Sharon Drew Morgen - Buying Facilitation

Originally Posted by Thomas Does your program show how to find more prospects too? Something else. I have read some of your articles and you talked about rapport. Some salespeople think you should talk about pictures on the prospects walls, and trophies, you know small talk, to build common ground or rapport. What do you think?

sorry, but that's b.s.

if you want to try to make nice, have fun. you and everyone else.

if you want to start off immediately helping your buyer make sense of how they will decide to be the best they can be by using their own criteria, it's a different conversation.

i train this stuff, and if you want to learn it, i'm running a rare public program that is part of a partner licensing program. i can't teach the material on the fly like this - hopefully you'll get to understand it a bit and i sure hope that helps.

but if you want to learn how to do it, it needs a program. www.newsalesparadigm.com/austin_0507.htm.

remember: there are two sides to the equation: the buying decision side and the selling side. you're still talking about the selling side - not asking questions about the buying side. pictures on their walls? they know what pictures they have already.
sd

The beauty of Sharon Drew's book is you learn the process by practicing it on yourself, first -- you become your own "buyer" in reframing your sales process. That said, there is a difference between learning Buying Facilitation(which really is easy, because it makes such transparent good sense compared to chasing customers around the wheel like a hampster) and developing the confidence to actually use it with customers when success, money and ego (not to mention one's job) are on the line.

I like what Goleman suggests about Emotionally Intelligent Learning -- we're really "re-wiring our beliefs of what's possible for us to do." I started doing this years ago with sales clients and then found a very solid description of why it works described as "stealth learning" in Goleman's Primal Leadership, (pages 158-160 - the whole Chapter 8 Metamorphosis is worth reading). In essense, you combine mental rehearsal with low-threat/low risk practice situations (not with customers) where you can botch a technique without penalty. For example, in a conversation with a friend contemplating a decision, practice using the facilitative questions she focuses on until they feel "right."

Originally Posted by sharondrew sorry, but that's b.s. if you want to try to make nice, have fun. you and everyone else.

I am relieved that you think that way. I do too.

Originally Posted by Thomas I am relieved that you think that way. I do too.

it's about helping the buyer make a decision. sellers have used product data to try to do that, and all that does is keep the buyer confused, by their stakeholders, business issues, and how to solve their business problem.

buyers don't want your product. they want to solve a business problem. your product may or may not do that. but you can do that. help them do that. the product will be purchased as part of the process.

would you rather sell? or have someone buy?

One more question if you don't mind Sharon Drew. On paper this could be seen as an interviewing process. Is that what we’re doing here?

Originally Posted by Jeff Blackwell One more question if you don't mind Sharon Drew. On paper this could be seen as an interviewing process. Is that what we’re doing here?

well... yup. seems to be.

what's so amazing for me is the gentleness with which people are asking their questions. so many sales folks become hostile to the thought that what they are doing might not be working as well as it might - they take it personally, although as we know, the field of sales hasn't known how to enter the buyer's space as Buying Facilitation does until now and it certainly isn't the fault of hard-working professional sales folks.

i find myself learning from these gentle queries - learning what actually might be curious, or uncomfortable for folks, or truly something quizzical.

maybe we're interviewing each other (although goodness knows i'm talking so much that saying that is probably strange!)...

so, thanks, everyone. hope you're having as much fun, and learning as much, as i am.
sd

How does your program differ from that of other NLP Gurus who teach NLP in the sales profession such as Kenrick Clevland and Kevin Hogan?

