (with you or without you). So you can continue pushing your content and getting objections, or you can add a new function to your outreach to connect with the right ones sooner: enter their decision path, get onto their Buying Decision Team, and facilitate the ones who CAN buy through to buying. Just recognize the sales model doesn’t do the facilitation portion as it’s solution-placement based.

I designed a new methodology to facilitate the front end of the decision path (Buying Facilitation®). It’s a change facilitation model that works with sales to help buyers congruently and

Recognize all of the elements they must assemble to get appropriate input for problem solving and change;
Figure out if they can/cannot fix it themselves (You can facilitate this on the first call so long as you avoid discussing need or solution.);
Pull together all of the systemic elements that must be in place for any change (i.e. purchase) to happen to ensure a minimal disruption;
Be ready to choose your solution.

Buying Facilitation® is a generic change facilitation skill set, with no content focus, no bias, and is systemic in nature. It involves facilitating change (vs pushing content) with a new form of question (Facilitative Question) that enable systems to recognize their own criteria and manage change congruently; a new form of listening that involves Listening for Systems; and Presumptive Summaries to enable people to move outside of their subjective experience and view the entire situation as an Observer/Coach. I’ve trained it to about 100,000 sales folks globally, in several industries and product price points, and generally get a close rate of 5x the control group.

Right now, you’re closing 5% and wasting a lot of resource to find them. You’re hiring too many people to close too few; ignoring real prospects on route to making an appointment – and then going to appointments with a fraction of the appropriate people present, to push content they don’t know how to listen to, and fighting with competitors for the same restricted group of buyers – when if you could enter differently, with a willingness to add a new skill set, you could find/close more buyers.

There are a lot more REAL buyers suffering from lengthy Buying Decision Path confusions as they fumble through change. They really could use your help. Read Dirty Little Secrets; why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and learn about the systems involved in buying (or any change), and add this to your sales initiatives. You’ll have more clients, shorter sales cycles, meaningful relationships built on trust, and no objections.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is a Change Facilitator, working with sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, leadership, buy-in, implementations, and consultants. She has trained sales and management teams in global corporations for 35 years. She is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon best sellers Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew is also a coach, speaker, and consultant. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen June 26th, 2017

Posted In: Listening

After years of living in Austin, seeking ways to shield myself from the arrogant people and the blazing, constant heat, I decided it was time to move (For those thinking of moving to Austin: Don’t. Or call me before you do so I can tell you why you shouldn’t.). Given that it would most likely be my last move (You begin thinking that way when you’re old. Sort of creeps up on you.), I had to figure out the criteria I needed to have for the living style I wanted to espouse for the rest of my life.

After much deliberation, I ended up with these criteria: community, proximity to cultural choices, a 1500 book library AND a library ladder (This is true. Number 3 criteria.), open plan (no walls) with interesting features I could play with, room for office (open plan if possible), 2 bathrooms, someplace to sleep and eat, and no lawn to care for. Hah, you say?

First I had to decide where I wanted to live. Since I didn’t need to limit my choices in any way, I began whittling down my options using my number one criteria: community. I’ve been to 63 countries and countless hundreds of cities, but I’ve only felt deeply comfortable in a handful, so started considering those first. After coming up with a short list, I decided to live in my favorite village in Peru for a month, and then live in Portland OR for a month, which I’d never spent any real time in, but had heard is the nicest city in the world. “Oh. You’d love Portland. You’re kinda town,” I heard hundreds of times. How could I not try it?

I went to live for a month in Pisaq, Peru, where I had travelled several times over the years. There’s this amazing Waldorf School (Kusi Kawsay) that the local people built out of clay from the mountain (and is totally sustainable), got national funding to get 10 indigenous teachers trained in Lima, and taught classes through to high school, sending kids on to U.S colleges. This was no easy feat: the students had to walk 2.5 hours through the mountains to get to school, and 2.5 hours back. And they came. I helped this amazing school get online, create a website, use Facebook, design ways to raise money, and find and connect with local experts to maximize their sustainable agriculture practices.

