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

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

You’ve got a great idea, but need your colleagues – your boss, your teammates, your partners – to approve and help develop the implementation. You put together a great deck that makes your case professionally, rationally, and clearly. Your colleagues respond wonderfully – you get great feedback and they say they’ll begin moving the idea along. And then…. nothing. What’s going on?

BEHAVIOR VS BELIEF

What’s going on is the gap between what you mean to say and what your audience hears. Rational and significant as it may appear to you, they may not know what your ideas will mean for them or their daily functioning; they may interpret your pitch differently than you intended; they may have an entirely different set of beliefs causing their unconscious to automatically resist your ideas (regardless of their efficacy); they may not get buy-in from their own teammates to move forward. In other words, your idea may be getting lost in translation because people

hear/translate/bias your content into their own unique understanding (which may not be in alignment with your intent);
have unconscious beliefs that resist your material;
may require significant buy-in from folks not yet assembled;
may not understand why your vision is important enough to cause the disruption that could result from change.

With an existent and fully-formed hierarchy of beliefs and rules that define and operationalize it, the Other’s status quo might find the new information threatening and disruptive, causing them to resist regardless of its presentation or efficacy. It’s not until the person or team (or more accurately their internal system of values, rules, goals, behaviors) understands how to operationalize your ideas in a way that enables them to remain stable through any proposed change that they will consider shifting to anything new. The status quo has been habituated and normalized; it’s been ‘fine’, thank you. Changing it causes confusion and unknown consequences.

It’s a conundrum. They need your information, but cannot act on it until they’ve agreed to, and have a route toward, congruently changing what they’re already doing (Anything ‘new’ added to something that exists is a change management problem.). Indeed, before needing the specifics, or considering an action plan, they must first figure out how to change congruently, with minimal fallout. Your information is actually the last thing they need.

To get your great ideas appreciated and acted upon, to encourage change and buy-in in a way that supports and enhances the status quo without threatening it, you must first lead Others down their own route to congruent change in a way that incorporates and maintains their historic actions and outcomes.

Unfortunately for those of us who really have great ideas that will make a difference, no information, no outsider, can do it for them – they must do all this themselves, as none of us can never know or understand what’s going on within their idiosyncratic status quo. But we can help them figure out how to welcome, and participate in, change.

THE STEPS TO GETTING IDEAS ACCEPTED

New ideas suggest change; change suggests a threat to the daily functioning and core beliefs of the status quo, causing resistance until the status quo knows how to incorporate the new congruently. That means all of the voices and accepted norms that helped create the status quo and will be affected by the change must buy-in, lend their ideas and concerns to, and be a part of, the new solution.

Here is a way to get your ideas accepted and include all of the voices and elements necessary to promote change without resistance. Before introducing an idea, call a meeting that brings together all the folks (or their representatives) that will be affected by the change and pose the following questions [customized for your situation] one at a time, with discussion time for each. And note: make sure the initial meeting is relatively generic, focusing only on the central idea you’re proposing; during this process, your idea will expand as per the collaboration of Other’s ideas and input, including how, when, and where acceptance and adoption can occur:

A. How is our [status quo] working? Without the full range of voices heard, the full set of ideas or needs won’t be collected.

B. What do you think has stopped us from enabling it to work even more effectively? Make sure everyone has a say and there is agreement, or there might be resistance later.

C. What would it look like if we were to do whatever we’d need to do to realize more success? Get everyone’s voice involved, even if to object. Then the full view of the status quo will be represented.

D. How could we design some sort of change to ensure we don’t disrupt what’s working yet enable us to enhance the status quo for more effective results? Here, take time to get everyone into some type of agreement to fixing the same problem or expand/contract parameters.

At the first meeting, make sure everyone’s voice is heard, including other ideas, thoughts, doubts and fears. After a thorough discussion, suggest they all go away and think about it, talk to their teammates about it, and come up with additional ideas and concerns to share at a subsequent meeting. Don’t try to bias the group into your thinking – let the process evolve, with you as the Servant Leader. Using this approach, here’s what’s happens:

1. You’re inviting everyone (or group leaders at least) into a conversation to begin the discussion and change process from the standpoint of buy-in and consensus. Then everyone will own the ‘problem’ and a say in any eventual change. This collaboration ensures group engagement.