Originally Posted by Jorel How does your program differ from that of other NLP Gurus who teach NLP in the sales profession such as Kenrick Clevland and Kevin Hogan?

i've been in the nlp environment since the early 80s. in fact, my books are still sold at nlp conventions, as i use nlp as the basic foundational thinking of my model.

but the above gurus are using nlp to help with rapport, etc, based on the seller/outsider trying to persuade the buyer/insider to do what the seller wants.

another foundation of my thinking is buddhist in nature: that we are all one, all part of the same system, and must all serve each other. nlp (a la grinder and bandler who are not usually considered spiritual people... trust me on this one) is based on how to replicate excellence, not about the system of how decisions get made. i say this as a master prac, as well as having had an entire third year 'Beyond' program with a small group led by Gene Early (who is a very spiritual person, i might add). in re the buddhist ideas, Buying Facilitation is based on the seller actually serving the buyer to support the buyer in being all s/he can be, using his/her own internal criteria.

the final foundation of my work is systems thinking. sellers don't think that way. here is a quote from one of my books:
"Make no mistake: this resolution of systems components needs to happen anyway - with you or without you - and the time it takes buyers to accomplish this is the length of the sales cycle."

the questioning system, the sequence of decision making, are all created around the idea that until someone/a group knows how to make a decision that will account for all variables so that when change happens there will be no disruption (you've heard of the term 'homeostasis'?), nothing will happen.

so nlp thinking is a small part of what i'm doing here, but certainly not the main part. the systems bit is i think...
sd

Originally Posted by Jeff Blackwell One more question if you don't mind Sharon Drew. On paper this could be seen as an interviewing process. Is that what we’re doing here?

It does read like the buying facilitation process is an add-on to the interview step. You help the client make the decision to buy and the decision of which product to buy.

Originally Posted by sharondrew ...use the phone more proactively and don't use your body as a prospecting tool;

Last month I bought your book "Sales on the Line". Is telemarketing part of the training in May?

Originally Posted by fred It does read like the buying facilitation process is an add-on to the interview step. You help the client make the decision to buy and the decision of which product to buy. Last month I bought your book "Sales on the Line". Is telemarketing part of the training in May?

hi fred:

2 things - last thing first as it's easier. Sales on the Line was written 15 years ago. you might want to consider my newest ebook called Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that influences and expands thinking. you can get it at: www.buyingfacilitation.com
it breaks down the entire decisioning sequence, introduces Facilitative Questions, etc.
and, i have a very very strong bias toward the phone. sellers can use the phone to do almost everything, as it's not about the 'relationship' so much as it is about the buyer making decisions. and since those are unique, and happen within the buyer's environment, the seller doesn't have to be there, and the very model itself creates such strong rapport that face visits aren't necessary.
in all of my years of selling training in the BF method, i have only met one client first - and that was cuz they lived right here in austin. i've signed mid-six figure contracts and have never met the client. so, yes, all of my work centers around using Facilitative Questions, with the phone as the bias.
note that Sales on the Line, while a lovely little book, was written far before i understood what i was really doing.

next: Buying Facilitation is not an interview process. it would be as if the seller were a robot, asking a specific type of question to help the other person determine how to move forward, define their own needs, and figure out how to make the decisions to involve the necessary people, change the necessary policies and vendor relationships, and handle the politics - all that have created and maintain the status quo.

of course the seller isn't a robot but the seller needs wholly different skills for this activity than needs analysis/product placement. you must learn to listen for the system that thebuyer is speaking in, and not about the content. that takes the full 3 days of the program in fact.

when i hear 'my partners aren't ready right now to make a decision,' for example, it might mean: i am happy but can't get those bums to move, or i am unhappy and blaming others, or we have a huge initiative going on and we can't take our eye off of the ball, or there is a political/personal conflict going on, etc. and we have no way of knowing , but it's obviously stopping the decision process. the FQ i would ask here is: 'what would you and your decision partners need to be doing differently to be ready to align behind a solution?'

that question would get the buyer to start dealing with whatever the internal problem is (which i do NOT need to know as i'm not one of them and i cannot resolve the problem even if i knew the answer) and on the spot start making the decisions to start actions to heal the issue. remember that these questions are not asked on their own, but part of a sequence (too complicated to teach/explain outside of the classroom but the new ebook has a chapter on it) that leads the buyer very comfortably through all of the decisions that are separate from fixing their problem.

so, not an interview process per se, but certainly sits on the front end of sales and supports what needs to happen anyway before a buying decision gets made.

ok?? come to the program. there are going to be less than 10 people there and you'll get a lot of support in using the phone, formulating the questions, listening/understanding all that is going on for the buyer that needs to be managed.

sd