Decision Making

My understanding from checking the sales literature is that the toughest challenge is to get the prospect to make up his mind.

I can attest to this as being true. When I worked in Best Buy's tv department, the most frequent complaint I got was the customer had too many tvs to pick from. A Best Buy associate had advised me that customer's wanted to have their choices narrowed down so we had to ask lifestyle questions and find out what the customer was particularly interested in as we gathered information.

I was bedeviled by a problem: did the customer make up his or her mind on the spot or did he have to come back later? (I was selling an HDTV which ranged from $2,500 to $3,000). That same associate, when I asked him that question, responded that the prospects come back later to buy.

As I explained in another thread, I solved the problem of giving prospects consumer choice. What happened was two weeks before I ended my tour with Best Buy, me and an associate checked the inventory showing 10 HDTVs of that model in the warehouse. Then on my last day (an Easter Sunday), a couple bought the tv outright so me and another associate checked the inventory and...the warehouse was cleaned out! No more tvs left.

Since I worked only weekends, it's possible that people came back during weekdays to buy (I still get credit for the sale). The windup to this story is I came back over a month later to see what the tv department looked like (it was being renovated). The associate who had advised me, upon seeing me, exclaimed "He's the one who cleaned out the warehouse on the JVC" (there's a story behind this which I don't want to get into). That completes my story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wonderboy

My understanding from checking the sales literature is that the toughest challenge is to get the prospect to make up his mind.

Sharon Drew Morgen's "Buying Facilitation" teaches how to shorten the buying cycle.

Unfortunately, sales has been based on offering a product to fit a need, with the assumption that the right product will fit the right need. But that isn't true or we'd all be selling a lot more.

The reality is that the 'need' or Identified Problem, as i call it, is merely part of a much larger issue that sits within a 'system' (people, policies, rules, hidden agendas and feelings, relationships, budget and time issues, future wishes, etc). This system has been around, and operates well-enough, for it to remain the way it is without change. In fact, the system has already built into it a work-around for the Identified Problem (or it would have resolved the problem already).

When prospects start thinking that they might need to resolve the IP, they are at the beginning of the process of figuring out how to add something new to their system - and they spend quite a bit of time ensuring that the new product or resolution will NOT upset the system (the system being far more important than any one part that might not be functioning that well on its own).

Sellers believe that when they see a problem, and have a product that will resolve that problem, that the buyer should be ready to buy. but they MUST go through a range of decisions to help them adopt something new, bring it in without disruption,and get the buy-in necessary to do that. Sales doesn't manage this end of the equation, being focused on needs-assessment and product sale.

If you want to help buyers figure out how to reach decisions, Buying Facilitation will do that. It's a sequenced approach that leads the buyer through the entire range of systems issues that need to be managed prior to them making a decision. They need to do this anyway - with you or without you - and the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle. And,again, sales has no model or skill set to manage this.

You might want to read my ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions. It introduces the whole concept here (www.buyingfacilitation.com).

And,you are right: because sales doesn't manage this end of the seller-buyer gap, it is the toughest challenge. But using Buying Facilitation mitigates this problem and it becomes easy to manage.

sd

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharon Drew Morgen

Unfortunately, sales has been based on offering a product to fit a need, with the assumption that the right product will fit the right need. But that isn't true or we'd all be selling a lot more.

The reality is that the 'need' or Identified Problem, as i call it, is merely part of a much larger issue that sits within a 'system' (people, policies, rules, hidden agendas and feelings, relationships, budget and time issues, future wishes, etc). This system has been around, and operates well-enough, for it to remain the way it is without change. In fact, the system has already built into it a work-around for the Identified Problem (or it would have resolved the problem already).

When prospects start thinking that they might need to resolve the IP, they are at the beginning of the process of figuring out how to add something new to their system - and they spend quite a bit of time ensuring that the new product or resolution will NOT upset the system (the system being far more important than any one part that might not be functioning that well on its own).

Sellers believe that when they see a problem, and have a product that will resolve that problem, that the buyer should be ready to buy. but they MUST go through a range of decisions to help them adopt something new, bring it in without disruption,and get the buy-in necessary to do that. Sales doesn't manage this end of the equation, being focused on needs-assessment and product sale.

If you want to help buyers figure out how to reach decisions, Buying Facilitation will do that. It's a sequenced approach that leads the buyer through the entire range of systems issues that need to be managed prior to them making a decision. They need to do this anyway - with you or without you - and the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle. And,again, sales has no model or skill set to manage this.

You might want to read my ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions. It introduces the whole concept here (www.buyingfacilitation.com).

