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

I just read a discussion stream on LinkedIn debating why you’re told ‘Send me an email.’ when prospecting. It’s simple: you’re being rejected. People want to remove themselves from your push. It’s a problem created by the sales model itself.

I want to begin with a question that has plagued me since I ran a How Buyers Buy training program for KLM in 1987 when teaching them how to integrate the Buy Side into sales: Would you rather sell, or have someone buy?

You’ll say you’d prefer that someone buy. But your continued focus on the Sell Side largely ignores the Buy Side, causing you to struggle unnecessarily getting call-backs, closing, making appointments. Or equally ineffective, you assume your solution, your knowledge, your personality will facilitate buying. It doesn’t.

Surely you’ve realized that the Sell Side is quite different from the Buy Side. Two different activities and mind sets, both involved in a purchase, yet only one of them is addressed in your sales process.

SELLING VS BUYING

Buying is a How, a strategic change problem. Selling is a What and Why, a tactical solution placement problem. Buying involves cultural change and risk to the jobs, resources, and norms of the buyer. Selling involves finding people to give you money for your solution. Two different things requiring wholly different skills, goals, and intentions.

Selling doesn’t cause buying; buying is a change/risk management issue before it’s a solution choice. The very act of selling and your approach to each contact; the very questions you pose and assumptions you make; the content you share causes resistance with all but those 5% ready to buy.

Before people self-identify as buyers they have work to do…work not related to need or purchase, and certainly not involved with what you’re selling: until people manage and get buy-in for their risk of internal change and have tested workarounds – How, rather than What and Why – they cannot risk bringing in something new. In fact, a new solution is the last thing they need. Literally. And the sales model does not address this majority element of a buying decision.

SALES PLACES SOLUTIONS

The goal of sales is to place solutions: Find people who need what you’re selling, ask questions to confirm, then pitch. It assumes:

you’re asking the right questions at the right time in their change/decision cycle and you can listen without bias;
the prospect knows specifically what an external solution must include to be incorporated into their system congruently;
the prospect has completed their 13 steps of change, tested workarounds, and gotten necessary buy-in;
the person you’re speaking with speaks for the buying decision team, and knows all their criteria for change and risk;
the risk of bringing in your solution has been managed.

Folks who haven’t yet completed their necessary change/risk management process ignore sellers: they’re still trying to solve their problem internally and haven’t considered going ‘outside’ for a fix. These are the folks who agree to meetings just to take your information. Or the folks who won’t take a call, even though they might later (once they’ve got all their ducks in a row) discover they need you.

By starting with a different goal (i.e. NOT need, but Change Facilitation) and skill set (Listening for Systems, Facilitative Questions™, 13 Steps of Change, etc.), these folks can be easily found and quickly facilitated through their steps of change with their stakeholders included. Once this is done, they buy quickly. With no rejection.

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All people must figure this stuff out before they self-identify as buyers, with you or without you. Because of the rigid focus of the Sell Side, they do this without you, leaving you selling to the low hanging fruit – a 5% close rate.

WHY SALES FAILS

The sales model turns a seller into a hammer looking for a nail. It ignores three quarters of the real buyer’s decision journey.

Back in the day when Dale Carnegie told you to sell to need the buying process was much simpler. By maintaining that model, sales has become a stigmatized process that pushes content per the needs of the seller – the reason sales closes such a small percentage, and the reason sellers are told to ‘send me an email’.

Buyers have one criteria:to fix their problem with the least disruption to their system or they will maintain their status quo! The risk of the change must be equal to, or less than, the risk of staying the same. The time it takes them to figure all this out is the length of the sales cycle.

A buying decision is a risk management problem before it’s a solution choice. And the sales model – the Sell Side – doesn’t include facilitating change and risk – the Buy Side – which must be completed before people self-identify as buyers.

So long as you use the sales model as your only tool to facilitate a buying decision, you will have difficulty closing. That’s just not how buyers buy.

FACILITATE BUYING FIRST; SALES SECOND

What if you begin selling by

using a Change Facilitation model to first search for people solving a problem your solution can resolve,
then facilitate them through their risk and change,
help them get buy-in from all who will touch the new solution,
sell when they’re ready to buy.

It would require new skills but you’d find real prospects on the first call and close in half the time. Are you willing to learn a new skill to facilitate buying?