During my visits, I’d become friendly with the fun, kind teachers and became the butt of their soft teasing. They, and the village, called me La Gringa Loca (literally, The Crazy White Woman), but were there for me when I needed them. I was in a café one day when a young woman – a tourist – came in with the tightest, shortest shorts I’ve seen since outside of Venice Beach. Since this village was still steeped in history, and their religious values were quite Christian, tourists were usually culturally sensitive and dressed appropriately; this young woman was most likely offending many of the locals. As is my wont, I walked near her table and said, “Tomorrow you might want to rethink your clothing choices to be a bit more culturally sensitive. You look adorable, but it’s not quite right for this community.” She stood up, flexed her bicep, and said, “You b**ch wh**e. I’m going to get you. Mind your f-ing business or I’ll hurt you.” I stood there, having no idea who else was in the café or who was behind me, and I pointed blindly behind me and said, “I think these people might have something to say about that.” She looked behind me, then magically sat down. I turned around, and all of the other inhabitants of the café had gotten up to stand behind me. The village wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. I belonged.

What a pleasure to live there. Like walking around in cotton candy. Fresh mountain air. Beautiful mountains and rivers. And the stars! Have you ever been up high in the mountains – really high in a pitch black night, with every star in the sky sparkling? I cried regularly at the beauty.

Every morning I ate breakfast at the market: some sort of broth with a bit of goat, and a vegetable and yucca. The local women brought their yummy soups down from the mountains, cooked early in the morning, and carried for 2.5 hours, to make enough money to buy food for the family, and then walk back another 2.5 hours in the dark, at 13,000 feet. And charged 30 cents a bowl.

I got to know many of the villagers: the people in the market – the flower vendors and weavers, the tourists; the group of Americans of all ages who came for a year or two and frequently partied – bonfires with great music and everyone dancing together, large pot luck dinners with 100 people; the locals who invited me to their Andean ceremonies; the teachers who invited me to school functions with parents and kids. The mix of people was always exciting, with easy laughter and a profound sense of community. I was happy happy.

But – you’re waiting for the ‘but’, right? – I forgot to put a few basics on my original list. Like electricity when you need it, ditto water. To get clothes washed, there was a woman about two miles away who had a washing machine and dryer; I had to take the tuk-tuk each time I needed to wash clothes and had to make sure EVERYTHING had my name written on it because I never knew what I was going to lose. [More than once I noticed someone in town with a familiar T-shirt that I had somehow lost at the laundry. And I always got surprises back as well. I suppose it ended up even.] But the hardest to handle was the inconsistency of internet connections. There would be no way to be in touch with the world. Sadly, I decided I couldn’t live there.

Next was Portland. By the time I arrived at my BnB, I knew I was home. The air seemed to fit my lungs. And the norm of living matched my identity. I felt an acceptance, an embrace. And everyone extended it to one another. In fact, it was so different from anywhere I’d ever been that it took me a week or so to ‘get the rules.’ I was walking around a few days after Halloween one evening and noticed a young man in a fabulously strange costume. “Excuse me,” I went out of my way to say to him, “Why are you still dressed up for Halloween? I adore your costume. Did you make it yourself?” to which my friend grabbed my arm and pulled me away. “This is Portland,” he whispered. What did that mean? “People just wear whatever they want to. Here everyone just expresses themselves the way they want to, and everyone accepts each other.” And Portland immediately became choice #1.

So I began a search for a place that had the rest of my criteria. I chose an area of Portland (Portland is broken up into very specific neighborhoods with their own personalities and demographics.) and began hunting – lofts, co-ops. Nowhere could I find room to take care of my #3 criteria and I became annoying. My constant question became: “But Kevin, where am I going to put my 1500 book library and library ladder?” In the bathroom?? Shelves along hallways? Were they wide enough? (Seriously. Who does this!?). Just before going back to Austin, and wondering if I’d consider changing my criteria for the next time I came back to look, Kevin called. He had the keys to a houseboat that he was told was ‘really cool’ but he hadn’t seen pictures of it. A houseboat? As a ‘mountain person’, I have no affinity to water. What? OK. Show me the house.

Surprisingly, the drive from downtown to this neighborhood (Bridgeton, on the Columbia River in North Portland) took 8 minutes. When we arrived, I saw a mile-long community of unique floating homes. But the biggest surprise came when we walked into the house. There, before my eyes, was a huge 3 story open space and balcony, no walls, with 6 foot windows all over, and on the left, into the middle of the room, a spiral staircase went up to a – wait for it – a 1500 book library with a library ladder!