And,you are right: because sales doesn't manage this end of the seller-buyer gap, it is the toughest challenge. But using Buying Facilitation mitigates this problem and it becomes easy to manage.

sd

Sharon (if I may address you that way), we think alike. At Best Buy I was wearing a shirt (my uniform, so to speak) that identified me as a JVC rep and not as a Best Buy rep so when people asked me for a recommendation and I recommended the JVC tv I represented, there was a problem which I eventually fixed.

To show how complicated selling can be, when I tried selling a newspaper to a prospect who was loyal to his brand of newspaper, I always failed. Not until I suggested that he compare his paper to the one I represented on a trial basis did I successfully start selling the paper to that class of customer (which in effect allowed him to suspend his final decision to go with my paper or not - consumers love to shop and have a choice). I also want to note that this rebuttal wasn't part of the script I worked with at the time (BTW, I no longer rely on rebuttals as they're very unprofessional and led to the demise of the B2C telemarketing industry).

Working with a prospect who hasn't made the decision to buy (solve a problem) is low probability selling. No selling system is going to change that reality.

hi Wonderboy:
Just for your information, my first name is Sharon Drew - like Mary Ann... and I would much prefer it if you would call me by my first name. I actually designed the name for myself about 30 years ago, and still love it... And thanks for asking!

Good for you for moving beyond your script and understanding it's about the buyer's decision, not the product. When or if you ever get into sales again, you might want to add a few tools and actually help the buyer work from his/her own criteria by leading them down their own decision sequencing path that is available with Buying Facilitation. And, you're right; so few sellers understand it's about the buying decision rather than the product.

thanks for your remarks.. sd

Sharon Drew go you go through your sequence with everyone or just those who are having trouble making a decision?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

Sharon Drew go you go through your sequence with everyone or just those who are having trouble making a decision?

Everyone.

As far as i can tell, everyone is generally a part of the decision team. i've gotten huge pieces of work at very well known Fortune 500 companies from the secretary/assistant as well as from a receptionist. after all, who is in control - you or the gatekeeper??? doesn't she need to make a decision as to what to do with the call???

when i worked with KPMG they had such a complex sale that we had 5 iterations of people we had to use the model with (and brought a $50,000,000 sale from a 3 year sales cycle to a 4 month cycle). when working with Clinique, we taught the counter clerk how to use the Facilitative Questions with someone purchasing, say, a lipstick - and taught the customer how to decide on a lipstick AND mascara.

even a clerk at a store needs to decide how to work with you or help you.

i use the model with friends, lovers, family, clients, prospects, colleagues. it's part of my life.

i figure: if i can help others reach their own best decisions, using their own criteria, i'm a servant leader and have made the world a better place.
sd

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharon Drew Morgen

Everyone.

Wouldn't that be overkill for the people who already made their decision and know what they want?

If you are lucky, and your customer/client has done all (ALL) their internal/systemic 'homework', they will call or walk in, plunk their money down, and buy. Those are those lucky sales that happen occassionally.

But if you experience customers saying they know what they want, and then they go away and don't close as quickly as you think they might, what do you think they are doing??? they are lining up their decision criteria and managing their internal people/policies/relationships so there won't be disruption.

If you 'know' you want a Bentley, you might go into the showroom to have a look, talk price, etc. but then have to face the reality of going home to tell your wife, or your banker, and a whole 'nother set of decisions come into play.

Btw: i noticed that Calvin (whose response didn't come through to me before) says that if the client hasn't made the decision, they are not buyers. Not true. Almost no clients show up knowing all of their decision criteria, given that it is only that one person/group that shows up. Almost all decisions are not made with one person or group.

Remember: there is the tip of the iceberg where sales has focused, and the rest of the iceberg, where buyers go quietly to figure out what they need to figure out. Sellers have had no way to follow them there or effect change there before now with Buying Facilitation. Buying Facilitation manages the entire range of internal elements that got the client to the point of needing a solution - all of the historic ones, personal ones, problems from other departments years ago etc - and need to be reconciled before they can go about the task of fixing the Identified Problem at the tip.

In reality, buyers are going to do this WITH your or WITHOUT you. Sales has had no way to enter at this place until now. As a result, sales take at least - AT LEAST - 4x longer to close than necessary.

sd

	#1
Wonderboy	Decision Making My understanding from checking the sales literature is that the toughest challenge is to get the prospect to make up his mind. I can attest to this as being true. When I worked in Best Buy's tv department, the most frequent complaint I got was the customer had too many tvs to pick from. A Best Buy associate had advised me that customer's wanted to have their choices narrowed down so we had to ask lifestyle questions and find out what the customer was particularly interested in as we gathered information. I was bedeviled by a problem: did the customer make up his or her mind on the spot or did he have to come back later? (I was selling an HDTV which ranged from $2,500 to $3,000). That same associate, when I asked him that question, responded that the prospects come back later to buy. As I explained in another thread, I solved the problem of giving prospects consumer choice. What happened was two weeks before I ended my tour with Best Buy, me and an associate checked the inventory showing 10 HDTVs of that model in the warehouse. Then on my last day (an Easter Sunday), a couple bought the tv outright so me and another associate checked the inventory and...the warehouse was cleaned out! No more tvs left. Since I worked only weekends, it's possible that people came back during weekdays to buy (I still get credit for the sale). The windup to this story is I came back over a month later to see what the tv department looked like (it was being renovated). The associate who had advised me, upon seeing me, exclaimed "He's the one who cleaned out the warehouse on the JVC" (there's a story behind this which I don't want to get into). That completes my story.