I’ve invented Buying Facilitation® (Stage 1, Buy Side) process to first find folks during their problem-solving phase and help them through their change/risk management and buy-in. Then sales (Stage 2, Sell Side) places the solution.

You need both. Call me if you want to learn Buying Facilitation® and increase your sales to 40% close. Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy?

__________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen July 28th, 2025

Posted In: News

With the best will in the world, with great leaders and well-intentioned methods, our projects are beset by time delays, lack of buy-in, and resistance. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With a few modifications, with the understanding that change involves systems management, we can avoid these problems altogether.

Change Management (CM) processes seek to modify something that has worked well-enough for some time and has been habituated into the daily norms. Unfortunately, these processes sometimes fail to incorporate the systems involved:

when leaders assume they know the problem without involving the voices of the folks with firsthand, in-depth knowledge of the day-to-day activities;
when folks with the closest association to the problems don’t get the chance to offer ideas or explanations during goal setting;
when new activities are mandated to people who’ve had no voice in generating them;
without including specific implementation practices that incorporate the new into the full set of elements that define the culture;

projects may not proceed as intended. Too often leaders merely try to change behaviors without changing the underlying system that generated them.

CHANGE MUST INCLUDE THE WHOLE SYSTEM

A request for change represents a threat unless it’s accepted and conforms with the norms of the existing system. It’s not as simple as merely doing something different.

Unfortunately CM initiatives focus on altering the problematic behaviors/activity without ensuring the values, beliefs, norms and mental models of the existing system that generated them are addressed. But with a shift in thinking it’s possible to prevent resistance and encourage buy-in and new, creative ideas.

THE RISK OF CHANGE MUST BE IDENTIFIED

Before agreeing to any sort of change, and to ensure buy-in and implementation, it’s important to understand the systemic elements that must be addressed:
How will the new match the existing beliefs, values, norms, rules, routines? Are they compatible? Are the core beliefs/values of the group maintained?

How will daily tasks and working/reporting relationships change?

How are individual ego beliefs and job identity factors managed? Are the folks most affected by the new included in information gathering and goal setting at the beginning so they have input around their own (new) jobs? Do these folks get a voice in generating the goals and outputs for a new solution? In sharing their unique experiences to best understand the problem?

What must be relearned and in what time frame?

Will the new represent the output needed by those most affected? Have their voices been included from the beginning and have a say in the change process to avoid resistance? How will resistance be managed?

Unless there are answers to questions like these; unless the risk of the proposed change is known, understood, and managed; unless the stability, beliefs and norms of the system are agreed-upon and maintained by those with the greatest proximity to the solution, change becomes a threat to the system and folks will resist doing anything different.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

In my work developing systemic change models for sales, leadership, change management and System Dynamics, I’ve unpacked 13 Steps of decision making and change, some of which must take place before a problem can be accurately diagnosed or the goal defined. Here are the main categories:

1. Where are you? What’s missing?

The voices of everyone who touches the existing problem and will be involved with the new solution must be heard from before the problem is defined or goals are set. Starting a project with partial information and flawed assumptions automatically triggers resistance and failure.

2. What caused and maintains the problem?

The originating system must recognize an incongruence and understand the risk of change or it won’t consider doing anything different, regardless of the need or efficacy of the solution. Since whatever is in place has been working well-enough for some time and a part of the system, it’s necessary to examine:

What is keeping this problem in place? (rules, beliefs, norms, activities, jobs, culture)
What has prevented this problem from being resolved already?
What beliefs/values/norms of the existing activity must be retained?
Is there anything we already have that might solve our problem if used differently?

3. Brainstorming

Brainstorming sessions to discuss ideal outcomes and the risks of each must take place before goal-setting and include the voices (or their representatives) of the folks familiar with the originating problem:

- The foundational beliefs/values incorporated into the current activities that must be retained in the new;
- Ideas for solutions from each department/working group;
- Understanding the elements holding the old in place and what would change if it’s altered;
- Understanding the risks to making, or not making, a change. Is the risk of change more/less than maintaining the status quo?
- Possible solutions including potential workarounds) must include all voices and potential danger signs brainstormed.

