When Does A Buyer Buy? - Sharon Drew Morgen

Buyer facilitation and my take on what I have seen to date

I have read numerous blogs, watched you tube type videos, and articles concerning buyer facilitation that Sharon Drew suggests as a very effective way to change buyer�s resistance too changes. Normal selling is a discovery of needs, wants, and more needs with little thought of how it will affect those who use the change.

I take buying facilitation as focusing on the ease of change more than the solution provided. Proving the change will not affect mentally the way change is perceived thus lessening the resistance to change while increasing the want to purchase. To make it easy for me to understand it is similar to installing the equipment and showing them how easy it is to use after the fact and this explained to those involved prior to the selling. I could be wrong. Getting everyone on board and influencing the decision maker to move forward.

The illusion of difficulties arriving due to change becomes an obstacle with the sales process. Too much time not enough time the people involved with the change and change is difficult to accept. The emotion that comes with this is dealt with and used as a primary tool to convince the buyer to move forward.

To help bring the solution on board everyone is required to be convinced that change is necessary. Convincing the decision makers that change is necessary requires the sales professional to get rid of the change excuses and turn them into buying motives. Sharon Drew is crafting measures that prove the ease of change along with the cause and effect of that change, convincing the buyer to move forward.

The sales professional is taught to do away with objections and make them a thing of the past. Do you suppose that this is not doing away with objections however it is using the objections as a way to convince the owner to move forward? Convincing the buyer that change is coming and getting them to accept the change. It then takes the next step as a method to bring the solution and price to light.

I am excited about this book and opening a new dimension or re-examining old ways that I have forgotten or shelved. Hopefully my opinion of this does not get in my way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Blackwell

Hi Tom. Because I am not an authority on the topic and don't want to speak out of turn allow me to respond to your question by posting a couple of excerpts from Sharon Drew's writings:

Hi Jeff...

I think I'm getting it. Slowly, tediously, but I think there is a glimmer. I think she's saying "Large organizations have the same decisions to be made as small ones, it's just that you have organizations within organizations that have all these same buying decisions to be made independantly about your/their system/solution before the final decision can be made. I can show you how to do this!"

Quote:

Sales is based on placing a solution.

This is quite a revelation...

Ok... just being facetious..

Quote:

And it comes in at the wrong time in the buyer’s decision making. Before they can buy they must figure out all of the people and policies, rules and initiatives that are behind-the-scenes and will be affected by a new solution (which represents change) entering their system. Unfortunately, buyers don’t know the process they’ll have to manage as they begin their search for excellence. So they end up giving us, and operating from, poor data until they figure this all out. The time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle.

Ok this I have all kinds of issues with. She needs to say what kind of sales she is talking about. When I’m across the table from a business owner suggesting that he needs an employee benefit plan, or a young couple recently married asking the question “does he want her to pay the bills or does he want me to pay the bills in case he dies or becomes disabled, there’s just not a lot of pieces that we need to identify, evaluate and consider. They expect me to illuminate the process. She suggests that she’s going to illustrate what is going through their minds in making the buying decision. I KNOW what is going through their minds. What’s in it for me… simplistically, but I’m pretty confident you all know what I mean.

What kind of sales is she talking about? There are sophisticated sales that go far beyond the sales process I’m involved with. Know the players and their interest. This isn’t new stuff and neither is the concept of playing the players. However, for me, the players aren’t all that sophisticated and the message is again, what’s in it for me and do I have the right answer. Selling a multimillion dollar system, a healthcare plan to America, these are the “sophisticated” sales far beyond my “paygrade” that maybe this is who she is geared to.

Quote:

Buyers live in a system, and systems don’t like change. That’s why they have held onto their dysfunction for so long and not sought a solution sooner. The time it takes them to come up with their own internal answers, and get appropriate buy-in, they cannot make a purchase. Dirty Little Secrets explains how systems create and maintain dysfunction, and how to help the system change in a comfortable way, so sellers can enter at this end and actually lead the buyer through their change management. They have to do this anyway – it might as well be with us. And then they’ll be ready to buy, with no competitive issues, no objections, and no price

We’re clearly talking about organizations exponentially larger than where I feed. I don’t know that I’d use the words dysfunction to describe my clients or their business, but a call to Microsoft or my Cellphone carrier points out where this might vividly be the case.

This book might be of interest to me when I have time for light reading, but it’s pretty clear that 1) it’s tedious reading for me just in getting to her point… and 2) we’re talking about doing a spacewalk when I don’t even have my jet-rating yet.

Aloha…

Hi Tom.

Sharon Drew is writing about "change management" and "decision making" within a "system". A system can be an individual or an entire corporation.

Again, because I am not an authority on the topic and don't want to speak out of turn allow me to respond to your question by posting a few excerpts from Sharon Drew's writings:

Can I use this with what I’m doing now?

