Buyers have two identifiable responsibilities:

- maneuver through their internal, behind-the-scenes buy-in issues to
ensure a trouble-free change process, and
- choose a solution that will address their stakeholder’s criteria for
systems excellence while maintaining the integrity of the system. Sales
addresses one of these jobs, but not the other. In fact, we’ve never been
taught the skills to help with the off-line issues buyers address: as per
the explanations and skills offered in my new book
[http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com] Dirty Little Secrets, helping buyers
maneuver through their off-line buy-in issues requires a wholly different
skill set.

We need to have the ability to be a GPS system for our buyers. You see,
they need to meander through all of the internal systems issues that
created their problem to begin with, to get to the route cause, figure out
how it got there and has been maintained over time, and address all of the
elements that hold it in place daily so that a new resolution can enter
without fallout, without sabotage, and with acceptance and support.

As a simple example, let’s use fitness. Let’s say I’m not working
out as often as I should. Getting good data about a gym, understanding why
I’m not working out, or knowing that there are great trainers available
to help me get fit, doesn’t address my baseline issues. I will not only
have to figure out what has stopped me from working out and being fit until
now, but I’ll have to manage some unconscious, unknown ‘stuff’ that
has allowed me to ignore the gym issue until now.

- How do I currently handle my belief that I’m a healthy person if I
only do those activities that make me comfortable?
- What has stopped me from attending the gym until now? And what sort of
shift would I need to make to change my internal view of myself?
- What other issues do I need to manage to become a healthy person (i.e.
eating issues, family issues, time issues, social issues) and what has
stopped me from managing these until now? As sellers, we treat the
‘need’ as if it were an isolated event and have no way to help buyers
manage the off-line issues they must privately address as they consider
changing to excellence. And, when we attempt to ‘understand’ what’s
going on, it’s akin to you trying to understand why I choose to get up at
6:30 a.m. instead of 5:30 to get to the gym--- and then attempting to
convince me to do what would get me to the gym, rather than supporting me
in managing my beliefs about my family obligations that you cannot
influence because you are an outsider.

Indeed, we cannot – and should not – understand these personal,
internal dynamics. But we can help buyers understand them. After all, until
they do, and until they address them, they will do nothing, and we will sit
and wait and wait until they do. We have waited helplessly in the mystery
of what buyers do for decades, if not centuries.

BE THE GPS SYSTEM, NOT THE SELLER

We can use a different skill set to help buyers maneuver through their
first steps. We cannot be there when they have to have those private
meetings, or have an argument with the tech team, or handle a 3-year-old
vendor issue, but knowing the environment – the system, if you will –
that must be attained, generally speaking, before a buyer can buy, we can
add a new skill set to our sales skills, and help buyers buy.

Think of the first decision issues as a GPS system understands the route.
One mile, two left turns, etc. Think of the prospect as the driver who has
to get somewhere (and who has not used a GPS system before, getting lost
frequently but getting there eventually), the car as the system of
internal, private issues that are on a journey and that will eventually
find the ‘party,’ and the destination as the place you can sell your
product.

The GPS system can’t know the scenery, or the fact that the car had
been in an accident the day before. But it clearly understands what the
generic route to excellence looks like and continues to know the route to
the destination even after the driver has stopped for gas.

When we attempt to use our sales skills at the wrong time in the
buyer’s decision cycle – and almost all buyers come to us well, well
before they have figured out their route – we are helping buyers delay
their purchasing decision, opening us up for objections and competition and
money issues.

Sales only manages half of the buying decision process. For the initial
issues buyers must manage, become the GPS system to help them navigate
through their systems issues so they can buy. And with you as the decision
facilitator, they will incorporate you into their solution design in half
the time, with no competition or proposals or objections.

My new book will explain the buyer’s route, and offer new skill sets
for you to help them buy. If you buy it before Oct 29, you’ll get
[http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/freebies.html] freebies from wonderful
sales luminaries. Not to mention you’ll learn how to reduce your sale
cycle by half, and be ahead of your competitors.