4. Managing risk

The risk of change must be equal to or lower than the risk of staying the same. Change can’t proceed successfully unless the risk of change is understood and approved by all. Problems crop up:

- - Without a full complement of accurate data: flawed assumptions get made that will affect the long term success; goal-setting might be biased; resistance and time delays may result; unknown risks may cause inadequate buy-in.
  - unless the core beliefs and values of the company or team are factored in during goal setting.

5. Implementation

Implementation is a ‘how’, not a ‘what/why’:

- - What/Why are information focused; How is implementation focused.
  - What/Why are content based; How is systems based.
  - What/Why resides in the conscious mind; How gets generated from the unconscious brain.
  - What/Why captures information; How processes and manages risk.
  - What/Why is tactical; How is strategic.
  - What/Why requires information gathering and research; How requires buy-in and an understanding of the risk of change.

Too often CM practices focus on the rationale – the What and Why – behind a change and fail to understand the strategic nature (the How) of the change and how closely tied it is with the culture. If a system believes the risk of change is greater than the risk of staying the same, they will do nothing.

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HOW TO VS WHAT/WHY TO

If you’re a leader or outside consultant helping clients through a CM initiative – a seller, consultant, System Dynamics practitioner, coach, OD consultant – remember: Change is strategic, not tactical.

Let me take a moment to explain the skills necessary for the ‘How-To’. To gather accurate information, to assemble the right people, to recognize and incorporate the foundational elements of the system (the norms, rules, beliefs, values, mental models), to manage risk, requires different skills than the ones currently used in standard CM practices.

Behavior change can occur only after the originating neural circuits that instigated the problem get revisited. and possibly reconfigured. That causes a problem: when change is approached tactically (Why/What), the neural circuits where new instructions for new behaviors must emerge can’t be discovered.

Standard questions include too much bias to gather accurate data, and the way brains ‘listen’ (not very well) is filled with so many distortions and deletions that we only hear 10-35% of what a speaker intends.

So using biased questions, speaking to each other without fully understanding, focusing on reasons for change rather than fixing the underlying system that caused the problem causes lack of buy-in and resistance. And without the culture understanding the risk of change (certainly an affront to Systems Congruence), it’s pretty hard to get cultural change accepted.

I’ve invented a wholly new form of brain-directional question that works with the Stategic and the How to locate the origination point of the problem; a new form of listening that avoids bias; and a change model that includes 13 steps specifically designed to make it possible to define the proper goal, understand the risks, garner new ideas and buy-in, and implement.

Should you wish to learn the elements involved in systems management or help your team through the implementation process I’d love to support you. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 21st, 2025

Posted In: News

We all prefer safe, inclusive, and accountable workplaces, but sometimes the culture lets us down. Certainly companies try by running programs to lead us to greater awareness and better choices.

Yet these often fail to achieve the desired results. Why? Can training change behaviors to ensure all employees feel safe and respected?

WHAT IS A BEHAVIOR?

My definition of a behavior highlights the difficulty instigating change. While AI defines behaviors as ‘an organism’s response to external stimuli, including actions and inactions,’ my definition goes to the source to where, when, if, and how they arise:

Behaviors are outputs from, and representations of, our underlying foundational, norms, rules, beliefs and values.

Beyond merely responses, behaviors are observable expressions of who we are, triggered automatically by neural circuits in response to external stimulation.

Standard training attempts to change behaviors by trying to change behaviors, thereby failing to change a behavior at the source, leaving the neural circuitry and underlying values that triggered the actions in place, ensuring they’ll continue. So as a vegetarian, presenting me with proof as to why I should eat meat would lead to me resisting because my beliefs remain intact.

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RULES GOVERN CHOICES

Once offending words and actions show up in the workplace, the problem becomes one of culture. When employees exhibit unsafe, non-inclusive, or not accountable actions, their behaviors have been tacitly sanctioned by the workplace culture; the core beliefs, norms, and rules of the company don’t specifically rule them out.

Take gender discrimination as an example. For intolerance to show up there are either spoken or unspoken agreements within the culture that make it ok. While management makes clear that discrimination is not allowed, maybe complaints are not conveyed to HR, or HR tells the victim they need to behave differently with the offending person, or the offender may be admonished and sent back to their desk. Eventually the employee leaves the company, almost ensuring that the existing cultural norms persist.

