By Sharon Drew Morgen | Jun 17, 2010 Sales Related
You are carefully prepared: great outfit, warm smile, solid slides, good knowledge of the needs and how to parallel them with your material. But wait: who, exactly, are you presenting to? And how do you know the members of the Buying Decision Team are present? or if what you are presenting will fit with the non-need-related elements of their buying criteria? After all: resolving a need has many elements that don’t apply directly to the problem or solution, and without the full complement issues managed, buyers can’t buy regardless of the efficacy of your solution.
I believe sellers present their product data far too early in the buying decision cycle and buyers really can’t effectively use all of the data offered. Remember that before buyers can finally buy, they must go through a wide array of behind-the-scenes change issues and decisions that affect their people and policies, relationships and market issues. When you stand up to present your solution, you have no idea what is going on internally, nor where they are in relation to getting the buy-in they need to make a change or a purchase.
Sadly, not only do you not know exactly where your buyers are in their decision cycle or how your buyers will buy, they don’t either. And because they haven’t completed their internal journey yet, they don’t actually know all that they need from an external vendor, nor do they know what they don’t need. It’s far, far too early. Continue reading “Presentations – Tips to help you beat your competition” »
By Sharon Drew Morgen | Jun 15, 2010 Cranky Tuesdays
Why do people attempt to turn my decision facilitation material into a sales model? Why do they use some of my vocabulary to try to manipulate clients? Frankly I am flummoxed by this. They’ve got a whole sales model to use to manipulate with.
Since today is Cranky Tuesday, I get to vent. And today I’m going to vent about sales folks and their stubborn choice to remain doing something so flawed, with such paltry results, that it’s a shame it’s been allowed to exist. Can you think of any other business model that builds in a 90%+ failure rate as acceptable business practice? Amazing. We hire 9x more people than we have to, wait 8x longer for sales to close than we should, get in to 1/2 of the prospects we should be meeting, and have to diminish our prices to accommodate confused buyers – and we keep this model and just keep trying harder? You know that’s the definition of insanity, right? Continue reading “Why do sales people like failure?” »
By Sharon Drew Morgen | Jun 14, 2010 Buying Facilitation® Monday, Top Posts
Do you have any idea why you try to get an appointment with a prospect – as your first priority? Let me guess:
- you believe that eye-to-eye contact will give you a better chance at a relationship, i.e. they will like you, and want to buy from you;
- you’ll be able to understand better what is going on because as you ask your questions you’ll be able to track the reactions and know where you stand;
- the fact that they are willing to make an appointment is proof that they are prospects – or you make them prospects once you’ve met with them;
- they’ll be able to see how professional you are and will learn to trust you;
- you’ll outshine the competition with the strength of your personality, your presentation, and your knowledge of their needs and industry.
Did I miss anything? It doesn’t matter, because all of the above are specious. Here is why. Continue reading “Seeking appointments is costing you sales” »
By Sharon Drew Morgen | Jun 11, 2010 Sales Related
Procurement folks have hard jobs. Not only do they have to find the right vendors and keep them in line – a Herculean task at best – but they have to manage all of their internal stakeholders. I began thinking about procurement when a colleague mentioned ‘buyers’ and I realized there was a whole field of folks who could be using Buying Facilitation® as a new skill set to enhance relationships, better manage the bottom line, and help companies serve those who serve them.
Procurement used to be a field made up of people with the green eyeshades and suspenders and bow ties. Nerds. Necessary evils. Now they are very, very sophisticated indeed. Some have even grown to the point of making procurement a profit center rather than a cost center. While they seem to be dragging their feet a bit adopting technology, they have certainly developed a highly refined sense of business (the value chain, the stakeholder’s initiatives, cradle to grave supply chain management) and are quite sophisticated. Continue reading “Procurement: how to help people collaborate” »
By Sharon Drew Morgen | Jun 10, 2010 Sales Related, Top Posts
Why do so many of your good prospects not close? You’ve worked hard doing your sales job: you gathered good data and understood their need, you were a trusted advisor, they liked you and your solution. You provided value. But they didn’t close.
Where did they go?
They went off-line. They went back to their old vendors and their internal solutions. They decided not to resolve the problem now. A new partner showed up with a fix that kinda resolved the problem. They decide to hire a new staff person with the funds they were going to use to pay for your solution. All or none of the above might be true. In fact, you have no idea where the prospect went.
I’ll tell you where the buyer went: They went to that place where you can’t go, to that private, off-line place that sales doesn’t give you skills for. They made their decisions to buy – or not buy – based on criteria that you were not involved with.
But it’s not your fault. Continue reading “Why Sales Fail” »
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I was recently interviewed by Bob Thompson of Customer Think. It was a thoughtful interview, but then again, Bob is quite a thoughtful person. His integrity and care about the customer-focused business environment is quite obvious. His site – Customer Think - offers very interesting articles and blogs that cover the thought leadership around customers and sellers. The articles are cogent, timely, well-written, and always interesting.
