News – Page 12 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

As a kid I had fantasies of what the rest of my life would be. I was going to be (in no particular order): a New York Times Bestselling author (check); a world change agent (check); a singer (Nope!); recognized for my beauty and talent (Um…); a wife to a nice man and mother to 3 kids (In the ballpark.); live happily ever after (Jury is still out.). Some of that came true. But not much. And certainly not like I fantasized.

As I’ve lived my life, each decision, each turn of events, seemed to be both dynamic and challenging. Was I supposed to keep my dreams in mind or create new ones? It took decades to realize that whatever decisions I made were the right ones at the time.

My life turned out quite differently than I imagined, with my personal life taking a back seat to the work I somehow knew I was meant to convey. Personally, I took two very brief trips through marriage and motherhood (one son), with some movies, dancing, and travel to 63 countries. Professionally, I’ve written books; developed, scaled, and trained my original thinking in training, decision making, and change; coded how people hear each other (or don’t); and founded a non-profit. I always felt secure in the creativity and brain stuff, and horribly inadequate in the personal.

TRAPPED IN A BRAIN

As a child of domestic violence with Borderline Personality Disorder, Asperger’s and PTSD, I recognized I was trapped in a pretty cool brain with little ability to relate or socialize according to conventional norms. I mistakenly thought that if I got married and had kids, and worked in a corporate job, I’d be normal. But ‘normal’ wasn’t in the cards: I eventually had to give up a personal life in order to have the clarity, simplicity, and space to daydream, think and write.

Looking back, I cannot imagine how, as a damaged 11 year old, I understood I needed an enhanced skill set to face the challenge to the status quo that my ideas caused – a journey that took me 30 years with the help of gifted, kind, and demanding therapists. I had to learn appropriate communication, unbiased listening, patience, self-acceptance, authenticity, humility, trust, clarity, and boundaries. I had to make sure my mind/body/spirit was healthy. I had to learn to take the risks necessary to proclaim ideas that flew in the face of mainstream. I had to dig deeply into spirituality, values, meditation and find the courage to change, even in the face of abject terror and confusion. And always, I had to learn how to bring my heart into everything I did because my models blend heart and mind.

Luckily I found clients interested in my ideas. Over the decades, I learned to show up as socially appropraite most of the time, albeit ‘eccentric’ and occasionally obnoxious. Once, following a two year stint teaching Buying Facilitation® and my Facilitative Questioning technique to national sales team at Bethlehem Steel, my client was handing me over to a different department. “Is she always like this?” he whispered? “Yes,” my client whispered back. “And you’ll learn to love her.”

TENACITY AND TRANQUILITY

What I find curious is that regardless of how scared or isolated I was, I always – even as a child – knew with utter clarity that my ability to code systemic change was important enough to devote my life to and needed a global audience. I accomplished what I was meant to accomplish. The fields I’ve been challenging (sales, coaching, decision making) are even starting to catch up with the models I developed many decades ago.

I passionately hope next lifetime will be simpler. The struggle to encourage change in mainstream has been wearisome; the lack of a personal life has been sad. I’ve shed millions of tears and spent hundreds of sleepless nights. But I turn 70 knowing I’ve made a difference, and can rest in the knowledge that the world is a better place for having had me in it. And that knowledge is its own reward.

I face aging with contentment, curiosity, a bit of fear (I’m not afraid to die, just of losing my ability to think and be curious. My father died of Alzheimer’s.), and an excitement to learn my next lessons. I have no more idea of what the rest of my life will be like than I knew as a teenager.

But I do know this birthday is confusing me. I cannot imagine me as my mental picture of what an old woman should look or act like. I appear to be the same in the mirror, at the gym, dancing, writing, creating. When will something get different? Can I keep daydreaming and discovering? It’s quite confusing. No answers. Will let you know what happened next year. But I do know I seem to be settling in.

Sometimes, these days, I feel drawn to stillness. I just moved to a floating home on the Columbia River. Am spending vast amounts of time sitting quietly, watching the water go by. Peaceful. Sweet. Kind and soft in my heart. And so nice to not feel driven.

But sometimes I’m drawn to learning and thinking. I’m finally reading David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece Infinite Jest. And books on Bio-Hackers, predictions, New York garbage collection, and food. So much to learn.

I can’t stop having fun either. I finally found a replacement to the Broken Spoke here in Portland for my life-long Western Swing dancing hobby. And I’ve started a Non-Fiction Book Club.

New ideas aren’t slowing down one bit. But now, although I’m available to folks who need me, I write my ideas in notebooks instead of seeking to have ‘the world’ hear them. My job now is merely to be the person I’ve become over the last seven decades. I even seem to have a personal life emerging!

I feel complete. I can just be. And wherever my life now takes me is fine. I’ve lived my life fully and purposefully. I’m deeply happy. I’ve made a difference. And it’s been a privilege.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen teaches the ‘how’ of decision making, change facilitation, and collaboration for sellers/buyers, leaders/followers, change agents/groups to corporations such as Kaiser, KPMG, IBM, Wachovia, etc. Her most recent book What? breaks down the gap between what’s said and what’s heard and teaches communication in corporations. She’s written 7 books on her unique model Buying Facilitation® which teaches sellers how to facilitate change and consensus for buyers. www.sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen February 15th, 2016

Posted In: News

telephone

I believe that cold calls are quite important as part of an overall sales strategy. How they are done, however, determines their success. If the goal of the call is to gather data, share product information, start a conversation, or make an appointment, the odds are that the outcomes will be less than successful: sellers claim over 90% failure on their attempts.