To ensure a culture of safety, fairness, and accountability, it’s necessary to actually state – in the corporate vision, rules, identity and daily communication – that any form of prejudice is cause for dismissal. Indeed, hiring practices would include vetting for respect.

Of course rules of conduct are endemic and unique to each company culture. Most are unspoken, some are obvious: we know to wear a T-Shirt at Facebook and business casual at IBM; we know not to wear a bathing suit to visit a client. But often the rules are unstated and hiring practices don’t specify what is not acceptable.

Obviously, hiring employees with a natural respect for the values we seek to engender is a good place to start. During the hiring process, comments like:

What would you do to provide safety, fairness, and respect in your team?

Please be aware that safety, fairness, and respect are the bedrocks of our culture, and any actions that don’t promote these are grounds for immediate dismissal.

provide clarity and intention. Over time, the employee population will represent the new values.

THE PRACTICE OF CHANGE

We currently assume that problematic behaviors can be altered when ‘good’ information is shared, understood, and practiced. But permanent change requires a modification to the system that generated the problem to begin with.

Companies seeking a safer and more respectful workplace environment must change the values and norms of the company. Much more complex than merely changing behaviors, change of this magnitude requires buy-in and risk management to ensure everyone behaves using the same principles. This includes several steps:

Assemble, or have represented, all who will touch the final solution and agree on the desired goal;
Identify the foundational values, beliefs, norms, and rules essential to achieve their goal;
Compare the difference between the new beliefs and the status quo to recognize what, specifically, the new objective would include;
Understand, and generating working groups to navigate and resolve the risk to the system of adopting different activities;
Understand and agree on the types of resources (a Listening course? Visiting companies with established inclusive workplaces?) necessary to achieve the new goal;
Design an active implementation with assigned tasks, timelines, and lines of communication to include regular shout-outs to all employees in order to maintain the daily focus on the new company identity;
Ensure hiring practices include specific mention of what’s expected and what will be tolerated;
As a continued follow-on, create a grievance committee, comprised of a group of employees that represent the different departments and roles, to take each complaint seriously;
Maintain semi-annual on-line training on change facilitation so employees understand the company’s commitment to the norms of safety, respect, fairness, and inclusiveness.

Changing a company culture is an arduous task. And it’s certainly a vital one.

THE RISK OF CHANGE

There’s one more element to discuss: the risk of change is the elephant in the room.

Any change in norms that a company promotes represents a risk to folks who accepted their job without knowledge of the new requirements and who don’t comply naturally. These are the folks we want to reach, of course, but since their behaviors are most likely unconscious, we must help them integrate new beliefs and values to meet our new expectations. As stated above, merely telling them what is no longer tolerated won’t cause permanent change.

The question becomes, what is our risk when folks hired before the new norms were in place continue their unsafe activities? And what about those folks who can’t change but whose jobs are vital and can’t easily be replaced?

Risk management in change of this type is pivotal: how does the innate risk get addressed once a company that has tacitly overlooked racist or sexist comments, for example, draw new boundaries of what’s acceptable?

To manage risk, it’s necessary for the topic to be brainstormed across the company culture. Questionnaires sent to each employee to be discussed within their departments. Managers will discuss the necessity and risk of change at supervisory sessions.

Conclusion:

We all want our workplace to be a safe, inclusive place to work, where we hire employees to carry the company vision to each other and to our clients. For this it’s necessary to hire people who will carry out the desired values, and develop training programs that get to the neural sources to where behaviors originate.

The question becomes: How will you and your company know when it’s time to take the necessary steps to ensure a safe, inclusive, and accountable workplace culture. And what steps are you willing to take to achieve it?

___________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen June 23rd, 2025

Posted In: News

Have you ever wondered why people agree to an appointment from your prospecting calls? Obviously, it’s not because they need your solution or they’d close more consistently after your visit. You’re charming, your solution great, your pitch deck is creative and your content informative. So it’s not you or your solution.

But ask yourself: if people agree to a meeting but are not likely to buy, why did they take the meeting? Choose one from below:

They needed information to help them resolve their problem internally, without you.
One or two people from a team are gathering information to convince others of possible solutions for a need not yet fully established.
They’re comparing your information against your competitors.
One or two people are representing the team as they progress toward resolving a problem and they need ideas to discover their own workarounds.

