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Why Sales Are Faltering In This Economy, And What To Do About It
By Sharon Drew Morgen

Over the past year or so, it has become apparent that we are not getting the type of sales results we’re used to:

- it’s taking 30% longer to close a sale;

- additional decision makers seemingly appear from nowhere;

- the prospects who need to be included in a purchasing decision are either unfamiliar to the sales team or seemingly not relevant to the identified problem;

- goals aren’t being achieved and targeted prospects are not responding appropriately to our efforts;

As a result, many of us are rethinking all or some of our normal sales practices:

1. Because of the lengthened close cycle, we’ve been firing perfectly good sales people, and replacing them with clones, hoping that we’ll have better results with different sales people.

2. We’ve stopped doing face-to-face sales training, replacing it with e-learning, thinking that maybe the training process might be the problem.

3. We’re spending a fortune on refining our demographics, to ensure we target the most relevant prospects.

4.We are trying blogs, brand differentiation, different forms of marketing done through behavioral scientists, psychologists who tell us how our buyer-base makes decisions - believing that if we know this we can find a way to trigger our prospects into buying.

WHAT IS SALES? AND WHAT DOES IT DO?

Sales is geared toward helping place product - either through different pitch mechanisms (such as presentations, ads, marketing, direct mail), different sales styles (SPIN, Sandler, High Probability, Solution Selling, Integrity Selling, and Dale Carnegie to name a few), and different forms of relationship management (Trusted Advisor, Relationship Selling, etc.). We’re even depending on Sales 2.0 to get enough data out to cajole our prospects into recognizing their need for our services.

When I remind sellers that their efforts are directed at placing product, some get blustery, saying things like: ‘Well! We will ONLY sell to clients that are appropriate.’ ‘We REALLY care that our product gets placed with people who really need it.’ ‘We are TRUE consultants and spend X time up front making sure our product would be appropriate.’ Call it what you will; everything I just mentioned here has one - and only one - focus: to place product.

But let’s have a look at it from the buyer’s perspective. When we do that, we’ll see, surprisingly, that we only manage one of their two main issues. The two major things a buyer must do prior to purchasing a solution are:

1. choose a supplier and a solution. That’s the role of sales;

2. manage all of the off-line, behind-the scenes change issues that must take place internally so they can get buy-in to bring aboard something new (i.e. a solution). That’s the skill of decision facilitation and change management.

And the latter, this idiosyncratic, off-the-cuff buying decision activity, is not addressed by the sales model - and yet 2/3 of the time it takes a buyer to buy is devoted to getting internal buy-in. Surprisingly to most sellers, much of this private, internal activity has nothing directly to do with choosing a solution or a vendor. It has to do with:

  • managing internal relationships,

  • fixing historic problems that must be resolved before they can be shifted,

  • dealing with personal, personality issues and biases that are often unspoken,

  • dealing with old vendor issues,

  • getting buy-in from disparate groups,

  • managing budgets and calendars.

    • Nothing to do with a need or a solution or you or your solution. It’s where buyers go when they say, "I’ll call you back." They have to do this - with us or without us. And unfortunately, it’s been without us.

    Sales doesn’t address this point, but we are outsiders and cannot be a direct part of this private, idiosyncratic process. We are not part of their company, their team, their system: the internal conversations and influencing happen between colleagues and we are not a part of the conversation. Sure, as sellers we know (and learn) how to be professionals, and care, and understand. Yet the time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers - not the ones we want them to have but answers based on the idiosyncratic needs of their internal, hidden system and set of givens - is the length of the sales cycle. And, again unfortunately, the buyers don’t even know how to figure this stuff out when they begin the process.

    I’m currently dealing with a prospect whose team is hungry for training with me. They’ve read my latest book, have spoken with me, and the boss - my prospect - is willing to pay for me out of his budget. But the Senior VP does not believe in any sort of sales training, and has cancelled two appointments with me on the phone. Doesn’t matter how great the need or the solution: if the internal issues aren’t managed, the rest doesn’t matter. This is how we lose 90% of our prospects.

    WE CAN ADD A NEW SKILL SET AND ACTIVATE BUYING DECISIONS

    Buyers today are having difficulty managing the risk-averse, politically motivated, and economydriven fears and personal issues. And we don’t have a tool kit to help buyers manage the conversations that go on off-line, between departments, with old vendors, etc. Because it focuses on the very last thing buyers do - choosing a solution - and not the nitty-gritty issues that cause buyers to buy (or not), we are basically out of control.

    But think about it for a moment: buyers must remain in business, or continue running households or maintaining their daily lives. Most folks and companies have some money: they are just holding on to it given the inability to understand the future. But they must maintain their daily lives, and will spend money when they understand the criteria to choose from. In other words, when all of the internal decision factors align, and there is agreement that spending money, or going through change, will benefit the greater good.

    Sales doesn’t help the buyer discern that. But there is a way to help buyers make buying decisions, and it’s not by selling. My question to you is: DO WE WANT TO SELL? OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY?

    The problem is not with the economy, or with the buyer, or with the seller, or even with the need or the solution. The problem is with the sales model itself: it merely manages information gathering about ‘need’ and solution placement options to sell a solution.

    Imagine if we adopted a new set of skills that actually worked WITH the buyer’s Buying Decision Team to help them manage their own internal decision making. Not based on their need or our solution, but based on the management of their off-line elements. Not using sales techniques, but using decision facilitation techniques. Not about ‘understanding’ but about leadership through change management. Not about placing product or doing a great presentation, but about being a GPS system to help buyers recognize all of their decision points.

    To do that takes an additional skill set. Sales doesn’t do this. We’d have to learn how to facilitate the buyer’s off-line decision issues that often have little to do with a need or our solution.

    Buying Facilitation® is a model that sits on the front end of sales, like a GPS system may help a driver get to their destination (i.e. the GPS system leads the buyer through their internal buy-in issues to prepare them for a solution choice). It’s not sales. It works with the behind-the-scenes issues that have nothing to do with need or solution or sales. It actually puts the seller into the role of a neutral navigator to help buyers manage their decision issues.

    Are the appropriate department heads involved? Collaborating? Creating a problem? Do the adjacent business areas involved with a solution choice or any change that might occur? Is the tech team managing their end of the solution and encouraging implementation? Do the users buy-in to any changes? What has stopped them from developing a solution until now - and why can’t their current vendors help them do it?

    Buyers need answers to these questions before they can make a purchase. But sales doesn’t handle this. Are we ready to change? Is it time to do something different? Is it worth the discomfort to add something new to our typical selling habits? And what’s the cost if we don’t.

    Use this challenging time to add a new skill to what you’re already doing. You can actually help buyers manage their buying, and buy-in, decisions. And then you can sell.

    Sharon Drew Morgen is the thought leader behind Buying Facilitation(R) and decision facilitation. She is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller 'Selling with Integrity' and Dirty Little Secrets. She is a trainer, speaker, coach, and buying decision consultant. She can be reached at: sdm@austin.rr.com www.newsalesparadigm.com