2. ‘Your’ ideas will expand to ‘our’ ideas with additional components, specific considerations and broad creativity.

3. You will have encouraged/promoted collaboration and excellence by creating an opening for change and new ideas, and enhancing your ideas even further. Will it end up looking exactly like your original idea? Nope. But it will reach a similar end goal with everyone owning the solution and contributing to its success.

4. You will highlight, discuss, and ultimately avoid resistance, as the elements of congruent change will be tackled first and any problems will be incorporated into the new solution.

Then, at the next meeting, and once there is buy-in for change, and all – all – appropriate voices have been assembled and heard from, present your ideas along with everyone else’s. Discuss collaboratively, then have the group lay out some preliminary action plans that everyone agrees to.

Net net: you’ll have amassed the full fact pattern with all voices sharing; achieve buy-in/consensus; have a larger pool of ideas to work from; design a workable plan to incorporate the new with the ‘old’; enable congruent change that fits comfortably with the status quo; and avoid resistance. You will have a harmonious team ready to work together. It may not look like you had originally envisaged, but it will reach the goals you seek with everyone’s heart and muscle behind you. And you will have become a Servant Leader to your cause.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the thought leader in Change Facilitation, enabling congruent, collaborative, win-win change in several areas, including Buying Facilitation®, Learning Facilitation, Coaching Facilitation. She has written 9 books, including NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and the Amazon bestseller What? Did you really say what I think I heard? Her book Dirty Little Secrets – why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell – lays out the steps of change and influence. Beyond information exchange and push technologies, Sharon Drew’s original skill sets impact and stimulate belief change and efficient buy-in. She has trained to over 100,000 sales folks and coaches in companies such as Boston Scientific, Bose, KPMG, IBM, Kaiser Permanente, Wachovia Bank, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, FedEx, P&G, and Morgan Stanley. She currently trains, keynotes, coaches, and supports groups seeking congruent change and win-win collaboration to enable Servant Leadership. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. See hundreds of articles on sales, change, and skills on www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen April 24th, 2017

Posted In: Communication

Buyer Personas do a great job finding and reaching probable buyers, while positioning messages and providing data. But it’s possible to make them even more efficient. Here’s a question to start thinking about Buyer Personas from a different angle: Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy?

You need both, of course. But right now your Personas just seek to ensure those with a need have optimal data to choose your solution, believing that if you can sell/market appropriately – the right campaign to the right buyer with the right solution, messaged the right way at the right time – buyers will buy. But you could be closing a lot more.

DEVELOPING BUYER PERSONAS

Currently your targeted campaigns are only reaching the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier and facilitate (and influence) the hidden portion of the buying journey that the sales model, profiling, positioning, or messaging doesn’t address.

As an outsider, you can never have intimate knowledge of how any particular buyer buys and your generic profiles and categories are not only restricting your audience but missing the opportunity to influence them earlier by

providing them help traversing the confusing decision path they must travel to
assemble the entire set of voices that will collaboratively uncover the specifics of a need, and
get the consensus and manage the change to be ready and able to buy. [i.e. Pre-Sales].

Doing a Google search, I found this definition from Hubspot: “Personas are fictional, generalized characters that encompass the various needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns among your real and potential customers.” And herein lies the problem: while Personas can generalize the range of needs or buying criteria along a generic standard there’s no way to facilitate any individual user or influence the systemic decision issues they need to resolve before they can consider buying anything. In other words, the very definition of the term (fictional, generalized) excludes the full range of possibility for people who may be buyers, or those seeking data from a site.

But that’s only one of the problems. The other is that you’re missing an opportunity to expand your buyer base and recognize and touch those who need you but aren’t yet prepared to buy, and actually facilitate Buyer Readiness. By shifting the types of information you offer to influence each stage of the Pre-Sales decision path and any Personas that are uniquely involved in a specific buying decision, you can close more.

