Guest

Buyers have two identifiable responsibilities:<br />
<br />
- maneuver through their internal, behind-the-scenes buy-in issues to<br />
ensure a trouble-free change process, and<br />
- choose a solution that will address their stakeholder’s criteria for<br />
systems excellence while maintaining the integrity of the system. Sales<br />
addresses one of these jobs, but not the other. In fact, we’ve never been<br />
taught the skills to help with the off-line issues buyers address: as per<br />
the explanations and skills offered in my new book<br />
[http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com] Dirty Little Secrets, helping buyers<br />
maneuver through their off-line buy-in issues requires a wholly different<br />
skill set.<br />
<br />
We need to have the ability to be a GPS system for our buyers. You see,<br />
they need to meander through all of the internal systems issues that<br />
created their problem to begin with, to get to the route cause, figure out<br />
how it got there and has been maintained over time, and address all of the<br />
elements that hold it in place daily so that a new resolution can enter<br />
without fallout, without sabotage, and with acceptance and support.<br />
<br />
As a simple example, let’s use fitness. Let’s say I’m not working<br />
out as often as I should. Getting good data about a gym, understanding why<br />
I’m not working out, or knowing that there are great trainers available<br />
to help me get fit, doesn’t address my baseline issues. I will not only<br />
have to figure out what has stopped me from working out and being fit until<br />
now, but I’ll have to manage some unconscious, unknown ‘stuff’ that<br />
has allowed me to ignore the gym issue until now.<br />
<br />
- How do I currently handle my belief that I’m a healthy person if I<br />
only do those activities that make me comfortable?<br />
- What has stopped me from attending the gym until now? And what sort of<br />
shift would I need to make to change my internal view of myself?<br />
- What other issues do I need to manage to become a healthy person (i.e.<br />
eating issues, family issues, time issues, social issues) and what has<br />
stopped me from managing these until now? As sellers, we treat the<br />
‘need’ as if it were an isolated event and have no way to help buyers<br />
manage the off-line issues they must privately address as they consider<br />
changing to excellence. And, when we attempt to ‘understand’ what’s<br />
going on, it’s akin to you trying to understand why I choose to get up at<br />
6:30 a.m. instead of 5:30 to get to the gym--- and then attempting to<br />
convince me to do what would get me to the gym, rather than supporting me<br />
in managing my beliefs about my family obligations that you cannot<br />
influence because you are an outsider.<br />
<br />
Indeed, we cannot – and should not – understand these personal,<br />
internal dynamics. But we can help buyers understand them. After all, until<br />
they do, and until they address them, they will do nothing, and we will sit<br />
and wait and wait until they do. We have waited helplessly in the mystery<br />
of what buyers do for decades, if not centuries.<br />
<br />
BE THE GPS SYSTEM, NOT THE SELLER<br />
<br />
We can use a different skill set to help buyers maneuver through their<br />
first steps. We cannot be there when they have to have those private<br />
meetings, or have an argument with the tech team, or handle a 3-year-old<br />
vendor issue, but knowing the environment – the system, if you will –<br />
that must be attained, generally speaking, before a buyer can buy, we can<br />
add a new skill set to our sales skills, and help buyers buy.<br />
<br />
Think of the first decision issues as a GPS system understands the route.<br />
One mile, two left turns, etc. Think of the prospect as the driver who has<br />
to get somewhere (and who has not used a GPS system before, getting lost<br />
frequently but getting there eventually), the car as the system of<br />
internal, private issues that are on a journey and that will eventually<br />
find the ‘party,’ and the destination as the place you can sell your<br />
product.<br />
<br />
The GPS system can’t know the scenery, or the fact that the car had<br />
been in an accident the day before. But it clearly understands what the<br />
generic route to excellence looks like and continues to know the route to<br />
the destination even after the driver has stopped for gas.<br />
<br />
When we attempt to use our sales skills at the wrong time in the<br />
buyer’s decision cycle – and almost all buyers come to us well, well<br />
before they have figured out their route – we are helping buyers delay<br />
their purchasing decision, opening us up for objections and competition and<br />
money issues.<br />
<br />
Sales only manages half of the buying decision process. For the initial<br />
issues buyers must manage, become the GPS system to help them navigate<br />
through their systems issues so they can buy. And with you as the decision<br />
facilitator, they will incorporate you into their solution design in half<br />
the time, with no competition or proposals or objections.<br />
<br />
My new book will explain the buyer’s route, and offer new skill sets<br />
for you to help them buy. If you buy it before Oct 29, you’ll get<br />
[http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/freebies.html] freebies from wonderful<br />
sales luminaries. Not to mention you’ll learn how to reduce your sale<br />
cycle by half, and be ahead of your competitors.<br />
<br />