With a goal to get an appointment, you’re wasting valuable time chasing after folks who aren’t ready to buy, or aren’t buyers at all. You’re:

creating a double sale – the first being to get them to buy the appointment;
calling people who haven’t (yet) self-identified as buyers, are in the middle of their discovery process, and don’t see a need for an appointment or they would have contacted you;
placing hundreds of calls to get one appointment when you could use the same time/effort to actually find a real buyer and make a sale.

By seeking anyone who will take an appointment, you’re making it possible for folks to use you to glean information. But there’s a bigger downside: you’re not recognizing or serving people on route to becoming buyers – real prospects who WILL buy when they complete their change/decision process.

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WHAT YOU MISS WHEN SEEKING AN APPOINTMENT

With a ‘need’ and ‘appointment’ focus, you’re missing real prospects on route to becoming buyers but haven’t completed their journey.

Instead, seek out folks in the process of becoming buyers and facilitating their necessary Pre-Sales change management journey – the Buy Side. After all, until they’ve got their ducks in a row, and understand their risk of change and get buy in, they won’t even look at marketing or sales content!

Unfortunately, the sales model overlooks this entire group of highly viable prospects. But if you seek folks in the process of solving a problem in your area of expertise and help them through their change and risk management decisions, they’ll buy quickly.

The missing piece here is the difference between the two buying processes: the Sell Side and the Buy Side. And the Buy Side has very specific considerations currently overlooked by the Sell Side.

THE SELL SIDE VS THE BUY SIDE

By contacting people with only a sales hat on, before they’ve

completed assembling their full set of stakeholders,
recognized the criteria that defines their problem,
tried familiar workarounds,
assessed their risk and found it manageable,

you’re discarding highly qualified prospects (40%) who won’t take a meeting but could use your help. By overlooking the Buy Side decision process, you’re missing your sweet spot: helping people as they fumble through their factors to determine if their risk of going ‘outside’ (to buy something, to bring in a consultant, etc.) is worth the disruption that bringing in something new causes.

Turns out that risk is the deciding factor if someone buys, not need; defining and controlling for it constitutes 70% of their decision path! And this must occur before they can buy anything, regardless of need.

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

The sales model has no relevance in the Pre-Sales change management decisions all people take before self-identifying as buyers. Consequently, selling doesn’t cause buying as they are two wholly different concepts: A buying decision is relational – change management and risk driven; sales is tactical – solution placement driven.

When people have a problem they don’t BEGIN by considering or making a purchase (tactical), but by figuring out all the systemic stuff they need to figure out (relational) to end up with a change that aligns with internal norms. No one wants to buy anything, merely resolve a problem at the least risk to their culture/system.

By focusing on getting appointments, you’re not only overlooking and discarding these very viable prospects, you’re neglecting a perfect opportunity to get on their side of the table and provide value-add that would facilitate them through the steps they must take before they’re buyers. It’s only when their

change management work is complete
AND all (all!) stakeholders are involved
AND they’ve realized they cannot resolve the problem on their own
AND they have the buy-in to proceed
AND they understand the ‘cost’ (risk) of any change caused by a new solution,

that they’re buyers.

This is where they ‘go’ when you think they’re dragging their feet or having ‘indecision’. By helping them precisely where they need help, you’re collapsing the sales cycle by at least half and creating a competitive advantage. And most of my clients end up on the Buying Decision Team because they’ve been so helpful.

But this requires you begin with a different goal and new skills, seeking people on route to change in the area you can support. Because their Pre-Sales change work is based on people, policy, buy-in, change, and resource, you’d be meeting them on the Buy Side.

Remaining on the Sell Side ensures you’ll only find the low hanging fruit – people who are ready to buy and considering your competitors – when it’s so easy to find folks on route to buying and facilitating their journey.

DALE CARNEGIE DID IT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

In 1937, Dale Carnegie told you to make face-to-face sales calls. In those days, there was little choice: cars were rare and quite expensive, phones were party line, and advertising was the Sears Catalogue that came out once a year.

These days, the internet transmits your content making your pitch unnecessary. But it’s much bigger than that; buying decision teams are no longer in one venue; people have partners and old vendors willing to help them resolve problems; and the time it takes them to understand if the risk of change carries too much disruption is the length of the sales cycle.