And that’s how I got to this floating suburbia of eleven home owners who are all, in their own unique way, nuts, but with a very strong bond of community. People may not like each other, but help each other out. One day I went out to my deck and one of my outside dining room chairs was right in front of my door instead of at the table. As I began wondering how it travelled there, my neighbor yelled out, “Get your chair? We saw it floating down the river and decided you probably wanted it, so we got into the boat and chased it down.” Who does that!

But what is really insane is living on a river. My desk is in front of a huge window that looks on to the water. I’ve learned to notice when the water is high or low and why (usually it’s the dam). Neighbors discuss the state of the water all the time: “Looks like we got some water last night.” I still ask a lot of questions to learn about this strange environment. Why would the dam give us water now? (The salmon are running.) Why is the water getting lower if it’s been raining so much? (The dam took some back. Or something with Montana [I never understood that one.]). I’ve even grown to appreciate the occasional gentle rocking I feel when the water is running fast and my house is sort of going along for the ride (not really).

I’ve watched sea lions honking down river, geese and their families of au-pairs train the goslings to swim and manage the current. I wait each spring for the Osprey to come back to their annual nest, wait for the eggs to hatch, and then watch them feed their babies. We even have our own heron. He’s The General. He comes for several days, then disappears for a few. He’s very old, with lacey, wispy feathers. One of the neighbors, now dead, used to feed him, and so he returns regularly. Lately, a new, young one started showing up. She’s tall and proud and sleek and dainty. I began calling her Dorothy. And now the name has stuck! Yay!

So here I am, with my own green kayak (Kermit), and friends to join for the full moon ceremony when we all paddle downriver, hold onto each other’s boats to form a line across the river and watch the full moon rise.

The river is soothing and gentle, strong and fast and always surprising. I get up in the mornings and sit outside, even in the rain, and feel part of something bigger. I’m more creative than I’ve ever been, carry a softer heart, and am terrifically happy. Not a bad place to live for the rest of my life.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is a Change Facilitator, enabling buy-in, congruent decision making, and collaboration for sales (Buying Facilitation®), coaching, leadership, communication, and management. She is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and the Amazon best sellers Dirty Little Secrets, why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and What? did you really say what I think I heard? Sharon Drew works largely in banking, healthcare, technology, and fund raising. She is the thought leader in facilitating buy-in for buyers, and enabling coaches to facilitate permanent change, using her unique facilitation model that enables people to discover their own excellence. Sharon Drew lives on a houseboat in Portland, OR.

Sharon Drew Morgen June 19th, 2017

Posted In: News

Dear Friends:

Lately, everyone I know is complaining about how busy they are. It’s really beginning to annoy me. So I thought I’d write you this personal note – a rant, I suppose – to let you know how I feel when I hear you’re too busy to speak or return a call. No, wait. You did return my call recently when you heard I was ill. Do I have to be dying to hear from you?

What does it mean, exactly? Too busy to prioritize your time differently? Too busy being overwhelmed with over-promises, or fixing stuff that broke from poor management (through lack of time)? Too busy to make room for me, certainly.

Where is the You I used to know, when we’d solve the world’s problems over a nice bottle of wine, or share ideas on a phone call? Or when you’d call excited about a film (Are you still going to the movies?), or book. When did DOING become your sole criteria for living?

What are you getting for all this busy-ness? Money? Success? Ego enhancement? Whatever it is, it must be worth what you’re giving up in authentic connections, dream time, and possibility.

Seems I’ve slipped down your ‘time allotment’ hierarchy. I’m trying not to care. Really. I am. But since I can’t tell if it’s something I’ve done, you just being nuts, or your work life that keeps you fighting fires continually (Is everyone too busy to complete anything adequately?), I’m planning on checking you off my list. It makes me sad. And I miss you. But I can’t take it anymore.

So here’s the heads up. If you want to remain my friend or colleague, please show up authentically. Figure out your priorities. If I’m on the list, plug me in so there’s an actual place for me in your busy-ness. If not, let’s just end. I don’t have time for this nonsense.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of 9 books, including one NYTimes Business Bestseller (Selling with Integrity) and two Amazon bestsellers (Dirty Little Secrets,and What? Did you really say what I think I heard?). She is an original thinker, and develops Change Facilitation models that enable buy-in in sales (Buying Facilitation®), leadership, coaching, wellness, and training. She has also designed a listening model to facilitate conversations without bias. As a consultant, keynote speaker, and trainer, Sharon Drew has worked with global corporations for 35 years. Working in the UK in the 1980s, she founded The Dystonia Society, and a startup tech company. Sharon Drew currently lives in a houseboat on the Columbia River in Portland OR.

