Sharon Drew Morgen - Buying Facilitation

Originally Posted by Sales Pro 1000 Sharon Drew, Haven't as yet seen any of your material available for sale. Does participation in this forum obligate us to purchase materials referenced here? Chuck

No it doesn't. Howver, if you think that you will learn anything that you can effectively apply with understanding and skill from any forum, think again. This forum does well to point out things that can improve sellng skills.

I have read Sharon Drew Morgen' books and I highly recommend them to everyone who is serious about the sales profession. You can learn new concepts, with clarity and depth, that you will not find anywhere else.

What's missing and how did it get that way?
I sell manufactured homes as personal property which makes financing very hard to come by. Very few prospects understand this until I tell them. This is one of my selling points when securing a listing. I tell them they've got a big problem that isn't going to go away and then I tell them how the company I work for has a solution to that problem in our finance department. If the customer doesn't understand what's missing without me telling them, in my example access to financing, how will questions alone help bring about understanding unless the question was something like "did you know financing one of these was very difficult?" and because of their current beliefs many won't believe it until they research it for themselves. How do you get around that?

How can the prospect fix it himself?
I work with people who are selling their manufactured homes by themselves. Some of these people will list with a broker but only after they've tried it for awhile and couldn't sell it themself and some will sell their homes by themself especially in parks where there is a lot of traffic. One of my selling points is identifying the consequences of not selling or not selling within their time frame with questions like "what happens if the home does not sell this season, what are you going to do?". If the prospect believes he can fix it himself, in my example where the home is in a park where there is a lot of traffic, how will facilitative questions lead the prospect to change his beliefs?

What are the systems elements that must be attended to?
Neighbors, family and other agents sometimes talk with the prospects before I do and get behind the prospects decision to sell their home without an agent. This isn't good because some prospects would rather save face than accept my help even if it means their home might not sell. How will facilitative questions help the prospect resolve this or save face?

Sharon Drew how often do you get the response, "I don't know" to your facilitative questions and how often do those responses become a sticking point?

Example 1:

FQ: "What would you need to see/hear/feel to recognize when it was time to do something different?" Response: "I don't know. I'll have to give that some thought."

Example 2:

FQ: "What criteria do you use to decide what aspects of the situation need to be changed?" Response: "I don't know. This is all new and I haven't established any criteria yet."

Originally Posted by SpeedRacer Sharon Drew how often do you get the response, "I don't know" to your facilitative questions and how often do those responses become a sticking point?

Good questions + examples SR.

Do you find that most buyers don't initially recognize on their own the criteria a solution will have to include before they will make a change?

hi houston:
you're right:no one recognizes the criteria for change/decision making. they happen onto it eventually. that's one of the biggest problem in the 'sales' field - the assumptions that the buyer understands their process and that the decision is based on the immediate 'need' and Identified Problem. in fact, because the buyer's system has created the Identified Problem and holds it in place daily (by continually reinventing systems to do that ... so that the people they hired to do the 'work around' continue to do their jobs, the old vendors still are there and the prospects uses them, etc.).

Buying Facilitation actually codes the way brains make decisions and uses the Facilitative Questions to lead the prospect/buyer through all of their decision making criteria that they need to get to anyway - it just takes them quite some time to discover what it is. and of course, they can't make a final decision until everything is in place and they are convinced chaos won't occur because of any decisions.

i've moved sales from a product placement model to a decision facilitation model that folks the product into the solution design.

good question. thanks... sd

Before anyone can make a decision to do something different, they need to recognize that something is missing that they hadn't considered. Telling them something is missing will make them react and defend, rather than teaching them how to happily open a space for something new THAT WILL MANAGE ALL OF THE ARTERIES AND VEINS THAT KEEP THE STATUS QUO IN PLACE.

until or unless they are able to move forward WITH congruence and internal harmony for all apsects of their status quo (currently all set up to maintain their beliefs) they will do nothing.

difference between: why do you wear your hair like that? or i think if you cut your hair you'd get more jobs in the mainstream sector, and you'd look more sophisticated; and, (FQ): How would you know when it was time to reconsider your hairstyle?

The Facilitative Questions work wiht systems and brain function to help the decisions that have already been made make room for something new. information (right as it might be) doesn't help a new decision to be made unless there is an actual space made for the new idea/behavior. if you put info IN, and it's accepted, that means the buyer was seeking exactly that bit, in exactly that way. so if you put data IN, you will be successful with only a handful.

Using BF you will help many others easily learn how to open for new possibilities. sd

i'm not speaking of the data points. i'm speaking of the decisions they need to make before they can even hear or find your talking points relevant.

there are 2 aspects to a sale: the product sale and the buying decision. you are talking about the product sale and assume that if you promote, present your data well they'll know what to do with it. if that were true you'd close every sale.

buyers must decide in ways that support their own internal decision process, and you have no idea what this is like cuz you're not them.

THEY ARE THE ONES THAT NEED TO KNOW how they choose agents to work with, what's stopped them from finding the right resources, etc.

can you see the difference? truly, not to 'pitch' but you might want to buy my ebook 'Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions.'

good luck..

Originally Posted by Thomas What's missing and how did it get that way? I sell manufactured homes as personal property which makes financing very hard to come by. Very few prospects understand this until I tell them. This is one of my selling points when securing a listing. I tell them they've got a big problem that isn't going to go away and then I tell them how the company I work for has a solution to that problem in our finance department. If the customer doesn't understand what's missing without me telling them, in my example access to financing, how will questions alone help bring about understanding unless the question was something like "did you know financing one of these was very difficult?" and because of their current beliefs many won't believe it until they research it for themselves. How do you get around that?

you don't need to know these. the buyer must recognize all of their internal systems - the spouse issues, the historic house issues - you don't need to know any of it. but unless/until they manage these historic issues, they will do nothing. sd

Originally Posted by Thomas What are the systems elements that must be attended to? Neighbors, family and other agents sometimes talk with the prospects before I do and get behind the prospects decision to sell their home without an agent. This isn't good because some prospects would rather save face than accept my help even if it means their home might not sell. How will facilitative questions help the prospect resolve this or save face?