If, however, a seller can enter the call with a goal to create the means for buyers to discover their path to excellence in the area of the seller’s solution, to figure out who they should assemble to begin a change process that leads them to excellence (and possibly a purchase), and create a win/win collaboration with the seller that engages buyers and prospects to continue communicating, then it’s a win.

Using current cold calling techniques, cold callers don’t recognize that the call is meant for them to get their own needs met. Sellers enter the call as if the buyer:

were sitting and waiting to hear from them with nothing else to do,
needs the solution regardless of their status quo,
should respond fully and honestly to a stranger asking probing, rude questions.

And worse of all, there are a large percentage of real buyers who won’t take the call because they either don’t want to speak to a stranger who wants to take their time, don’t like the prying questions or the information push, or aren’t at the stage in their decision path that would enlist a solution or sales person. Using other means of cold calling, these folks could easily be brought on board for appointments with all of the decision makers, or for continued calls of discovery and collaboration.

Here are two lousy cold calls I got recently. I took one of them and created a ‘good call’ using my Buying Facilitation® model to show you the difference between playing a numbers game, and serving buyers to facilitate excellence. Read them all, and decide which is better.
#1
C: Hello, Sharon? Joe from Mimeo calling. How you doin’ today? [I assume he was attempting to be intimate, not knowing that anyone intimate with me would never call me ‘Sharon.’] SDM: Do you know if that’s my correct name?
C: I do know. It’s your name.
SDM: Really? Are you absolutely certain?
C: I am.
SDM: How can you be so certain?
C: Wait. Aren’t you Sharon? Is Sharon there?

Seriously. That call happened. Word for word.
#2
E: Hi. I’m calling from Ecsell. Is this Sharon?
SDM: Is this a cold call?
E: No. It might be a partnership call and I might be able to hire you as a speaker.
SDM: Cool. You should know, then, that my first name is Sharon Drew.
E: OK. I didn’t know that. But I know you’re a sales company and want to tell you about our coaching products. [And the reason she doesn’t want to collaboratively figure out if our solutions would blend is….? And the reason she tried to trick me into speaking by lying to me is…?] SDM: Do you know who I am and what I do?
E: You’re the President of Morgen Facilitations. What else should I know? (She’s asking ME?)
SDM: So you didn’t do your homework. I’m a sales visionary, and for decades have been teaching a buy-in model I invented and teach to sales folks and coaches to give them the tools to help buyers make the change management decisions necessary to be ready to buy.
E: That’s no reason you wouldn’t be able to use our products also, or tell your clients to use our products.
SDM: Wow. You’re still pushing without listening to what I said.
E: Oh yeah?? I’m not pushing. Just educating .(So she’s assuming that I need education, that what she has to say is more important and better than who I am, what I do, what I might need, and – worse of all – she’s missing a potential win/win collaboration by lying to ‘get in’ just to educate me.’) After I hung up on her, she called me back three times to leave me messages!

These calls really happened. You can see the lose/lose here, the disrespect, and the lost opportunity. Do you know how your sales folks are making their cold calls? Have you ever considered adding new skills that would facilitate a real collaboration?

This is what a sales call would look like if I use Buying Facilitation® in call #2.

E: Hello. My name is Ellen from Ecsell, and I’m selling coaching products. This is a cold call. Is this a good time to speak?
SDM: Yes, I have a few moments, but I’m not in the market for coaching products. I sell some myself, and use a unique coaching model I developed that probably wouldn’t work with a more mainstream coaching solution.
E: Interesting. I wonder if you ever partner with other companies for those times you find groups with other innovative solutions.
SDM: I would be very interested. What do I need to do to find out if there is a partnership possibility here? It goes beyond whether or not I like your solution, as there are generally criteria on both sides that need to be met. What do you suggest?
E: Well, we could start with introducing each other to our solutions on this call, and if we both like what the other has, then I would set up a conference call with one of our principles. And a good question for us both to answer might be: What would we each need to see from the other to know if we have the content and the integrity to consider a partnership of some kind? If it makes sense, we can go from there. Does that work for you?

See how easy? Collaboration. Win/win. Trust. Respect. And we expanded what might be possible, added in a bit of integrity, and everyone brought their beset game – all on a cold call.

If you ever want your cold calls

to enable a collaborative dialogue that’s win-win,
to facilitate decision making change, buying and integrity,
to make appointments that include the necessary decision makers,
to teach your buyers how to consider working with you on the first call,

consider adding Buying Facilitation® to your sales model (it works with all sales models). It uses unique questions and listening that opens discussions that enable change, collaboration, and potentially buying. And you wouldn’t sound like these idiots who called me. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker, inventor, trainer, and consultant. She is the author of 9 books, including the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, and the Amazon bestseller What? Did you really say what I think I heard? She is the developer of Buying Facilitation® a generic change management/decision facilitation model that give leaders, decision analysists, coaches, and sellers the tools to help other make their own best decisions based on their own values and beliefs. She works with global clients to enable them to listen without bias, pose Facilitative Questions that enable Others to recognize and act on their own best answers, and help buyers buy. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. 512 771 1117.

Sharon Drew Morgen October 13th, 2015

Posted In: News

In order for any change to occur – whether it’s a decision to purchase a product, or an implementation to add new technology – whatever touches the ultimate solution must buy-in to the change.

Often our focus is on getting the end-result we think we want. We forget that without buy-in from the necessary people and policies that maintain the status quo, we face the high cost of the resistance emanating from pushing change into a system that believes that it’s fine, thanks.

