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When Does a Buyer Buy?
You’re not going to like what I have to say: If a buyer truly needed your solution they would have either bought it or resolved their problem already.
David Sandler called the buyer’s need ‘Pain.’ But think about it: If you broke your arm, would you wait weeks/months/years to get it fixed? Of course not. So how can buyers wait to resolve their need when it seems so obvious that choosing our solution would create a state of excellence that they are not experiencing already?
It’s not because they don’t have a need, or because they don’t appreciate you, your solution, or excellence. They wait because their system – that grouping of people, policies, rules, relationships, initiatives, group assumptions - that has created the ‘need’ is the same system that is holding it in place.
Think about any extra weight you might have, or your inability to stop smoking, or your reluctance to work out as much as you know you should, or eat healthier. You’ve been talking about managing those issues for…for how long?? You have the need, right? You have the “pain,” right? What’s the deal?
You will change – just like your buyer – when the system you live in (your work hours, your family issues, your identity and ego issues) is willing to be or do something different. Having a great gym near-by, having great clothes a size smaller, having a doc tell you you must shape up – none of those things are enough to get you to change (or you would have).
Unfortunately, sales only manages the need/solution part of a buyer’s buying decision, and has no tool kit to help the buyer recognize and manage the off-line, behind-the-scenes issues that must be addressed before the system is willing to make a change. Is the other department ready to bring in a new X? What about the old vendor? How will the team know how to choose between resolving This problem or That?
Sales doesn’t manage those issues. But decision facilitation does: Buying Facilitation® is a change management, decision facilitation model that is NOT SALES but is a model sellers can use to help buyers recognize and manage their internal issues in order to insure buy-in for change. Just like you won’t lose weight, or work out more, or eat healthier unless you have internal buy-in (we don’t make decisions to change based on good data, or someone else’s opinion), so buyers won’t buy until they know that their system will remain intact and healthy after the addition of the new solution.
Buyers will buy when the team buys-in to adding something new and getting rid of the old, when it’s clear the regular vendor can’t do the fix, when the other departments know how they are going to work alongside of the new solution. Sales doesn’t handle these issues, causing us to wait forever for buyers to decide, or to lose really good prospects that seemed a good fit. Start by recognizing that sales just manages one piece of the buying decision, and consider adding Buying Facilitation® to your skill set.
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6 Comments
actually, this is something wholly different. you are still focusing on sales and placing a product. it's got absolutely nothing to do with a seller understanding anything. what we forget is the way WE buy.
think of a time you were buying a house. if you found THE perfect house, but the bank wouldn't give you a mortgage, or your spouse said s/he was divorcing you, or the school district was horrid, or or or... it would have nothing to do with the great house or the great agent.
before any buying decision gets made, all of the internal 'stuff' has to be managed behind-the-scenes, so that there is buy-in for change or purchase. Sales has absolutely no skills/tools to manage this because it's so unconscious and idiosyncratic AND NOT BASED ON A NEED OR SOLUTION SEARCH. I've developed a model called Buying Facilitation(R) that actually becomes the GPS system as the buyer 'drives' - it's a neutral navigation system that is an additional tool kit, with very very different skills and outcomes. my current book describes the whole thing carefully, with case studies also. www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com or www.newsalesparadigm.com
hope this helps. and note: i've been doing this with global corporations for over 20 years, and we consistently get hundreds of % points success in the control group over any conventional sales model tested. because UNTIL OR UNLESS A BUYER FIGURES OUT HOW TO MANAGE THEIR OFF-LINE, PRIVATE CHOICES, AND MAKE SURE THAT EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS BOUGHT IN, THEY WILL DO NOTHING. and sales cannot, does not deal with that stuff because not only is it impossible for an outsider to be privvy to all that, the buyer is stumped during the process as well. that's why my model creates a new possibility for relating, collaborating, and serving.
sd
Sharon,
Good points.
I might add that recognizing pain points is a sales technique and isn't necessarily a strategy. In some circumstances, the concept of pain points isn't even a sales technique but a bridge for empathy between two parties.
Unfortunately, as you have mentioned, all too often, the PAIN MODEL is thought of as a template on how to sell and you have eloquently stated that it falls short.
Alternatively, can a customer's needs be distilled into a more structured model? Probably and any tool that can channel all parties to think along some approach that can uncover the mutual interests would be helpful.
In my own research on buyer behavior in the private and public non-profit space, I have found a broad array of drivers for purchase decisions. Most often, I think, it is commonly called qualifying the prospect.
you are all still thinking about sales and product placement. indeed, once you start thinking about the internal, behind-the-scenes, private, idiosyncratic and often crazy issues that buyers must contend with personally BEFORE they can make a purchase, it doesn't matter whether you market or sell or or or... you are not helping manage the off-line stuff and not addressing the route buyers must take through their issues that created the problem to begin with.
A prospect that a client of mine had been working with for a year finally, after 3 visits and 3 trials, decided to not purchase the product. I spoke with the prospect that was the head of Learning and Development: What stopped her from being able to buy a product that they loved? The new HR director was a very difficult person to deal with, and the prospect didn’t want to get into a fight and decided to not purchase rather than deal with him.
So this had nothing to do with need or solution, and everything to do with a buyer’s behind-the-scenes decision issues. What I did was to give the L&D person a list of Facilitative Questions to use with the HR guy to help them decide to work together efficiently on behalf of all of the employees. This worked, and they bought the product the next week.
But it had nothing to do with a problem, a need, a solution, or a relationship. It had to do with helping the buyer manage their off-line issues. And the sales model does not manage these issues: the buyer must manage these issues, on their own and without us, and it’s a confusing journey.
Herein lie the problem with sales: it does not have the tools to help buyers manage their private, off-line, non-problem/solution related issues.
If you stop thinking 'sales' 'solution' 'need', and realize that until buyers manage their internal stuff they can't buy, and that sales does NOT manage these issues cuz they have little to do with need, you'll realize it's time to add some new skills to sales. Have a look at my Buying Facilitation(R) material and possibly my new book www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com
sd
Good and interesting post!
Isnt this just going back to good old school in-store-service that "everyone" had before the world decided that the time isnt there for sales to do background or surrounding checkups? In a positive perspective
Thanks for clearing that out for me.
Have a nice day!
Thanks, Sharon, I agree with a great deal of what you said.
But let me add another dimension to the picture...
Starting with what I call "preference inertia" — the fact that most people will continue to prefer and buy the products they currently prefer and buy. And that won't change until their thinking and preferences change.
So if a target prospect is currently buying from the other guy, not from you, it's because they currently prefer the other guy. Pure and simple. That's your starting point. And for that situation to change, you need to change that prospect's thinking in your favor...
You can try to do by getting in front of the prospect and being really, really convincing (the "default" sales model), but that often does not work. Why? Because most buyers are way more closed-minded and stuck in their old thinking than they will ever admit. And mind-changing never happens easily or quickly. No matter how compelling or rock-solid your sales skills and presentation may be.
However, there is a long-proven way to deal with brick-wall thinking. It's called marketing. Marketing is all about changing minds and preferences. With compelling messages repeated many times, many ways. Greasing the skids. Opening up the minds and the thinking. Maybe even changing the preferences — BEFORE you show up for a sales presentation.
Marketing can't make the sale — that's what you do. But intelligently executed, high-impact marketing can radically change your odds.
Al Shultz
http://www.alshultz.com/
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