{"id":425,"date":"2013-12-09T04:08:30","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T04:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socialagendamedia.com\/digital-pr-blog\/?p=425"},"modified":"2014-01-17T00:41:37","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T00:41:37","slug":"dirty-little-secrets-on-how-to-shorten-b2b-sales-cycle-interview-with-sharon-drew-morgen-inventor-of-the-buying-facilitation-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/socialagendamedia.com\/digital-pr-blog\/dirty-little-secrets-on-how-to-shorten-b2b-sales-cycle-interview-with-sharon-drew-morgen-inventor-of-the-buying-facilitation-method\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirty Little Secrets on How to Shorten B2B Sales Cycle: Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen on Buying Facilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dirty little secrets in this article aren\u2019t really dirty or little but they are sexy if making money turns you on. If you\u2019ve always thought there\u2019s got to be an easier way to make sales, or as a marketer you wanted to understand more about the mysteries behind the scenes of B2B conversions, or perhaps as an event manager you\u2019re looking for someone to shake up and entertain an audience, Sharon Drew Morgen is uniquely qualified to deliver. An iconoclast and innovator, Morgen pioneered the Buying Facilitation\u00ae<\/b> process which teaches salespeople how to help buyers manage their behind-the-scenes, non-need related issues necessary to get the internal buy-in they need to make a purchase. Author of seven books, Sharon Drew Morgen<\/a> is one the most provocative and original speakers in the sales field today, and of course, she is represented by SocialAgenda Media\u2019s speaker bureau<\/a>.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Olga Kostrova<\/a>: In your books and training you suggest looking at the sales process from the standpoint of buyer’s journey rather than focusing on sales techniques. You suggest a sales person introduce\u00a0Buying Facilitation\u2122\u00a0questions very early in the process. Can it be as early as at the gatekeeper (while making a first call and speaking to a receptionist or an assistant)? Or do you mean when first getting the decision maker on the line?\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Sharon Drew Morgen:<\/b> I teach not the sales process but the change management process that buyers all go through to get the necessary buy-in to proceed with a purchase. Sales usually just places solutions, but making the solution purchase is actually the buyer\u2019s last action. First they must get all the folks who will touch the final solution to buy-in to the change, and to do that they must perform all the idiosyncratic, internal, and private change management activities necessary for the organization to make a purchase. The sales model is unnecessary and even inappropriate during these change management activities since each buyer\u2019s environment is so unique and the activities are not really solution-related.<\/p>\n

Salespeople ask \u201dwhy aren\u2019t we closing more? Don\u2019t buyers need our solutions?\u201d.\u00a0 But one of the issues sellers don\u2019t realize is that everyone in a company is a decision maker, including a receptionist or an assistant. That\u2019s why I use Buying Facilitation\u00ae from the first moment and all the way through the buying decision\/change management path until they have the full buying decision team in place and all internal change factors are discovered and managed to fit everyone\u2019s needs. It is only then they are ready to focus on a solution. I never use the sales model until the buyer\u2019s organization is set up to make a purchase.<\/p>\n

Olga Kostrova:<\/b> In your opinion, what’s stopping sellers from selling faster, or in other words what stops buyers from making buying decision faster? <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Sharon Drew Morgen: <\/b>A buying decision is a change management problem. The sales model ignores the system, the environment that buyers live in, and merely attempts to place solutions. The time it takes buyers to recognize and manage all of the internal systems issues that will be shifted because of a new solution, and to bring together everything and everyone who will touch the new solution, is the length of the sales cycle. Buyers would be willing do this much faster if they knew how to change without disrupting anything. If sales folks added non-solution-related decision facilitation models to the front end of their sales process, more buyers could buy much faster. Instead the sales model merely pushes solution placement and focuses on \u2018need\u2019 rather than the importance of systemic change. As a result, sellers only close 7% of the time, the low hanging fruit.<\/p>\n

Olga Kostrova: Why do closing rates seem to be generally the same regardless of the size of the solution, type or price of product, country of sale (well, except when our LeadGen Journalism\u00ae solution<\/a> is used for lead generation\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 )? You state that\u00a0Buying\u00a0Facilitation\u00ae consistently closes over 40%. What are you doing differently?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Sharon Drew Morgen: <\/b>In the 25 years I\u2019ve been training worldwide, on 5 continents, from small travel companies to behemoth global software companies, from $50,000,000 solutions to $15 face creams, from software to consulting services to banking to hospital admissions, the consistent close rate I\u2019ve seen has been 7%. That\u2019s because of the disparity between the job of sales and what buyers must do internally before they can make a purchase. My Buying Facilitation\u00ae model is a change management, decision facilitation skill set that organizes buyers around the types of change they must make and the people who must buy in. Since buyers must do this before they can buy, sellers either sit and wait for the low hanging fruit, or they can choose to add a new skill set and become neutral navigators to facilitate the change management that must take place to raise their closing rate to 40%.<\/p>\n