I’d like to share a story about how I helped my own tech guys shift their project work and our revenue as a result of having decision facilitation skills. At the end of the day, unless there is a decision – one person at a time – to adopt to, know how to, and be willing to change, there will be resistance and possibly failure.

FIRST SIGNS OF TROUBLE

I owned a body shop/recruitment company to support new technology. We had 43 tech folks going out to client sites as programmers, systems analysts/designers, project managers/leaders.

Within the first months, I began hearing murmurs of annoyance from the folks: “Stupid users.” “We have to spend twice as long redoing what they told us to do!” “Why don’t they get it right when we first talk to them?”

As a test to see what was going on that was creating so much failure and cost (time/money), I called in my head tech guy to design a requirement I’d been complaining about.

Julian’s first question was: “What do you want?” I didn’t know how to respond because 1. I wasn’t a techie and didn’t know how to explain to him in his language; 2. I didn’t have the right description, as it was mostly a picture in my mind. So I responded “I don’t know.” Julian smirked. “This is what I hear from clients. But I know what you want. I’ll take care of it and show you some screens next week.” We were already in the middle of the problem.

What he created was from his own vantage point, using his own beliefs and limiting assumptions. “This is all wrong,” I said.

Julian’s eyes glazed over. In the UK you don’t tell the MD that she’s a Stupid User. I continued: “Imagine where we’d be now if you had started our conversation with ‘ What would you have if you had all of your wishes and dreams, and a computer could do everything that your brain would like to do?’ With that, I could have I would have ‘designed’ screens and offered colors and made up functionality. That would have been a far better start.

NEW SKILLS FOR INTERNAL CONSULTANTS

I realized that all of our tech guys needed decision facilitation skills to enable them to

recognize how to bring together the appropriate elements to be included in a way that would serve both the strategic AND tactical elements,
elicit the right data at the right time so the clients could get their projects completed efficiently,
eliminate resistance.

I taught the 43 tech guys my ‘Buying Facilitation® model (a decision facilitation model that is a change management model, independent of buying or selling). The results were instant, and dramatic.

The systems designers were able to elicit the right data and develop the exact right design the first time with no redos.
The systems analysts not only understood the tech issues, but were able to understand and address all of the personal/human issues and manage the change and potential resistance issues upfront, before they became a problem.
The programmers got the proper information to code the first iteration, with a minimum of changes.
The client didn’t need the work to be redone.
The clients got to hear/see/feel their vision of success and agree to it before anyone moved ahead with technology.
The projects were completed well before time – sometimes 25% sooner – and since we were being paid on a project basis, we made more money and the team was freed up for the next project.
The clients trusted us so much that they handed over much of their own programmer’s work to us and were able to take on additional creative projects that they hadn’t planned.
With 26 competitors, we captured 11% of the market (even with prices well over 40% higher than everyone…. my nickname was Sharon Drew Blood), and my clients signed sole supplier contracts.
Everyone was happy, and I kept all of my employees for 4 years.

In fact, my competition tried to steal my employees; no one budged, regardless of the money that was thrown at them. I made sure they had plenty of personal time off, I took them for darts/beer at the local pub once a month, and I made sure they were happy. Plus I kept them doing what they loved, rather than having to deal with any ‘issues.’

I hired a ‘Make Nice Guy’ (who I also trained) to go make sure everything chugged happily along: if any sort of problem – client concern, project glitch, personality issue, tech malfunction – occured, it was his regardless of time of day. Or he could take the day off.

As a result, I had nothing to do but grow my company. And I was able to exit after under 4 years, with 3 branches in two countries (offices in London, Stuttgart, Hamburg), $5,000,000 revenue (remember this was a start up in 1983, in a huge depression) and a 43% net profit.

Your tech folks and internal consultants need decision facilitation skills in addition to technology skills. Because at the base of it all are humans who resist change, get confused, hang on to turf, and don’t always communicate properly. Let me know if I can help you design a program for your tech folks or internal consultants: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Start the journey to help sellers get the skills they need to manage both ends of the buying decision journey – the off-line political and relational buy-in as well as the solution choice. Read Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Listen to insights and illustrative examples regarding: what change is and why its fundamentally the same regardless of industry or organization type, what systems are and their role in the change management process.

__________

More recently, Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? in which she has coded how we can hear others without bias or misunderstanding, and why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She is a trainer, consultant, speaker, and inventor, interested in integrity in all business communication. Her learning tools can be purchased: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com 512-457-0246.
www.didihearyou.com ; www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen August 24th, 2015

Posted In: Communication, News

Do you know why you don’t close all the sales you deserve to close?

Do you know, on your first prospecting call, who will buy?

Do you know where buyers go when they say ‘I’ll call you back?”

Do you know what takes buyers so long to buy when it seems so obvious to everyone – including them?

You don’t know the answers to these questions. Because the sales model is geared for solution placement. Of course you give good service, ask all the right questions, understand the need and how it fits with your solution.
But the sales model is not set up to manage the personal, human, political, strategic, and hidden systemic issues that buyers must handle internally to get the buy-in and develop the pathway to bring in a new solution. In fact, buyers have a change management problem, not a solution choice problem.

