Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
What does Sharon Drew Morgen mean when she talks about "Buying Facilitation"?
In her book, 'Dirty Little Secrets' (http://www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/), she talks about a sales paradigm called "Buying Facilitation". What does she mean? What's your experience implementing that concept?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
1 Answer
Buying Facilitation(R) is a decision facilitation methodology that is used prior to sales (i.e. before you begin to do needs assessment or solution discussions) to help the buyer recognize and manage all of the behind-the-scenes, back-end, private and idiosyncratic, change management decisions buyers must address prior to having the ability and buy-in to make a purchase.
This piece has been ignored by the sales model, but buyers must go through this process before they can buy or they will have serious change management issues. Similar to what would happen if you were walking down a street, saw a nice house, went in and bought it, and came home and told your wife that the family would be moving next week: without discussions about choice options, criteria; without figuring out where/how/when/why to move; without the kids being ready to move away from their friends; without figuring how how many bedrooms; without deciding on whether you're going to have a new baby, etc etc etc, you cannot consider moving - and it's not about the house.
Buying Facilitation(r) acts like a GPS system in that it leads the buyer through a very specific 'course' of thinking, based on systems thinking. It is not sales, but works well as a precursor to the sales process.
Currently, the marketing automation field has not adopted BF (although it would be quite easy to add), and is missing large amounts of business as a result. The sales field only closes 7% on average, losing the other 93% to the buying decision issues not managed by sales. 80% of our prospects buy our sort of solution within 2 years (although not from us) and the time it takes them to discover and manage their internal criteria (i.e. people issues, politics, policies, relationship issues, timing, change issues, etc.) is the length of the sales cycle.
Sales treats a problem as if it were an isolated event, and forgets that a 'need' sits within a system of 'stuff' that holds it in place and maintains it daily.
Buying is a change management process. Buying Facilitation(r) can help the buyer here, and we can close sales in 1/8 the time as a result.
Hope this helps.
Sharon Drew
Answer This Question