Olga Kostrova: If buyers have a need, and sellers have a solution, why aren’t\u00a0buyers\u00a0buying, from your point of view?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Sharon Drew Morgen: <\/b>Because bringing something new into their environment will cause some sort of disruption in their system and a solution is necessary or accepted only once there is buy-in and change management has made the organization ready.<\/p>\n

Olga Kostrova:<\/b> While readers will be able to learn all the “dirty little secrets” of Buying Facilitation\u00ae by reading your books and attending your trainings, let\u2019s give readers some visibility into the beginning of the process. How do you suggest sales people open the conversation with a decision maker?\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Sharon Drew Morgen: <\/b>This is a laddered, sequences process. Starting with one thing is like explaining how to bake a cake by starting with an egg, and then ending the conversation. I refuse to give a whole script but can offer a couple of basic concepts.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Realize that since everyone is a decision maker each conversation is different. Is it an assistant? A receptionist? Each are decision makers. Each one stops or allows the conversation to continue. So treat every person you speak with as the decision maker, because they are.<\/li>\n
  2. Stop trying to push solutions or discover need. Start all calls with \u201cMy name is X and this is a sales call. Is this a good time to speak? I\u2019ve got a product that does X and wonder how are you currently managing x in your company right now? And how are you set up to manage Y for those times you need additional support?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Every circumstance is different. But if you go to my blog, there are\u00a0articles\u00a0on gatekeepers, since that’s where you begin.<\/p>\n

    Olga Kostrova:<\/b> What are 3 possible alternatives for opening the conversation that would allow a sales person to qualify the prospect and become a part of buyer’s buying decision team instead of prospecting for a solution placement?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

    Sharon Drew Morgen: <\/b>I know it sounds like heresy and that I\u2019m being difficult but we don\u2019t qualify. No such thing. Qualifying only makes sense in sales solution thinking.<\/p>\n

    Everyone is a decision maker. Facilitative questions are necessary.<\/p>\n

    By entering calls as a neutral navigator rather than attempting to discover need or placing solutions, you can get each person you speak with to be a decision maker.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHow are you currently adding new banking resources to your company for those times your current bank can\u2019t offer you what you need?\u201d That\u2019s is a good facilitative question to start a banking conversation. It starts the navigation process and can be asked to anyone who answers the phone.<\/p>\n

    I have a whole book on this. \ud83d\ude42 People want the \u201chow\u2019s\u201d before understanding the underlying concepts. They unwittingly miss the main focus of Buying Facilitation\u00ae and because there is no reference for it in their brains, 90% of people try to fit it into their old thinking. I resist tactical tips before I\u2019m sure someone understands the concept of Buying Facilitation\u00ae because even if I spent an hour giving stories and examples, people would still think of it in relation to traditional sales techniques. We should be helping them understand why they need to stop selling and start learning how to facilitate the buying decision.<\/p>\n

    Olga Kostrova: What are the 3-5 biggest mistakes sales people make while they are learning to sell based on the concept of facilitating the buying decision rather than using sales techniques designed for solution placement?\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

    Sharon Drew Morgen:<\/b><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. They focus merely on placing a solution and don’t understand the prospect has a system in place and are identified with their \u201cwork around the problem\u201d, and so salespeople end up pushing against what I call a closed system.<\/li>\n
    2. They listen only in terms of how to sell solutions rather than to recognize systems issues.<\/li>\n
    3. They don’t understand that until every single person who touches a solution buys into change, there won\u2019t be a purchase, regardless of the need.<\/li>\n
    4. All sales people throughout history, regardless of solution or country, merely close the low hanging fruit (7%) in situations where buyers have already gone through their internal change process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Olga Kostrova: What are the main 5 things sales people need to understand about using the process of facilitating buying decisions?\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

      Sharon Drew Morgen:<\/b><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. It’s not sales. It’s change management.<\/li>\n
      2. Buyers have to do change management anyway. It’s what we sit and wait for them to do. So we can either sit and wait and lose 93% of them, or we can facilitate their change journey before we sell, and close 40% +.<\/li>\n
      3. Selling doesn’t cause buying. Sales is merely a solution placement model and does not facilitate the internal, systemic change buyers go through; and until every person who will touch the solution agrees, there will be no purchase.<\/li>\n
      4. Buyers already have a work around. Until the elements of the workaround are managed congruently, they will not buy regardless of need.<\/li>\n
      5. The sales process itself creates the objections, the money issues and the lost business, and it prolongs the sales cycle. The time it takes buyers to manage buy-in from all who will touch the solution is the length of the cycle.<\/li>\n
      6. Buyers are willing to buy quickly. They are not willing to create dysfunction and chaos in their system.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Olga Kostrova:<\/b> What steps in the Buying Facilitation method have sales people not been able to learn on their own? Is there a discrepancy between\u00a0those sales professionals who you\u2019ve trained\u00a0and\u00a0those who rely only on your books?\u00a0\u00a0How might the gap be bridged for those unable to invest in the coaching and training, or bring you as a speaker<\/a>?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

        Sharon Drew Morgen:<\/b> It’s not possible to learn on their own. They must learn how to use their brains in a wholly different way. Here are the skills for Buying Facilitation\u00ae:<\/p>\n