See, the buyer’s environment is kinda a system, with people, and policies, initiatives and relationships, all working together, fighting to maintain themselves (as systems are wont to do). And when they consider fixing something, they have to manage everything that touches it or face chaos. Just as you can’t just purchase a new house on the way home and announce to your family that you’re moving tomorrow, so a buyer cannot just choose a solution to add to the well-functioning mix of givens within the status quo. It’s not about the house.
To continue with the analogy, the sales model merely understands the family needs for a house and finds the house. It does not handle the fight between the parents and teenagers who don’t want to move from their friends, or the decision to move closer to in-laws, or the discussion around a possible divorce. To sell the house, these details are unnecessary. To buy the house, it’s imperative to resolve first before they know what or if to buy. And everyone must buy-in somehow before a choice is made.

BUYING FACILITATION®

I’ve developed a new skill set that works alongside of sales. It’s not sales, but it’s a change management mode that can be used in any change situation (management, negotiation, coaching) to help others reorganize and reconsider their status quo so something new can enter. The material is original, and based on a servant-leader goal, to truly help others make their best decisions.
Here’s an example. The head of Consumer Banking of Barclays Bank called to ask if Buying Facilitation® could be used with a program they were developing. Here’s the dialogue. Note that I am not doing a sales job here (that will come later – buyers need solution data only when their other decisions and internal change issues have been handled) but helping him figure out how to bring change and get buy-in… all of which would include my help at some point, but not specifically about my solution.

BANK: Can Buying Facilitation® be added to the software we are developing so customers will be able to choose the best product?
SDM: Yes. But what’s stopping your tech guys from trying to do that for you?
BANK: Nothing. They’ve already bought a few of your books and are trying to put your ideas into their software design.
SDM: So I’m hearing they’d rather do it all themselves. How would you and the rest of the Buying Decision Team know if you’d prefer the capability you’d get working with me directly or with the outcome they’d get from the tech guys using my books?
BANK: They won’t know the difference, but I’ve read some of your booksand I know that you keep some of the How To out of the books. So I know you’d provide more, but they won’t.
SDM: What should you and I do to help them decide what will be their best solution?
BANK: Let’s set up a conference call.

At that point, he named 2 department heads that needed to be involved – technology and training. I suggested he might add the heads of HR (to train 4000 people), internal consulting/project management, sales, and retail banking. He set up a conference call. On the call, the CEO of Barclays joined the call. We all worked together a month (I’m on the Buying Decision Team at this point) to figure it out. And I ended up with my piece of the pie – with no proposal, no visit to UK, no price discussion, no competition. My solution was irrelevant until they understood how they needed to bring in something new and fit it in, and until all of the right people were on board to fully define the need.
Sales is great. But if you add the change management piece to the front end – before you sell, or understand needs, or make a presentation – you can easily know: who will close, approximately when, and how to help them discover, prepare, and facilitate buy-in for the buyer…and, get onto the Buying Decision Team on the first call. And halve the sales cycle.

Until or unless buyers have all of the change management issues covered, they will not buy, regardless of the match between your solution and their need: they are doing ‘well-enough’, and if they could have resolved the issue, they would have already. Add Buying Facilitation® to your tool kit, and increase your productivity.

___________

More recently, Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? in which she has coded how we can hear others without bias or misunderstanding, and why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She is a trainer, consultant, speaker, and inventor, interested in integrity in all business communication. Her learning tools can be purchased: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com 512 457 0246. www.didihearyou.com; www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen June 26th, 2015

Posted In: News, Sales

We enter into collaborations assuming we’ll succeed as teamwork partners. Yet we rarely achieve true partnership:

Because we listen uniquely and through biased filters we sometimes mistakenly presume intent or misconstrue what’s been said and agreed upon. Problem: Flawed assumptions, wasted time and relationship capital, and restricted scope.
There is often not enough diversity to enable maximum creativity and unrestricted solution options. Problem: Similar ideas and options constrain possibility and maintain the status quo.
Agendas and goals are often established with less than the full set of essential participants. Problem: Hidden agendas and inadequate preparation.
Not all vital collaboration partners are present. Problem: Incomplete input and limited output.
Collaborators often enter with specific (albeit unconscious) goals and limited tolerance for risk. Problem: Restricted possibility and inspiration.

As a result, we end up with little real change, spend time waiting for takeaways that don’t occur, expend considerable relationship capital, or overlook the full range of possibilities.

Biased communication. After spending 3 years researching and writing a book on the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I now appreciate it’s nearly impossible for collaboration partners to all walk away with the same understanding. Therefore, 1. Tape each session. 2. Get group agreement on what’s been said and action items before moving on to the next topic.
Gender, age, and ethnic diversity are necessary. Consider your goal. Think about who you might invite to offer different perspectives. Invite Troublemakers.
Make sure everyone has access to the agenda well before the meeting. There can be no hidden agendas; too much is lost that ends up being problematic later on.
Everyone must attend meetings. If anyone can’t come to the meeting, cancel it or there will be a voice, an idea, an annoyance missing that would counteract the reasons underlying the collaboration. Anyone who will touch the final solution must be present to move forward or there will be fallout, sabotage, and resistance: there is no way to compensate (as per creativity or consensus) once a meeting is held with folks missing.
No restrictions. Collaborators must enter with no assumptions. Collaboration means you either meld disparate ideas, or cultivate something new among you that’s never existed.

We all bring our natural biases and assumptions to the collaboration table, thereby restricting possibilities. Yet until we confront, challenge, and defy the status quo with new thinking, there can’t be change. And that’s the problem: Our results are in direct proportion to our ability to override our biases and assumptions.