Sharon Drew Morgen June 5th, 2017

Posted In: Communication, News

Have you ever been absolutely certain you heard someone say something they later claim they didn’t say? Or inaccurately interpret requests from your spouse or colleagues when you could swear you’re right and they’re wrong? It’s interesting how mutually defined words end up causing such havoc.

Spoken language is a mutable translation system – a best attempt to impart thoughts, feelings, and world view between dialogue partners for the purpose of shared understanding, intimacy, and maintaining relationships.

Senders (unconsciously) choose their words as representative of what they wish to share. Most of the time their Communication Partners (CP) understand them. But sometimes Receivers don’t hear a Sender’s message accurately even when they define the words identically, causing them to misunderstand or bias what’s been shared, with a potential for a miscommunication. What’s going on?

When researching my new book (What? Did you really say what I think I heard? ) I spent a year reading 52 books to learn why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. I studied brains, bias, collaboration, filters, AI, and the neuroscience aspects of communication, and learned just how fragile our listening process is. Before the research I had naively believed that I accurately heard what others meant to convey most of the time. I was shattered to learn that’s not even possible.

THE REASONS

The problem is our brain. As Listeners, we think there is a direct transmission between words spoken and our interpretation. But the reality is far murkier: just as our eyes take in light and our brains interpret captured images, our ears take in sound and our brains interpret meaning. That means we all see and hear the world uniquely, according to our mental models and filters, and are at effect of what our brains allow us to hear, not necessarily what’s said.

During conversations, our brains delete, misconstrue, and misinterpret according to filters – biases, triggers, assumptions, beliefs, habits and mental models – in order to keep us comfortable and maintain our status quo. Accuracy is not their criteria. And we’re left with the residue, assuming our unique interpretation is accurate: not only do we not realize what we think has been said might be inaccurate, we adamantly believe what our brains tell us we’ve heard is accurate. Hard to fix when it’s not obvious there is a problem.

How, then, do we know when we’ve misheard? How do we correct a problem we literally can’t get our minds around? We must go beyond our brain.

THE CURE

For us to accurately hear what our CPs intend to convey we must enter conversations from an ‘observer’ standpoint, allowing us to rise above our filters (I have a thorough discussion on this in Chapter 6 in What?). Since we can’t use the same skills that cause the problem, we must use our physical system to go beyond our brains. Try this technique: During conversations stand up (I get permission to walk around during meetings, saying “Do you mind if I walk around so I can think more creatively?”) or lean back against your chair with your feet up. It physically unhooks you from your physiology that causes automatic responses and takes you, instead, to an unbiased place in your brain. I know this sounds simplistic but try it – it’s an NLP technique that I’ve used in my training programs and coaching sessions for 30 years. It works.

It’s also possible to notice clues in your CP that denote ‘misunderstanding’. Visibly, s/he will look confused, or his/her face will go blank or scrunch up. Verbally, you’ll hear a response that is not aligned with your response, or there will be a long silence, or a voice/tempo/volume shift, or a ‘What??’ The cues of miscommunication will depend upon the strength of your relationship, of course. The worst result is that nothing is said and the conversation continues as if there has been understanding.

THE PREVENTION

To have more choices when you need them, start with discovering your tolerance to adding new behavior choice:

Where or when are you willing to have a miscommunication? Are there times you need choice to ensure you avoid miscommunicating? Times you don’t mind if there is a miscommunication?
How will you know if/when a problem exists early enough to avoid a defective communication?
What are you willing to do differently to avoid misunderstanding or misinterpretation? And what happens when you don’t?

The big decision is: are you willing to do something differently to have a higher probability of having an effective communication? Because if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And just maybe you might need new choices for those times what you’re doing isn’t working. Not to change what you’re doing, but just add a choice when you need one.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? (www.didihearyou.com) that explains, and offers tools to correct, how and why people end up mishearing and miscommunicating. I also developed some learning tools for those who wish to enable their communication choices. Sharon Drew is also the author of the NYT Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestseller Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell. She is the developer of a change facilitation model used in sales called Buying Facilitation® and trains companies seeking to add a skill set to their sales tools to facilitate Buyer Readiness during the Pre-Sales decision process.

Sharon Drew Morgen May 1st, 2017

Posted In: Listening, News

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