How to Listen to a Buyer

Thank you to Sharon Drew Morgan for today’s article.  Sharon is the visionary and thought leader behind Buying Facilitation®, the new sales paradigm that focuses on helping buyers manage their buying decision.  Sharon’s new book, “Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what  you can do about it” will be released Oct. 15, 2009!

Until or unless buyers know how to manage the tangles of people and policies that hold their Identified Problem in place, they will not make a purchase no matter how urgent their need or how appropriate your solution.

Because sales unwittingly focuses on the very last stages of the buyer’s buying decision, sellers are trained to listen carefully for all of the details around ’need.’ Once sellers understand how their solution would fit into the ‘need’ or the ‘pain’, they work hard to advantageously place their product/service information so buyers will know how to buy. Which they do, around 7% of the time.

Of course, the need-based, info gathering questions that sellers ask are eventually a vital part of the sales model. But they don’t help the buyer understand how to address the internal stuff we’re not privy to, and that they need to manage on their own, prior to any sort of solution choice.

Our questions, ultimately, don’t help the buyer make a buying decision. And we’re asking them at the wrong time.

By now we all know that there is a huge area of off-line issues that buyers must manage before they are ready to buy. Not to mention that once they go through this behind-the-scenes process of finding the right folks to put onto the Buying Decision Team, clearing time and initiatives to make room for bringing something new aboard, or resolving old vendor issues,  for example, their needs get redefined one way or another.

So the details we’ll hear about their ’need’ from the buyer at the beginning of the info gathering process is not the same as what we’ll hear later on. No one’s fault – just the fallout of the sales process being focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time.

LISTENING FOR SYSTEMS, NOT INFORMATION OR NEED

There is another form of listening necessary to actually help buyers address their off-line conversations so they can actually have help garnering buy-in to make a purchase. Note that this Buying Facilitation® part of  a seller’s job is NOT SALES, but a different activity that needs to be added to the front end of the sales process as if it were a different language.

It’s a very different listening: You’re listening to serve as a guide and to facilitate the route without traveling it yourself. You are actually leading them through change. They can’t buy anything until they line up these internal issues anyway – it might as well be with you on their Team. Just remember that this guidance is not about their need!

So before listening for the DETAILS of need, sellers must listen for the SYSTEM that buyers live in to help them manage the behind-the-scenes elements that must agree to add a new solution.  I write about this entire process in my new book coming out 15 October, Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. In this blog I’ll just mention a few elements.

Has your prospect figured out the right members that need to be on the Buying Decision Team? Asking them who will be on the Team is useless: at the beginning of the change process, prospects really don’t know all of the people that must  be involved… and of course, we can’t help them, because we’re not there with them.

Does your prospect know, and know how to manage why, the problem has existed so long? Who/what has kept it in place? What is the work-around that maintains it daily and how will it be addressed if change is occurring?

Since our prospects have to go off-line to manage change before they can buy, we can either wait til after they’ve figured it all out and they come back (as we do now), or learn a new skill set: facilitate buyers through all of the elements they need to address. We will do this as decision facilitators or change managers – NOT sellers. And, because so much of it has little to do with their need or our solution, we really, really have to add a new skill set to the one we’ve been using for so long.

6 Steps to Overcoming Firsts

Being an entrepreneur is just a big, fat pile of “firsts”! Sometimes you think they will never end – especially in the beginning years.  It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed with the unending litany of new and uncomfortable tasks; business plans, sales, accounting, bookkeeping, websites, creating products, packaging services, renting space, social networking…the list goes on and on. 

All we want to do is practice our craft, yet in order to get people into our practice and do just that, we are forced to do all of this other “stuff” to get there.  Hmmm, does it sound like I’m speaking from experience? Let me share with you what I’ve learned about pushing forward when all you want to do is pull back…

 Here are 6 steps you can take today to get you through your “Why the &%$# am I doing this!” moments:

1. Big Picture: Revisit your vision.  Remember why you decided to start your business in the first place, and focus on the results you are working to realize. Look at the big picture.  Also, connect with something bigger than yourself and the knowing that you will be ok.  This too shall pass. (…and it will pass faster after you do it!)
2. Cry it Out: Sometimes you just need to curl up in a ball and cry “Why! Why! Why!”  Then you wipe away your chocolate-tinged tears and get back to work!  It’s your life and it’s your business.  Allow yourself time to express your frustrations in the way that works for you, and then move on.
3. Take a Step Back: Avoid leaping to drastic conclusions like assuming that just because you haven’t had any new clients this month, that your practice will fail.  Challenge any limiting beliefs and do a reality check on what’s really true about this situation and review what makes you so brilliant!
4. Get “Quality” Support: Imagine having someone who can either do the work you hate and are avoiding, or someone who has a formula for doing what you struggle with?  Your struggle is someone else’s talent – find them and ask them to help you. Find someone who specializes in the type of support you are looking for. In today’s entrepreneurial world the resources are abundant – VA’s, coaches, home study programs, books etc.  Plan, interview and do your homework so that you are working with the resource that will serve your needs the best.
5. Get Over It!  Yup, that pretty much sums it up.  Step up to the plate, take responsibility for the choice you made to go into business for yourself.  You are stronger, more talented, gifted and brilliant than you give yourself credit for.  Only by stretching and doing the uncomfortable will you be able to know how strong you really are.  Flex those business muscles!
6. Take Action: It’s imperative to take the steps you need to move forward in creating the business and life you want to have.  YOU WILL NOT GROW YOUR BUSINESS HIDING IN YOUR OFFICE, BEHIND YOUR COMPUTER OR BURRIED IN YOUR 100TH SPIRITUAL GROWTH COURSE!  You know what needs to be done to grow your business – and if you don’t – ask someone who does!  

Remember, when it comes to firsts, after you’ve done it once, you’ve overcome not knowing how to do it, and it’s not a first anymore!  Add one more thing to your list of things you know how to do.

You went into business for yourself to serve the world in a way that only you can.  You have all that it takes to live your dream!