Before anyone becomes a buyer they have internal change work to do. To truly facilitate this end of the buying decision path, it takes a new goal at the beginning (find folks IN their change process instead of trolling for ‘need’ or appointments) and wholly new skills.

I’ve invented a facilitation model (Buying Facilitation®) that begins with a ‘change’ focus and finds and serves these folks on route to becoming buyers but can’t consider themselves buyers until they’ve managed all the change issues and understand their internal risk.

With a goal of finding people during their change/decision cycle, Buying Facilitation® closes 40% from first call by facilitating them down their essential change/decision steps and then selling: Once they’ve discovered ALL the stakeholders, understand the full fact pattern, gotten buy-in and establish risk tolerance, then they’re ready to buy. They might even ask you to visit them and will have 10 people present. Then you’re a true servant leader.

I’m suggesting you expand your skill set to add ‘facilitate the Pre-Sales buying decision path’ before you sell. You can use this on your cold calls and close 40% from first call. Otherwise, you’re wasting so much of your valuable time seeking appointments with people who aren’t buyers.

______________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen June 9th, 2025

Posted In: News

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

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

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

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

_________________

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

Directions: Check off any that apply.

Relationship-related

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

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

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

_Only when it’s someone I care about.

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

Circumstantial

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

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

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

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

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

_When the conversation is going badly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART 2: Do you know your communication biases?

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

When I enter into a conversation, I enter with

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During a conversation I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Directions: Please write down the answers to these:

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

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

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

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

PART 4: Whose responsibility is a shared understanding?

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

Beliefs

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

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

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

Responding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding the message

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Communication problems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sharon Drew Morgen May 19th, 2025

Posted In: News

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

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

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

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

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BELIEFS

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

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

FOCUS ON SHARED VALUES FIRST

Try this:

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

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

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

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Sharon Drew Morgen May 5th, 2025

Posted In: Listening, News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHY WE CAN’T UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sharon Drew Morgen April 14th, 2025

Posted In: Listening, News

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

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

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

INFORMATION AND DECISION MAKING

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

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

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

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

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

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CONTENT DOESN’T PERSUADE

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

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

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

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

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

OUR BRAIN IS THE PROBLEM

It’s only when

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You see, decision making depends on our brain:

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

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

WHAT DO WE DO INSTEAD?

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

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

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

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

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen April 7th, 2025

Posted In: News

Did you ever wonder what happens behind the scenes with prospects after you’ve made a connection, given a great pitch, or delivered an engaging presentation? Why they don’t return your calls or call with an order?

The silence has nothing to do with your solution.

Indeed, after you’ve pitched, the prospects return to the team to share your ideas. Some might like it, some don’t. Some want a different solution, some discuss a new workaround to try. Some might think it’s not time.

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

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

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

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THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

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

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

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

But by

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

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

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

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

In other words, only folks who have done all their change work will have interest in what you’re selling, narrowing the buyer pool to only those who seek THAT solution at THAT moment, those who have already

understood exactly what something New should do that they can’t do for themselves;
assembled the full set of stakeholders who have already agreed and bought-into doing something different;
tried several workarounds that don’t work out;
recognized the ‘cost’ of bringing in something new;
have figured out how to manage any change with the least disruption.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SELLING IS TACTICAL, BUYING IS STRATEGIC

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

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

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

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

SD: Great. Then you buy it.

Until people (would-be buyers, but not yet self-identified) know the rules, roles, and relationships they must maintain, the specifics of your solution are moot. When you’re pitching before people have all their ducks in row, they can’t even hear the details you proudly offer as they haven’t yet defined their needs or risks, nor are they absolutely certain they can’t fix the problem themselves.

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

WHAT BUYERS MUST KNOW

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

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

No one buys anything unless workarounds have been tried, research has been done, possibilities are discussed, options are considered, and stakeholders have bought into, and added to, the process of change. In other words, before they become buyers, people must go through a change management process and are able to manage the cost of change.

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

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

DO YOU WANT TO SELL? OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY?

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

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

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Sharon Drew Morgen March 24th, 2025

Posted In: News

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

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

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

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

CRITERIA VS. CONTENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOW PEOPLE CHOOSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHEN AND HOW

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

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

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

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

Good questions might be something like:

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

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

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

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

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Sharon Drew Morgen March 17th, 2025

Posted In: Communication, News

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