Buying Facilitation – BusinessBalls.com

Sharon Drew Morgan – Buying Facilitation

Introduction

The principles of Buying Facilitation® are effective far beyond sales and selling . This introduction is oriented mainly for sales and selling, but the methodology can easily be adapted for any situation which will benefit by using helpful facilitative enabling communications , rather than our natural tendencies to push, convince, persuade and influence, which do not work.

This facilitative method is also useful for life-coaching, counselling, business networking, managing, negotiating, relationships of all sorts, and even parenting.

Buying Facilitation® is essentially a concept for enabling decision-making - which arise in most aspects of life, not just in selling.

The principles of Buying Facilitation® are effective far beyond sales and selling. This introduction is oriented mainly for sales and selling, but the methodology can easily be adapted for any situation which will benefit by using helpful facilitative enabling communications , rather than our natural tendencies to push, convince, persuade and influence, which do not work.

Sharon Drew Morgen is arguably the most advanced thinker in selling and decision facilitation of the modern age. After a successful career in business in the US and Europe, she has written extensively about business and selling since the early 1990s. Her work is regarded as pioneering by many of her peers, including other leading sales writers and gurus.

Here is Sharon Drew Morgen's latest book:

'WHAT? Did you really say what I think I heard?' is the remarkable new book by Sharon Drew Morgen.

This amazing guide to improving communications (and thereby human understanding and relationships) is available from DidIHearYou.com

Morgen's previous best-selling books have focused on business communications. This new book extends her brilliant guidance to ALL TYPES OF COMMUNICATIONS - for business folk, professional communicators, teachers, parents, and young people - everyone.

If you want to communicate better, or teach others how to, then this book will help you, perhaps even in a life-changing way.

Sharon Drew Morgans previous book is more focused on business and selling:

Why Buyers Can't Buy and Sellers Can't Sell

Sharon Drew Morgen is regarded by many (including me) as the greatest thinker and writer on selling in the modern age.

Published in 2009, Dirty Little Secrets is a must read for anyone in selling and for anyone helping others to make decisions.

Building on Morgen's previous books Buying Facilitation and Selling with Integrity, Dirty Little Secrets reveals the hidden systems and processes behind decision-making, and will teach you how to help buyers buy and how to help others make effective decisions of all kinds .

Written beautifully and supported by clear examples, this is not a traditional sales book - it's a buying-decision book , which exposes why the old broken selling methods don't work, and provides a uniquely effective guide to modern ethical selling and decision-facilitation.

Sample chapters, reviews, background, etc - see dirtylittlesecretsbook.com

Morgen's 2003 book, Buying Facilitation® , explains her radical selling techniques and philosophy, now being adopted by some of the world's largest selling organisations, and being extended far beyond selling to all aspects of facilitating: effective collaboration, relationships, business processes, personal and organisational decision-making. Sharon Drew's background in NLP (neuro-linguitic programming) has been a major inspiration to her, as have been her strong personal values-system, her determination to evangelise, and a spiritual sense of purpose. Sharon Drew Morgen also wrote the best-selling and ground-breaking sales books: Selling with Integrity (Berrett-Koehler, 1997) and Sales on the Line (Metamorphous Press, 1993).

Sharon Drew Morgen has written dozens of articles for many major business magazines, chiefly concerned with integrity in sales and the Morgen Buying Facilitation Method®. She writes, speaks and trains corporations around the world and appears regularly in the media. She now resides and bases her consultancy in Austin, Texas, USA.

See also the decision-making facilitative questions template , based on this facilitative decision-making concept.

And see the superb case-study example of Buying Facilitation® below.

And also the excellent Reflective Diary template tool produced in collaboration with Sharon Drew, available in MSWord and pdf versions:

Reflective diary template - Sharon Drew Morgen edition (MSWord)

Reflective diary template - Sharon Drew Morgen edition (pdf)

Buying Facilitation®

Sharon Drew Morgen's excellent Buying Facilitation® book is quite different to most other selling books you will have read.