DATA PROVIDED LIMITS FULL RANGE OF POSSIBILITY

Populating data to attract Buyer Personas assumes you know who is buying and the specific information they need to make a buying decision. But there are inherent problems with this assumption:

INFORMATION: Information is the very last thing anyone needs as they make a decision, so your data may not be reaching the full range of Buyer Personas until too late. Until buyers get all the right voices on board, know the risks of bringing anything new in to their status quo, and have consensus, they don’t even have a complete description of their needs. So the information you offer will only be read by those who have completed their change work and know they need to buy something, (and then you’re fighting against your competition), and your important data may not be used. Knowing what Personas are doing with your data is important to consider: Do they need research data for a meeting with their regular vendors? Do they want comparisons against their own capability – and use it to enhance themselves without ever buying your solutions? Or are they among the relative few who have already gotten consensus and buy-in, and ready to make a purchase? Until then, even if you have an appropriate solution they cannot buy.
A PURCHASE LAST: Every buyer group must traverse a 13 step systemic, unique, and personal change-based Buying Decision Path before they are ready, willing, or able to buy. Indeed, buyers don’t want to buy anything, they merely want to resolve a problem and the last thing they do, when all else fails, is consider buying. By offering data to those you consider Buyer Personas, you may influence those who have completed their Pre-Sales buying journey and determined a willingness to buy, but miss the opportunity to facilitate the greater number of prospective buyers who actually need you but aren’t yet ready.
NEED TO BUY: A buying decision is a change management problem, not a solution choice issue. Until they determine they canNOT congruently fix a problem themselves with familiar resources, buyers aren’t even seeking to buy anything regardless if they have a need for our solution. Getting solution data to these folks at the wrong time is moot and ignores the chance to help potential buyers get to the point of willingness and ability to buy.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT: As an outsider you can’t know how a specific group, Buyer Persona, or community agrees to change as a purchase is a systems/change/resistance issue. Until or unless the group understands the entire set of givens they must confront, they don’t even know if they will buy anything, regardless of their ‘need’ or the efficacy of your solution.
UNDERSTANDING: It’s not possible to ‘know’ or understand your buyer specifically, or what they’re thinking. All buyers live in a unique ‘system’ of relationships and rules, history and habits that no one outside their system can understand. When it’s time, of course you’ll need to understand in order to sell. But I’m suggesting you first put your consulting/coaching hat on first to get all of the approriate Personas on board and help them facilitate change – and THEN sell, gather data, and understand.
SEQUENCE OF CHANGE: There are very specific steps buyers must take en route to finally deciding if a purchase is the way to go. Making information available to those folks you believe to be the Buyer Persona may not be read if it’s out of sequence with their decision/change steps, or not passed on to the group at the right time, or not explained properly in a meeting, or used with other vendors. Anything – anything – that comes from the outside will be used uniquely and out of your control.
RECOGNIZING BUYING DECISION TEAM: Not only can outsiders never know for sure exactly who is on a buyer’s Buying Decision Team, it takes a while for our buyers to recognize their full complement of decision makers and influencers as it’s not always obvious. Everyone routinely forgets ‘Joe’ in accounting, or fails to bring in HR until the very end when she enters an almost-completed decision process and throws oil on the fire. But until everyone is on-board, they can’t even know their needs let alone know if they want to buy anything.

If you knew how to truly influence, or find the full set of Buyer Personas, you’d be closing more sales. Currently, you continue to attempt to push your content out, hoping – hoping is the operative word – it lands where you want it to land, but face an unnecessary failure factor when your only tool is to ‘understand need’ or ‘offer’ good, relevant information that may get to them at the wrong time or in the wrong way for them. Why not put on a Coach/Consultant hat on first, enter during the decision/change phase first, become part of the change-based decision path, discover ALL of the Buyer Personas, and actually lead them through their Buyer’s Journey and facilitate Buyer Readiness?