Quote:

Because we will be facilitating the internal change management and decision making first, we will then add solution placement skills second. Sales has only managed a very small part of the buying decision – the solution placement end – and we have not been taught an additional skill set that facilitates decisions. The Buying Decision® model is used first – then sales. And your sales will be much much easier as you’ll already be on the Buying Decision Team when it’s time to discuss the solution.

I think I know what buyers are going through because of all of my years in the field– don’t I?

Quote:

If you knew all that you needed to know, you’d be closing more sales than you’re closing now. You may know what they need – and you are probably correct – but that doesn’t mean the buyer knows how to manage all of the off-line political issues, or vendor issues, or personality issues that need to be addressed to ensure buy-in from the buyer’s end. It’s not so simple as need + solution = excellence. We’ve omitted the entire range of issues buyers must contend with behind-the-scenes.

Does Dirty Little Secrets tell me where buyers go when they say “I’ll call you back” and teach me what to do about it?

Quote:

Dirty Little Secrets explains all of the change issues and the buying decision steps that buyers must address before making a buying decision. It’s the place buyers go on their own, and we’ve not been able to go their with them because they are going inside their system and making decisions that often have nothing whatsoever to do with our solution or their need. The book focuses on the systems that create and maintain a need and how they need to be managed before any change (like resolving a problem) can take place. That’s where buyers are going, and now we can help them. But it’s not sales.

Hi Jeff...

It is obvious that the dirty little secret here is that yer shilling fer her book.... Ok Ok..... just kidding... just kidding...

I appreciate your taking time to post these little excerpts... because... I've gotten more out these little postings as far as my own understanding than I ever did with the original.

Have you read the book? Am I going to have to in anyway mortgage my little pincer for any length of time in order to afford this secret?

One thing I need to mention is that she is a little presumptuous about things.... we aren't making enough sales? As you probably know, I recently immersed myself into action selling, and though I've a long way to go, one thing I find happening is that things seem to be following a natural progression because of planning and the next step just seems to sorta happen automatically... and I'm still a little overwhelmed by it.... preparation... If ever their was a magic elixer for sales... be prepared.

Continuing along her presumptions...

Quote:

we have not been taught an additional skill set that facilitates decisions. The Buying Decision� model is used first � then sales. And your sales will be much much easier as you�ll already be on the Buying Decision Team when it�s time to discuss the solution

I'm not pushing action selling or any of the other question based sales program/processes, but HOW does this differ from those approaches where the salesperson is exploring the business realities of his client?

If you do your job, you are able to identify areas that your "solution", to use her words, might fit. Recommendations are made on what you identified in the exploration phase of your interaction with your client. If this succeeds, havent you been successful?

In YOUR OPINION, will this book help me? HOW will this book help me? How hard is this book to read? Her posts are difficult for ME. I'm a slow reader and need time to understand stuff... which I'm sure is easily recognized by some of the stuff I say to stuff that's said....

Much Aloha.. Tom

Understanding the organisation to which you are selling and its decision making process is obviously key to improving your probability of success. Internal resistance to your products or services can come from a variety of sources within the organisation, these can be predictable but also irrational. Understanding the decision making thread, the politics, who holds the power etc will help influence how the product or service is presented. For example, designing the service so that it meets the needs of a highly influential finance department is a sensible course of action. I think of this as helping the buyer to sell your service to his organisation.

Hi Tom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rattus58

Have you read the book? Am I going to have to in anyway mortgage my little pincer for any length of time in order to afford this secret?

Yes, I read the final or close to final draft. I don't know what the cost of the book will be however I wouldn't expect it to be more than a round of golf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rattus58

I'm not pushing action selling or any of the other question based sales program/processes, but HOW does this differ from those approaches where the salesperson is exploring the business realities of his client?

One is based on change management and decision making (Systems) while the other is based on solution placement (Sales).

Quote:

Originally Posted by rattus58

In YOUR OPINION, will this book help me? HOW will this book help me? How hard is this book to read? Her posts are difficult for ME. I'm a slow reader and need time to understand stuff... which I'm sure is easily recognized by some of the stuff I say to stuff that's said....

Here are a few questions to consider:

Do you ever lose prospects that need your solution?
Do you want to shorten the sales cycle?
Do you want to close a higher percentage of prospects?

If you answered "Yes" to one or more of those questions then I believe Sharon Drew's Buying Facilitation(R) Model which she describes in her book can help you.

"Dirty Little Secrets" is a sophisticated guide through managing the change issues and decisions that determine a buying decision. I would not classify it as an easy read.

Thanks Jeff....

I'll look into it then..

Much Aloha.... Tom

Thank you to everyone who participated in this thread. I appreciate your input about Sharon Drew's blog post and hope the excerpts I posted provided some clarity. I'll go ahead and close this thread now.

When Does A Buyer Buy? - Sharon Drew Morgen

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