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Turning A 'No' Into A 'Yes'
I recently experienced a very clear example of Buying Facilitation®, when i used it to turn a failed buying situation into a purchase. I tell a shortened version of this story in my new book, Dirty Little Secrets; it bears repeating during this economic confusion when buyers are having difficulty getting to ‘yes’. I was at a client site running a Buying Facilitation® training. A part of the training includes real-time calls to clients prospects. In this situation, my client had requested that the team listen to me on a call first, so they could hear what BF actually sounded like real-time. They set up a phone meeting between me and a prospect who had called recently to say “Sorry. We won’t be purchasing your product,” after one year of 3 sales visits and 3 product trials.

Make The Phone Your Best Friend
Do you believe that to close a sale you must ‘get in front of prospects?’ Why? Really. Have you ever asked yourself why? Do you tell yourself that you MUST have that eye contact? That ‘face-to-face’ juice? Do you tell yourself that if you’re not in the field, you’re not selling?

The Job of Sales Must Expand
Sales is a needs assessment-problem discovery/solution placement model. We use relationships and industry knowledge and well-conceived product data to align with prospects to help influence them to choose us. Now, with technology, we have even more capability to offer product data and find our what’s happening with the buyer. The internet, e-marketing, webinars, websites, are offering buyers whatever data they may need to choose. With our fabulous technology, we can track them, cookie them, send them stuff, entice them with blog posts. But at the end of the day, until or unless they make a purchase, we’ve done it all for naught.

We Can’t Understand Customers
I often hear sales, marketing, and change management folks talking about ‘understanding the customer.’ But what, exactly, does that mean? On the face of it, it’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s vital to ‘understand the customer.’ But it’s not so simple as just ‘understanding’ as there are so many facets to this. I must admit that when I hear folks using the term “understanding the customer’, it sounds to me as if they are seeking to ‘understand’ so they can sell or influence – using the act of understanding as part of a sales cycle.

The Steps of a Sale: from the buying decision to the close
Here are the steps in selling with Buying Facilitation® at the front end. The first phase helps decisions get made to promote buy-in, change, and recognition of what needs to be addressed. We usually wait for buyers to do this, but now we can help. Have a look at the steps, and see how you can add them to what you’re doing.

Other buying decision team Related Articles

Selling to Different Customers
Each customer uses different criteria when making a buying decision. The fact that a salesperson can understand this criteria and help the customer make that buying decision, is why a good salesperson does so well. But what do you do when you’re trying to sell without a salesperson. This article will show you how to create the same sales experience on your website to increase sales.

Why Open Questions Don't Work
For decades, if not centuries, we’ve written books about, lectured about, and trained about, the virtues of Open Questions. I’m here to denounce the myth that they are good in all instances: I actually believe they are used most effectively at the back end of the selling/buying cycle and have no role to play in the buying decision activity that occurs before buyers make their solution choice.

Buying Facilitation® vs. buyer facilitation
Lately, I’ve noticed folks using the term buyer facilitation. While I can make a good guess that the term is a version of Buying Facilitation®, it is being used in a ’sales’ context. So maybe, the term is to be used in conjunction with Buying Facilitation®. After all, the buyer must manage both the internal decision issues and the need-related decision issues before a purchase happens.

Get Onto The Buying Decision Team On The First Call
When I tell sales folks their sales cycle is double what it should be, they assume I’m lying. But I’m not. I’m just using a different model than sales to being my client contact: Given that the typical sales model builds in time delays and leaves the seller out of the behind-the-scenes discussions going on, there is no way to get onto the Buying Decision Team on the first call.

Anatomy Of A Buying Decision
Before your prospect makes the decision to buy your product or service, four decisions must be made. For the most part these decisions will be made inside their heads or in conjunction with others depending on whether it is a joint decision making process or not. In small to medium sized businesses one person may make the buying decision, but in larger companies it is usual for the decision be made by a group of people. Whatever the amount of people involved in the buying decision, the same four decisions must be answered.

Facilitating Buying Decisions: a definition
Recently, I’ve noticed many folks using the term ‘facilitating buying decisions.’ First, let me state that we have a program by that title, that can be licensed to train in companies. It’s a very fun program, teaching sellers how to sit in a buyer’s seat and learn every aspect of how they choose vendors and solutions. Learners not only learn how their buyer’s buy, but I teach them the 6 most powerful Facilitative Questions to help buyers make a decision in their favor. Here’s a preview of one of the questions: How would you and your Buying Decision Team know when it was time to bring in an additional resource that will fit with the ones you’re currently using?

Building the Perfect Startup Team - It's More Than Employees and Founders
When investors evaluate a start-up company, they report about 25% of the final decision is based on the team. Even if external funding isn't in the start-up's future plans, it's a good idea to consider the criteria used by investors; they have seen many startups come and go. So what makes an effective team? How do you build one? The success of any venture hinges upon the strength of the team and this is never more true than a company at its beginning. And the team is not just the company's founders and employees.

Who’s in the meeting – and who’s not?
So many sales folks are targeting ‘appointments’ these days. I wonder if you know who actually is in attendance. And who isn’t but should be. As you enter your meeting, do you know what percent of the entire Buying Decision Team is there? What weight your contact has on the full Buying Decision Team?

A Buying Decision is a Change Management Problem
The sales model focuses on needs assessment and solution placement. Buying is a change management activity. They are two different activities, done at two different – and opposite – points along the buying decision journey.

“Buy on Emotion” now supported by brain scans.
There's a tendency for Salespeople to concentrate on logic because they feel that emotions are too flaky to have any real importance on a buying decision. But Economists have recently embraced the idea that irrational psychology, rather than cool calculation, plays a significant role in buying decisions.

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