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER FACILITATING THE BUYING DECISION PATH

To get the right information to the right people (i.e. the full complement Buyer Personas) at the right time, the following things must occur for a buyer before they can consider what solution or vendor to choose:

Assemble the full Buying Decision Team: since buyers cannot consider or even have the accurate fact pattern for any potential need until the entire complement of folks is assembled, how can you use the Buyer Persona model to help your particular buyer universe discover how to know if they have collected ALL of those who will be affected by a change (which might include your solution)?
Discern the givens: until ALL of the givens – the people, policies, history, relationships – are recognized and understood, buyers cannot know how ready for change they are. They would rather maintain their status quo than face disruption, and can’t know the parameters of possibility until then. How can Buyer Personas help them?
Workarounds: to avoid disruption, buyers will attempt to use familiar resource to fix their issues. They will contact old/current vendors, try to have current teams fix the problem, etc. The last thing they’ll do is buy anything as the process is too disruptive. Can Buyer Personas help here?
Change management: until or unless buyers can be certain that a purchase will not lead to disruption, and they have figured out how to get buy-in/consensus and manage change, they cannot buy. What would it look like if you added change management to your informatin the Buyer Personas will read?

All of these issues are Pre-Sales, do NOT include seeking to make a purchase, and are focused on maintaining Systems Congruence. Until all of the above is handled your focus on getting ‘good’ data to them ignores the change management portion of the Buyer’s Journey and only finds the low hanging fruit.

Let’s come up with additional profiles and categories for the types of issues buyers need to handle as they traverse their decision and change issues by entering early with a different focus and using Buyer Personas to facilitate the buyer’s change issues first. Use your knowledge of the buying environment to create different types of content to focus on each Pre-Sales decision factor and an expanded set of Buyer Personas. Become part of the Buying Decision Team, be there are they traverse their change, and be ready and prepared to sell when it’s time….with the prospects who will/can buy.

BUYING FACILITATION®

I’ve developed a change facilitation model (Buying Facilitation®) that enables buyers to involve all the right people very quickly, fully understand the complexities of their situation, discover how to test workarounds, get consensus, and manage change. It employs a specific guided approach to coach buyers through their internal politics, consensus, and change processes, with profoundly different results from using sales and marketing alone. With a focus on addressing the path of congruent change, it employs a new form of question, a different type of listening, and a systems-thinking role consistent with true consulting. Once you’ve facilitated buyers to the point they recognize they need to make a purchase, you’re already on their Buying Decision Team – and then you can sell or market earlier and faster, to the right people.

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I can teach your sales team how to become facilitators, show your marketing team ways to design the right questions to help buyers traverse each stage of their unique buying journey, and help you write the content to find and influence the full range of Buyer Personas. See more articles on www.sharondrewmorgen.com. Read my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, that describes each stage of the Buyer’s Journey (www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com). Or call me: Sharon Drew 512 771 1117. Or take a look at my book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? and learn how to hear what customers are really saying beyond what you’re hearing.

Sharon Drew Morgen March 20th, 2017

Posted In: Listening, News

Most of you are really good at what you do: as influencers, sellers, coaches, change agents, or leaders, your intuition, excellent skills, and history of success guide your ability to facilitate change for your clients. And yet using conventional models and questions – both designed to drive the needs of the facilitator – it’s inevitable that your interactions will have bias, and will unwittingly restrict possible outcomes accordingly. Here’s a checklist of questions to help you determine the extent of bias in your interactions:

When attempting to influence someone (as sellers, leaders, etc.) how can you determine the role your natural assumptions, unconscious expectations, and goals play in biasing or restricting the outcome?
Are you aware of, and make allowances for, your full range of biases? Can you think of how your biases might predispose specific outcomes? Do you know what you’d need to do differently to enter a conversation without bias or assumptions?
How do you manage your Communication Partner’s (CP) biases and assumptions to avoid unconscious resistance, fallout, and restricted choice (not to mention lost sales and difficult implementations) and expand choice and possibility?
Are you aware the extent to which your curiosity and questions are subjectively biased toward the goal you’ve (un)consciously set that 1. potentially lose a more congruent outcome, 2. alienate many who might need your solutions?
Due to conventional assumptions for information gathering, how can you be certain that you’re speaking to all (ALL) the right people, or using the most appropriate questions for their idiosyncratic knowledge and culture, to gather the most appropriate – and complete – information? In other words, are your expectations biasing your outcomes?
Are you aware of how much your brain filters what you hear and how much more is being said/meant than what you think you’re hearing? Are you aware of the cost of misunderstanding what’s going on outside of your goals and expectations? How much information is available that you’re not asking for due to your biases?
How much of the data you gather turns out to be accurate? How do you know when/if you ever get to the accurate data? How do your expectations and the bias in your questions interfere with the Other’s recognition of the full fact pattern (largely unconscious at the start)?
What would you need to believe differently to consider that your current skill set, biases, and habitual set of expectations that you enter a conversation with are creating a diminished ability to influence the full extent of real change and avoid resistance?
How often do you assume something is ‘working’ or was successful – a coaching client was changing, or a buyer was going to buy – and you were wrong in your approach or communication? Do you know for certain what happened behind-the-scenes that caused the failure and you could have circumvented? And if you don’t, what would you have needed to do differently during the interaction(s) to enable more of a collaborative communication?
Are you aware of how your own biases, assumptions, triggers, and filters, have gotten in the way of success – or do you believe you’re right and the other person wrong/stupid?
What would you need to believe differently to be willing to add some new skills to use less bias? To enable your CPs to recognize and manage their own unconscious elements that have informed their choices and would need to be shifted for change (a purchase, an implementation) to occur so they can easily buy, change or adopt your terrific material?

FACILITATING CHOICE

We’re all in the business of influencing, or attempting to get what we want. Yet we fail a very high percentage of the time; sellers lose 95% of their prospects; coaches lose 70% of follow on clients; implementations fail 97% of the time. It’s not our fault: we fail because our conventional skills are focused on

content push
premature goal setting
the facilitator’s expectations
listening for pre-determined details

and miss the unspoken metamessages, values, history, rules, and consensus issues that make up our CPs status quo. In other words, the biases that we use and enter our conversations with biases, and restricts outcomes. It’s possible to enable our CP to do their own change work from within (where real change takes place), without us biasing and limiting possibility.

So here’s the ‘pitch’: Using our conventional, habitual skill sets and unconscious listening, it’s pretty impossible to enter conversations without bias. To that end, I’ve developed a generic change management model that facilitates decision making and change at the core unconscious, systemic level and avoids bias and resistance. But it’s not a conventional model that uses ‘normal’ skills.

Coding my own Asperger’s systemizing brain over decades, I’ve developed a new form of listening, a new type of question, and coded the steps that happen unconsciously during all change to add to anyone who seeks to influence change in others. For 30 years, I’ve trained it to sales people, coaches, leaders, and negotiators globally. I’ve written 7 books on the subject and hundreds of articles sharondrewmorgen.com.

The model is not conventional (I have Asperger’s, remember?) but works as an addition to most other coaching, sales, leadership, etc. models to help others determine how to quickly and congruently buy, change, implement, etc. themselves in the area you are facilitating. In other words, you end up avoiding bias because you support them in using their own idiosyncratic system of rules and relationships to make their own changes rather than trying to get them to do what you want them to do.

I’ve named the model Buying Facilitation® but it’s a generic model that enables real change and quicker decisions. In sales there are no more delayed sales cycles or lost prospects; in change management, you can have successful implementations that get the right people, the right issues, involved immediately; coaching clients no long resist change. You can close 40% of all qualified prospects from first call, in half the time; you can help coaching clients discover their unconscious incongruences on the first call; you can implement large change events with no resistance.

The new model makes it possible to unhook from your personal biases and enter conversations in a way that leads/ discovers/ creates all that’s possible through win/win, servant leadership and congruent change. Imagine being able to enter every conversation and have it reach its most ethical, financial, and creative possibility. Imagine. All you have to do is first be willing to help others make their own change, and get rid of your biases.

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Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the developer of the generic change management/decision facilitation model that teaches Others how to buy, change, collaborate, negotiate, and implement with no resistance, with full systemic buy in. She has trained 100,000 people worldwide, in global corporations (IBM, FEDEx, Morgan Stanley) and consulting firms (KPMG, Unisys). She adds this model to the front end of sales, change, decision analysis, leadership, and influencing, all discussed in her book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell. Read more articles on: www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Read the first two chapters of her book What? on how to hear others without bias: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at 512 771 1117 or sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen February 12th, 2017

Posted In: Communication

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