	#3
Sharon Drew Morgen "Top Sales Expert"	The customer's decision Unfortunately, sales has been based on offering a product to fit a need, with the assumption that the right product will fit the right need. But that isn't true or we'd all be selling a lot more. The reality is that the 'need' or Identified Problem, as i call it, is merely part of a much larger issue that sits within a 'system' (people, policies, rules, hidden agendas and feelings, relationships, budget and time issues, future wishes, etc). This system has been around, and operates well-enough, for it to remain the way it is without change. In fact, the system has already built into it a work-around for the Identified Problem (or it would have resolved the problem already). When prospects start thinking that they might need to resolve the IP, they are at the beginning of the process of figuring out how to add something new to their system - and they spend quite a bit of time ensuring that the new product or resolution will NOT upset the system (the system being far more important than any one part that might not be functioning that well on its own). Sellers believe that when they see a problem, and have a product that will resolve that problem, that the buyer should be ready to buy. but they MUST go through a range of decisions to help them adopt something new, bring it in without disruption,and get the buy-in necessary to do that. Sales doesn't manage this end of the equation, being focused on needs-assessment and product sale. If you want to help buyers figure out how to reach decisions, Buying Facilitation will do that. It's a sequenced approach that leads the buyer through the entire range of systems issues that need to be managed prior to them making a decision. They need to do this anyway - with you or without you - and the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle. And,again, sales has no model or skill set to manage this. You might want to read my ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions. It introduces the whole concept here (www.buyingfacilitation.com). And,you are right: because sales doesn't manage this end of the seller-buyer gap, it is the toughest challenge. But using Buying Facilitation mitigates this problem and it becomes easy to manage. sd __________________ Would you rather sell... or have someone buy? \| Recommended Sales Resources

	#5
Calvin	Working with a prospect who hasn't made the decision to buy (solve a problem) is low probability selling. No selling system is going to change that reality.

	#6
Sharon Drew Morgen "Top Sales Expert"	It's about the buyer hi Wonderboy: Just for your information, my first name is Sharon Drew - like Mary Ann... and I would much prefer it if you would call me by my first name. I actually designed the name for myself about 30 years ago, and still love it... And thanks for asking! Good for you for moving beyond your script and understanding it's about the buyer's decision, not the product. When or if you ever get into sales again, you might want to add a few tools and actually help the buyer work from his/her own criteria by leading them down their own decision sequencing path that is available with Buying Facilitation. And, you're right; so few sellers understand it's about the buying decision rather than the product. thanks for your remarks.. sd

	#7
Thomas	Sharon Drew go you go through your sequence with everyone or just those who are having trouble making a decision?

	#10
Sharon Drew Morgen "Top Sales Expert"	when does the customer 'know'? If you are lucky, and your customer/client has done all (ALL) their internal/systemic 'homework', they will call or walk in, plunk their money down, and buy. Those are those lucky sales that happen occassionally. But if you experience customers saying they know what they want, and then they go away and don't close as quickly as you think they might, what do you think they are doing??? they are lining up their decision criteria and managing their internal people/policies/relationships so there won't be disruption. If you 'know' you want a Bentley, you might go into the showroom to have a look, talk price, etc. but then have to face the reality of going home to tell your wife, or your banker, and a whole 'nother set of decisions come into play. Btw: i noticed that Calvin (whose response didn't come through to me before) says that if the client hasn't made the decision, they are not buyers. Not true. Almost no clients show up knowing all of their decision criteria, given that it is only that one person/group that shows up. Almost all decisions are not made with one person or group. Remember: there is the tip of the iceberg where sales has focused, and the rest of the iceberg, where buyers go quietly to figure out what they need to figure out. Sellers have had no way to follow them there or effect change there before now with Buying Facilitation. Buying Facilitation manages the entire range of internal elements that got the client to the point of needing a solution - all of the historic ones, personal ones, problems from other departments years ago etc - and need to be reconciled before they can go about the task of fixing the Identified Problem at the tip. In reality, buyers are going to do this WITH your or WITHOUT you. Sales has had no way to enter at this place until now. As a result, sales take at least - AT LEAST - 4x longer to close than necessary. sd

Decision Making

Closing the Sale