BIAS RESTRICTS COLLABORATION

Since researching and writing my new book ( What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) I have realized it’s pretty impossible to accurately comprehend what others mean to convey. Here’s a summary of what I learned:

Not only do our eyes merely take in light that our brains then translate (through our filters uniquely developed since birth) into what we think we see, our ears merely take in sound that our brains then translate (through our filters) into what we think others mean – hence we each experience the world uniquely, through our personal translations. To make it truly pernicious, our brains only offer us the translation itself: we never know how far from the Truth we are, potentially causing misplaced resistance and misinterpretation.

For effective collaborations, we must move beyond our filters to hear others without bias during meetings:

Notice resistance, feelings, annoyances, or immediate negativity the moment it happens and ask yourself: How can I hear what’s just been said in a different way?
Since you don’t actually know if what you think you’ve heard is accurate, tell your collaboration partners what you think you heard and ask them if they heard the same thing.
Make sure there are no strong feelings left unsaid after each discussion topic.
At the start of a session, everyone must agree to goals/outcomes for each topic; as each topic is completed, everyone must agree on action items that will match the original goals. Everyone.
At the end of the session, agree to all action items and take-aways. Do a review of what’s been accomplished according to original goals. Ask if anyone else needs to be included for the next session.

By minimizing biases, by including a full range of thought-partners, and by checking in with the other collaborators as to what’s been said and heard, it’s possible to form effective collaborations. Otherwise, we’re merely doing more of the same.

_____________________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the NYTimes Business Bestselling author of Selling with Integrity and 7 books how buyers buy. She is the developer of Buying Facilitation® a decision facilitation model used with sales to help buyers facilitate pre-sales buying decision issues. She is a sales visionary who coined the terms Helping Buyers Buy, Buy Cycle, Buying Decision Patterns, Buy Path in 1985, and has been working with sales/marketing for 30 years to influence buying decisions.
More recently, Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? in which she has coded how we can hear others without bias or misunderstanding, and why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She is a trainer, consultant, speaker, and inventor, interested in integrity in all business communication. Her learning tools can be purchased: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com 512 457 0246. www.didihearyou.com ; www.sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen June 22nd, 2015

Posted In: Listening, News

Hi Everyone: I’m sending you something quite different this week; I hope you don’t mind but I find this topic important. My good friend Ardath Albee sent me this note below, asking us to vote for her to receive a grant for something near and dear to my heart: to develop new capabilities for the field of marketing enter the buy path earlier. Please read her sweet note and see if you can get behind this by voting for her. If she wins the grant, I trust that she’ll use the funds to help us all be more successful.

Hi Sharon Drew,

I wonder if you can help. I’m seeking a grant from Chase Small Business in the area you’ve been writing about for decades: facilitating buyer’s pre sales decision making. Since you’ve been the leader in the field, and your readers have been reading your articles on the subject, for years, I thought I’d explain what I’m proposing to do with the funds and your community might find it relevant enough to cast a vote to help my company be considered for the grant.

My plan is to develop materials, consulting programs, training courses – hopefully with your collaboration – to help the marketing field enter earlier along the buying decision continuum (pre sales) and find the most effective ways to help more buyers buy. You and I have had so many lengthy discussions about the opportunities for marketers on this subject; I believe it’s time for marketers to get in front of this process.

For those in your community who don’t know me, please let them know I’ve been on a crusade for years to help marketers become more relevant with their content marketing and engagement of buyers. To help your community decide if I’m worthy of their vote, here is a link to my latest book on emarketing and my site www.marketinginteractions.com. I am one of the leaders in the area of content marketing and emarketing; your ideas have helped me to see a new path for marketers to expand their skill sets and effect buying decisions. I believe it’s now time to put the ideas into action, which I’ll be able to do with the funding from this grant.

Thanks in advance for your help. If my company wins the grant, you and I can get to work on the opportunities we’ve been discussing to help marketers build better relationships with buyers. Here is the link for those who want to vote: https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/25545

Ardath

__________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the developer of Buying Facilitation® and has written 9 books, including one NYTimes Business bestseller (Selling with Integrity) and 2 Amazon bestsellers. A sales thought leader since 1985, she trains, consults, speaks to, and designs training for sales professionals in global corporations to facilitate buyers through the pre-sales decisions and steps they must complete prior to making a purchase. She recently published a new book on how to bridge the gap between what’s said and what’s heard: Get What? Did you really say what I think I heard? . She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Sharon Drew Morgen June 8th, 2015

Posted In: News

“Content is king”. I’ve heard that phrase for years. But what does it mean? Does it mean that by offering thought-provoking, useful, creative information buyers will be motivated to contact you at the right time along their complete (including pre-sales) decision path? By sending out veiled advertising in the form of ‘articles’ to random email addresses you can convert readers to action? How is ‘conversion’ defined – opening the email? Making a purchase that can be directly tracked back to the email? Let’s look at the problems.

Wrong Time: Content is useful only at the time it’s needed and won’t be opened otherwise, even if your solution is needed later. Even when offering options, research, or educational benefits, your content currently targets the activity of product/vendor selection; you miss key opportunities to enter earlier, during the buyer’s necessary pre-sales activities – assembling the correct Buying Decision Team members, sorting out change issues and responsibilities, getting consensus, etc. – to become a true trusted advisor and support partner. Imagine offering the type of content that drives buyers during every decision and pre-sales activity. Then you’ve part of the solution, every step of the way, as they approach a final purchase. And they trust you.
Wrong People: You get a 1% (or less) conversion rate because your missive connects with only those whose email addresses you have and, even if they might eventually be part of a Buying Decision Team, who consider it spam. It’s possible to offer content that readers seek out because it’s vital to their path toward excellence.
Wrong Focus: Content is often merely an ad vaguely concealed as an ‘article’. Buyers know this. It’s possible to use content to facilitate the non-solution-focused consensus and change issues readers must attend to as they ready themselves to make a purchase.

