Don’t Give Away Free Programs

Offering free programs to prospects is a massive waste of resource: not only are you trying to get prospects you don’t know to spend time they don’t have to do something they don’t think they need, it becomes a double sale – you must then discard ‘no-sayers’ from your list of perfectly good prospects who might have bought.

Stop Giving Away ProgramsYou could convince me if it worked. But the prospects that show up are either merely looking for a freebie (and possibly send lower level people) or are actually trialing several solutions.
It’s possible to use the phone to actually sell your solution! You do not need to give anything away for free! The sales problems you are facing are ‘sales model’ problems. You’re just not facilitating the comprehensive buy path, and assume that by letting prospects experience your solution you’ll bias their decision in favor of you.

But until buyers have all their ducks in a row – assemble everyone who will touch the final solution, compare internal fixes with current providers with external providers – they cannot buy regardless of whether your freebie is terrific. So they might attend your free program, love you, love the program, love your solution – and not buy because they aren’t ready, because they haven’t managed their internal politics, or  have their ‘need’ misdefined because HR was brought in too late, or they might fire someone. None of which, obviously, is connected to your solution.

The last step a buyer takes is to choose an external solution. Where are they along their buying decision path? How many of the influencers and decision makers have agreed on an external solution as the most effective fix? How will those issues be addressed? Because until they are, you have no idea who you are inviting into a free program.

Connect by facilitating change and getting buy-in, and then continue speaking with those who are on a trajectory to change that makes sense. Buying Facilitation® will teach you how to do that, and to enable those who CAN buy (vs. those who SHOULD buy). That way you can begin each conversation by teaching folks to buy and get rid of those who can’t. And in either case you do not need to offer a free program. I’ll teach you. Sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.comor www.buyingfacilitation.com.

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