I have a bias. I believe that the job of a seller is to first facilitate the risk management stuff people must complete before the sales/solution placement process begins. After all, until people determine their risk of change and get buy-in from all involved, they cannot, will not, self-identify as prospects.
This factor alone is responsible for low close rates: sellers attempt to place solutions with people who haven’t yet determined they can buy, and the sales model doesn’t offer a way to facilitate the non-sales, cultural, change/risk-related buying decision issues.
First let me introduce myself. As an original thinker and inventor of systemic change models, I’ve been on the cutting edge of the sales industry since 1987 when I trained my first Buying Facilitation® course to KLM (Helping Buyers Buy); in 1997 my book Selling with Integrity was on the New York Times Business Bestseller’s list.
If you’re not familiar with my work, I target the Pre-Sales Buy Side, by leading people through the overlooked personal and idiosyncratic issues they must address before they can buy anything and the determinant of the length of the sales cycle. I’ve trained Buying Facilitation® to 100,000 sales folks globally with an average 40% close rate over the control groups that average 5.4%.
I’ve also kept pretty good company over the decades: David Sandler tried to buy me out before he died (He only offered $1million without residuals); Neil Rackham (Author Spin Selling but not the inventor of the SPIN model) kept telling me to direct my model to buyers instead of sellers; I spent an afternoon with Phil Kotler at Kellogg explaining Buying Facilitation®; Tony Alessandra and Zig Zigler were always ready to provide ideas.
These foundational sales thinkers were very aware, and respectful of my focus on facilitating the Buy Side decision issues before trying to sell. But in general, it’s been a long, hard slog getting the sales industry to think beyond placing solutions, seemingly denying its low close rate that could be greatly improved by first helping prospects understand and manage their unique risks involved with bringing something new into their status quo.
I tell you all this to provide the background for my tale. I’ve been adding tools, thinking, and books to the sales industry for decades yet continue to get pushback. So this opportunity offered me hope.
CASE STUDY
I was excited to meet K on LinkedIn, a woman placing clients into TEDEx speaker slots who seemingly wanted to represent me. Yes!
Shortly after our first contact she turned me over to Sara who immediately bought two of my books and began learning the differences between selling and facilitating buying. Or so I thought.
How smart she was! She seemingly understood my concepts quickly. “I find your ideas genuinely refreshing and think you deserve a broader audience. Your brain-change work, the listening without bias work, are ideas that would leave a room different than when it arrived.” Music to my ears. I was hooked, and very thankful. Finally! Someone who easily understood what I was doing without massive resistance. I certainly was a prospect.
Our correspondence went on for weeks. After she purchased Dirty Little Secrets. I suggested where to start reading to get the full flavor of the model, but she demurred. No, I’ll do it my way and start at the beginning, she said. Um…Ok! In retrospect, if she’d followed my suggestion she would have known how to sell to me!
Just a few emails in it became clear she wasn’t hearing me. When I told her I had several questions and needed a zoom call to clear things up, she declined my request. No, she said. I work on email but don’t worry, we’ll have no problem placing you!
Hmmm. Strange for a seller to ignore a prospect’s request, especially when I asked for a meeting. And her response missed the point entirely.
My doubts persisted when her responses continued to ignore me. When I told her I’d need to understand my own risks before hiring them, Sara again told me not to worry, I wasn’t at risk, that they only charged one fee upfront and promised to do whatever it took to get me on a stage, even if it took years.
Years?? And how could SHE understand my personal risks or quell my fears when she didn’t know what they were?
She was so busy pitching and trying to have ‘the answers’ she assumed I needed that she never asked me questions I needed answers to in order to resolve my doubts: What was their record in placing truly out-of-the-box ideas into mainstream markets? What’s their success rate?Which of my inventions would be best to get placed – my sales thinking? My change management models? My listening/bias ideas? Could they pinpoint specific markets – and how and how frequently did they track this to make necessary changes? Questions that would help me determine my risks to hiring them.
But I had no way to discuss any of this; her interpretations of my queries merely led to biased pitches that didn’t help me at all. She just didn’t understand the difference between selling and facilitating my buying decision process.
And worse, since she was reading Dirty Little Secrets that explained the steps involved in buying decisions, why didn’t she at least try to use some of the ideas she was learning rather than use standard sales methods?
The clincher was when Sara asked me to meet her boss R who would LOVE to meet me and gave me a link to a 30-minute Calendly. What? She wasn’t the salesperson? And 30 minutes was all we’d need to discuss strategy, ask/answer questions, etc.? I told Sara my concerns:
- This seems like a typical relationship sale. Why not try to use Buying Facilitation®?
- I don’t do 30 minute sessions. R and I couldn’t strategize, answer each other’s questions etc. in 30 minutes. Doesn’t R have to fully understand what I do so he can sell it?
- What sales model are you using that takes so long to place a client?
Her responses were breezy, and ignored each of my specific points, again using my concerns as excuses to promote her solution: Don’t worry! You won’t have to explain anything to R! I’ll fill him in! You won’t need more than 30 minutes! You don’t have risks! We’ll do all the work!
What? Again I felt unheard and insulted. How could I buy from a group I don’t trust? This approach would work only if I’d been fantasizing that a magical vendor would show up with a guaranteed success rate (in a specific time frame), the precise skills, integrity and instantaneous knowledge of my work to represent/place my unique innovations into precise markets, and all I’d have to do was pay them. But none of that, of course, was the case.
I began thinking Sara was either an old-timey relationship salesperson who couldn’t tell the difference between what she wanted to sell and how I needed to buy (For goodness sakes she couldn’t even respond directly to my buying concerns!) or she was a bot.
I’m going with bot.
But it doesn’t matter: whoever I was speaking with demonstrated they weren’t the partner I needed.
It’s sad on two counts:
- The sales industry STILL overlooks the need to facilitate Pre-Sales decision issues, those very issues that cause their low close rates and delayed sales cycles.
- I liked Sara!
I was a buyer. I really needed this solution. But unfortunately, their sales techniques made it impossible for me to buy. I think I’ll give up trying to advocate for more effective models for the industry and let the Sara and bots of this world take over sales.
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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.