The way you’re doing it now

neither attracts nor retains a specific audience,
ignores ways to enter and influence buyers early in their pre-sales decisions,
doesn’t drive customer action unless they are at the specific point of readiness,
merely annoys.

You’re finding the low hanging fruit who would have found you anyway. Content marketing can help prospective buyers dispense suitable information 1. into the hands of the right people 2. at the time they need it while 3. coaching them to get their ducks in a row to move forward.

It’s possible to write content on important relevant topics that readers WANT to read – i.e. the pros and cons of concrete over glass for housing, or how we can hear others without bias – and will help them go from an idea to a purchase through linking to your site, reading and saving other articles, and using them to help traverse their action route.

CASE STUDY

I get anywhere from 40-51% conversion with my content marketing. My readers take action from my articles: click on linked articles or sites; download free books/chapters; buy a product; share/RT/Like daily. Here’s what I do:

I write well-written, provocative, 750-word articles that may have little to do with my services or books specifically but are of real interest to that population who may ultimately be buyers. (You found the title interesting enough to read this far, right?) I offer links that tie in to my books /services: I’ve written about diversity, leadership, collaboration, questions. Yet my services focus on facilitating buying decisions and bias-free communication.
I only send articles to subscribers, and Friends, LinkedIn, and 15 ezines, such as HR.com, Sales and Service Excellence, StrategyDriven, who often publish them to vast readerships. (Sometimes 3 or more of my articles appear each week.) I have 3 blogs that often get onto best lists, such as top innovative content, top sales blog, top business blog. Net, net, I’m getting large distribution in really targeted fashion: those folks most likely to read and potentially need my services/products. Sort-of ‘hot leads.’ No spam.
Like you, I let social media splash my content to enable interested folks to find it and start conversations. I get many new subscribers and ‘friends’ weekly. My lists grow with interested folks. Daily, I get Thank You notes that begin conversations and sell products.

Questions:

Why would people open your content if they consider it spam?
How can you compose true thought pieces that people want to open?
How can you use your content to facilitate each stage of the pre-sales and buying decision path?
Seriously: are you willing to try something different to get a higher ‘conversion’ rate? Seriously.

What you’re doing now only converts the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier by offering valuable intelligence that will encourage curiosity; introduce, explain and target the full set of decision stages; and keep your name topmost in buyer’s minds. You’re currently taking the lazy route: throwing spaghetti on the wall hoping enough of it will stick. Do you want to write? Or enable real business opportunities?

__________

Sharon Drew Morgen is a writer/author of one NYTimes Business Bestseller and two Amazon best sellers, 7 books on Buying Facilitation® and how buyers buy, and 1500 articles (www.sharondrewmorgen.com). She is a trainer, speaker, coach, thought leader, and content writer. Sharon Drew is also the visionary thinker behind What? – her new book on how to avoid the gaps between what people say and what is heard. (www.didihearyou.com for the book and online assessment tools). She can be reached at www.sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen June 1st, 2015

Posted In: News

As business folk, we hold meetings regularly. Yet often we don’t accomplish what we set out to achieve. Why?

The Purpose

Meetings are held to accomplish a specific, beneficial outcome requiring the attendance of the right people with the right agenda.

The Problem/Pain

Often we end up with miscommunication, wasted time, incomplete outcomes, misunderstanding, lack of ownership and ongoing personnel issues – sometimes an indication of internal power and faulty communications issues.

The Possibility

With greater success we can: stimulate thinking; achieve team building, innovation, and clear communication; and efficiently complete target issues. Here are some problem areas and solutions:

People. When outcomes aren’t being met effectively it’s a people- and management problem including: fall-out, sabotage, and resistance; long execution times; exclusion of peripheral people; restricted creativity and communication; exacerbated power and status issues. Are the most appropriate people (users, decision makers, influencers) invited? All who have good data or necessary questions?

Rule: unless all – all – relevant people show up for the meeting, cancel it. It’s impossible to catch people up or have them collaborate, add creative thoughts, or discuss annoyances. Once it’s known that meetings aren’t held unless all are present, the frequency, responsibility, and motives shift.
Rule: unless all – all – of the people who will touch the outcome from the meeting’s goals are in some way represented, the outcome will not reflect the needs of all causing fallout later, with resistance, sabotage or a diminished outcome.

Agenda. No hidden agendas! Recipients of potential outcomes must be allowed to add agenda items prior to the meeting.

Rule: unless all – all – of the items of ultimate concern are on the agenda, the meeting will be restricted to meet the needs of a few with unknown consequence (resistance and sabotage).

Action. Too often, action items don’t get completed effectively. How do action items get assigned or followed up? What happens if stuff’s not done when agreed? How can additional meetings be avoided?

Rule: put a specific, consensual, and supervised method in place to ensure action items get accomplished as promised.
Rule: as meeting begins, get consensus on what must be accomplished for a successful outcome. This initial discussion may change agenda items or prioritize them, detect problems, assumptions, resistance before action items are assigned.

Discussion. How long do people speak? How do conversations progress? How do the proceedings get recorded? What is the format for discussions? How is bias avoided?

Rule: record (audio) each meeting so everyone who attends can have it available later. Folks who didn’t attend are not privy to this audio. (See People above).
Rule: design a time limit for speaking, and rules for topics, presentations, discussions, cross talk.
Rule: include periods of silence for thought, notes, reflection.

Understanding. Does everyone take away the same interpretation of what happened? How do you know when there have been miscommunications or misunderstandings?

Rule: unless everyone has the same perception of what happened for each topic, there is a tendency for biased interpretation that will influence a successful outcome.
Rule: one person (on rotation) should take notes, and repeat the understanding of what was said to get agreement for each item before the next item is tackled. This is vital, as people listen with biased filters and make flawed assumptions of what’s been said/agreed.

Transparency. Agendas should be placed online, to be read, signed-off, and added to.

Rule: whomever is coming to the meeting must know the full agenda.
Rule: everyone responsible for an action item must be listed with time lines, names of those assisting, and outcomes.

Accomplishments. Are items accomplished in a suitable time frame? What happens when they aren’t?

Rule: for each action item, participants must sign off on an agreeable execution. A list of the tasks, time frames, and people responsible must accompany each item, and each completed task must be checked off online so progress is accountable.
Rule: a senior manager must be responsible for each agenda item. If items are not completed in a timely way, the manager must write a note on the online communication explaining the problem, the resolution, and new time frame.

Meetings can be an important activity for collaboration and creativity if they are managed properly and taken as a serious utilization of time and output. Ask yourself: Do you want to meet? Or get work accomplished collaboratively?

__________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? and NYTimes Business Bestsellers in the area of sales, decision facilitation, change management, and helping buyers buy. She is developer of Buying Facilitation® and a recognized thought leader in communication and decision making. She is a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant. For those in sales, coaching or leadership want to communicate better Sharon Drew Morgen has the tools to help make improvements with online learning, group coaching, or on-site training. Sharon Drew can coach and train your sales teams or license trainers to prospect and get more appointments by finding real buyers on the first call. She can be reached at: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen May 25th, 2015

Posted In: News

I recently accepted a cold call from an insurance guy because I was thinking of switching providers. Instead of facilitating my buying decision, the bias in his questions terminated our connection:

TODD: Hello Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd with XYZ. Are you interested in new car insurance?
SDM: I am.
TODD: Is your main concern lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: You don’t care about saving money?
SDM: Of course I do.
TODD: So your main concern IS lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: So what is it?
SDM: I’m interested in a personal connection, in knowing that if I have an accident I will be handled by someone who will take care of me.
TODD: I can promise you I’ll take care of you. My clients love me. Do you want to discuss how much you’ll save?

And, we were done.

Good sellers and coaches pose better questions than Todd’s, of course. But the conversation exemplifies how a Questioner’s biased questions can significantly influence outcomes.

THE BIAS INHERENT IN QUESTIONS

Questions restrict answers to the assumptions and biases of the Questioner; Responders respond within the limits set by the question. Asking someone “What did you have for breakfast?” won’t elicit the answer “I bought a lamp.” Even questions that attempt to open a dialogue, like “What can you tell me about the problem?” or gather data, like “Who’s in charge of decision making?” merely elicit top-of-mind responses that my not effectively represent – and indeed might cloud – the issue. Biased question; biased answer.

Sometimes questions are so biased and restricted that the real answer might get overlooked. ‘Do you prefer the red ball or the blue ball?’ excludes not only the green ball, but a preference for a bat, or a discussion about the Responder’s color blindness. But a question such as: ‘What sort of a game implement could be easily carried and engage all employees?” might elicit a response of a ball or marbles or Monopoly and include more team members.

Most questions pull or push the data sought by the Questioner, making it difficult to know if

the communication partners make the same assumptions;
the wording of the question is ideal;
a better answer exists outside the limits of the question;
the question encompasses the full set of possible responses.

What if the best answer is outside of the framework of the question? Or the question isn’t translated accurately by the Responder? Or there is an historic bias between the Questioner and Responder that makes communication difficult?

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS

Questions can be used to facilitate choice, to lead Responders to new options within their own (often unconscious) value system, rather than as set ups to the Questioner’s self-serving objectives. Using a Facilitative Question, the above dialogue would sound like this:

TODD: Hi Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd, an insurance agent with XYZ Corp. I’m selling car insurance. Is this a good time to speak?
SDM: Sure.
TODD: I’m wondering: If you are considering changing your insurance provider, what would you need to know about another provider to be certain you’d end up getting the coverage and service you deserve?

The question – carefully worded to match a Responder’s criteria for change – shifts the bias from Todd’s self-serving objectives to enabling me in a true discovery process; from his selling patterns to my buying patterns. How different our interaction would have been if his goal was to facilitate my buying decision path rather than using his misguided persuasion tactics to sell.

I developed Facilitative Questions decades ago to enable any Questioner to facilitate someone’s route to congruent change. With no manipulation or bias, they require a different form of listening, wording, and objectives, thereby avoiding resistance and encouraging trust between sellers, coaches, consultants and their clients.

Take a look at your own questioning strategy to see if they might work for you:

*How are your questions perceived by your Responders? How do you know? What’s your risk?
*How do your questions address a unique Responder’s decision criteria?
*How do your questions bias, restrict, enhance, or ignore possibilities?
*What criteria to you use to choose the words to formulate questions?
*To ensure any new skills would work effectively with your successful skills, what would you need to know or consider before adopting additional question formulation skills?

Remember: your innate curiosity or intuition may not be sufficient to facilitate another’s unconscious route to change – or buy – congruently. You can always gather data once the route to change is established and you’re both on the same page. Change the goals of your questions from discovering situations you can provide answers for, to facilitating real core change. Before buyers or clients will work with you, they have to do this for themselves anyway. You might as well do it with them and create a trusting relationship.

____________________________________________________

Facilitative Questions follow a specific path and wording. I’ve trained sellers to use them for lead generation, to make appointments with the right decision makers (often helped by gatekeepers) and teach prospects to assemble Buying Decision Teams and reach consensus; to help coaches find – and keep – ideal clients, and facilitate their change efficiently. They are great for small and complex sales, for prospecting and lead gen, for team building, for coaching clients seeking change, for change implementations. And for doctors, lawyers, communication professionals, therapists, school administrators, and leaders.

If you’d like to learn how to formulate Facilitative Questions, either get this Learning Accelerator, or contact me to discuss team training or coaching: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. You can read about the use of Facilitative Questions and the full path of change in Dirty Little Secrets: www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen March 30th, 2015

Posted In: Listening, News

Buyer Personas do a great job targeting marketing and sales campaigns to reach the most probable buying audience. But it’s possible to make them even more efficient.

Here’s a question: Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy? The belief is that if you can sell/market appropriately – the right campaign to the right buyer with the right solution at the right time – buyers will buy. If that were true, you’d be closing a helluva lot more than you’re closing. Sure, Buyer Personas make a difference in your close rate. But it could be higher.

Currently, your targeted campaigns blanket probable audiences and find buyers at the exact moment they are considering buying, merely closing the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier and facilitate (and influence) the complete buying journey.

STAGES IN THE BUYING DECISION PATH

Sales and marketing address activities surrounding solution placement: solution pitch details, solution features, etc., vendor details, gathering needs. But neither facilitate the entire decision path which constitutes issues beyond choosing a solution. Some might call these ‘Pre-Sales’ events. I call it the Buying Decision Path, along which sales is merely one of the entry points needed to close a sale.

Briefly, here are the stages buyers go through prior to purchasing a solution ((Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it fully details each stage www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com):

1. Idea stage.
2. Brainstorming stage. Idea discussed with colleagues.
3. Initial discussion stage. Colleagues discuss the problem, posit who to include on Buying Decision Team, consider possible fixes and fallout. Action groups formed. Research begins. New Team members invited.
4. Contemplation stage. Group discusses
* how to fix the problem with known resources,
*whether to create a workaround using internal fixes or seek an external solution, and acceptable type/amount of fallout from each,
*people who would need to buy-in.
5. Organization stage.
6. Change management stage. Group determines
*if more research is necessary (and who will do it),
*if all appropriate people are involved (and who to invite),
*a review of all elements of the problem and solution,
*the level of disruption and change management as per type of solution chosen,
*the pros/cons/possibilities of external solution vs current vendor vs workaround.
7. Coordination stage. Review needs, ideas, issues of any new members invited aboard and how they affect choices and goals; incorporate change considerations for each solution; delineate everyone’s thoughts re goals and change capacity; appropriate research responsibilities.
8. Research stage. Specific research for each possible solution; seek answers to how fallout or change would be managed with each solution.
9. Consensus stage. Buying Decision Team members meet to share research and determine the type of solution, fallout, possibilities, problems, considerations in re management, policies, job descriptions, HR issues, etc. General decisions made. Buy-in and consensus necessary.
10. Action stage. Responsibilities apportioned to manage specifics of Stage 9. Owners of tasks do thorough research and make calls to several vendors for interviews and data gathering.
11. Second brainstorming stage. Discussion on results of data gathering including fallout/ benefits of each. Favored vendors pitched by Team members.
12. Choice stage. New solution agreed on. Change management issues delineated and leadership initiatives prepared to avoid disruption. Vendor contacted.
13. Implementation stage.

Buyers have to manage these stages (most of which are not solution- or problem-specific) with you or without you. Without being directly involved with behind-the-scenes politics or processes you’re left waiting, pushing product data, and hoping to be there when they’re ready. And knowing the details of your Buyer Persona is insufficient.

Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy? Right now your efforts to sell and market are bringing in no more than 5% close rate (net). To become the vendor who truly helps buyers buy, to get an early leg-up on the competition and become part of the Buying Decision Team during the Pre-Sales process, sales (entering at stage 1) and marketing (entering at stage 3) can add another layer of skills, tools, goals, and touch points.

Buying Facilitation® is a Pre-sales Management model that I’ve developed and taught for 30 years with profoundly different results from using sales and marketing alone. It uses neither sales nor marketing thinking: it employs a new form of question, a different type of listening, and a systems-thinking role consistent with true consulting to facilitate the issues that bias the buying decision. And then you can sell earlier and faster, to the right people, on the solution placement end.

I can teach your sales team how to become facilitators, or show your marketing team ways to design the right questions to help buyers traverse each stage of their unique buying journey. See more articles on www.sharondrewmorgen.com. Or call me: Sharon Drew 512 457 0246.

Learn how to hear buyers effectively with Sharon Drew’s new book What?

Sharon Drew Morgen March 2nd, 2015

Posted In: Listening, News

« Previous Page — Next Page »

On Becoming 70

Two Cold Call Case Studies: Why Your Cold Calls Aren’t Working

How Techies Can Gather Good Data And Help Users Implement

Sales is a Flawed Model

Can Collaboration Work?

Help Marketing Know Buyers Well Enough…

Content Marketing that Converts

Meetings: The Purpose, The Pain, The Possibility

Questions: The Problems and the Possibilities

Using Buyer Personas During Pre-Sales Stages