It's very concise, quick and easy to read, and for many sales-people, life-changing.

The methods, summarised below, are for some quite easy and natural to apply when you understand them, although if you have been in selling for a while, avoid overlaying your own pre-conceptions. It's quite a different approach compared to conventional selling.

Download the first three free chapters free , by kind permission of Ms Morgen.

Advanced Selling Methodology Overview

Sharon Drew Morgen's Buying Facilitation Method® operates to a totally different set of premises than conventional sales. Here are some underpinning principles of the Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® philosophy:

The seller's job is to help people understand what their systems require in order to change.
Only a person working or living within a culture or system can understand it. (The seller can never truly understand the buyer's system because it is so complex and dynamic - if you are in any doubt about this think how long it takes to really get to know an organisation when you start a new job...)
People only make a change when they're sure they can manage the resulting chaos.
A seller is uniquely positioned to help the buyer discover how to solve a problem within their system.
Only the buyer, never the seller, is able to work their way through the decision within the system. However, the seller can help the buyer do this because the seller has the macro view.
The buyer needs to recognise all the specifics of what a solution will entail within his or her unique environment.
By matching the buyer's unique buying criteria, the seller is a true adviser and can be easily differentiated from the competition.
The seller is uniquely positioned to be a brand ambassador for the supplier.

Morgen's Buying Facilitation Method® is therefore 'an up-front addition to the sales process'. It is not a form of consultative sales. It is not about presenting product, information or ideas to create interest, and it is not about gathering information in order to sell what the sales person thinks is needed. Morgen's Buying Facilitation Method® is a decision-based system that helps buyers discover:

All of the elements that need to be included within their purchasing decision
The systems variables that need to be accounted for as a result of a purchasing decision, so their internal systems stay intact.

Traditional selling is based on the product or service sale, and yet until buyers know how decisions and new purchases will affect their culture they will delay their decisions.

The Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® is a front-end decision-facilitation methodology, used by sellers, to lead a buyer through the examination of all the variables that need to be included in deciding how a new solution will enter their systems.

The Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® is different to traditional sales techniques, that invariably lead buyers through an information process to strategically place a product or service. The method helps buyers how to align all organisational variables affected by the change, so as to prevent chaos once the change is made.

As result, the Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® enables multiple-point decision-making to an extent that the sales person effectively becomes an organisational consultant to the buying organisation, by focusing strongly on the decision-influencing teams and systems within it. Moreover, Morgen's system is an adjunct to the normal sales process that supports the buyer's buying patterns. Conventional sales methods can be added once the buyer has aligned all of their decision variables. As Sharon Drew Morgen says: " Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? "

By helping the buyer make sense of the system they live and work within, the sales person becomes a part of the buyer's decision team and therefore operates as a true consultant.

Facilitative questions form a crucial part of this process, which Sharon Drew Morgen positions in the 'Buying Decision Funnel' significantly in advance of the conventional 'Product Decision Funnel'.

The sales person must therefore help the buyer become aware of the variables within the buyer's organisational system, and how the purchase of the new product or service will affect it.

Diagram

The Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® is a decision-facilitation system that helps buyers make their best buying decision while you become part of their decision team.

While a conventional selling process can be added, the Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® is actually the primary step, and can in certain circumstances effectively replace an entire conventional selling process, with dramatically improved results.

buying facilitation sales funnel

The Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® works from a different set of beliefs than conventional selling. It works from the belief that buyers have their own unique way of seeking solutions, and our job as a seller is to help them in their process. This greatly reduce the sales cycle - buyers must go through this process, and they will do it with you or without you.

Morgen's Buying Facilitation Method® therefore makes you a trusted collaborator, head and shoulders above the competition.

Questions

Here are examples of facilitative questions that Sharon Drew Morgen uses to illustrate how the flow of questions operates within the facilitative questioning process, as shown in the buying decision funnel diagram above. The scenario is one of an organisation considering sales training for its sales people, but the principles are transferable to any situation.

Note that since there are no answers to these questions (and of course answers often create the shape and direction of discussions), these questions are an example of how the process works, not a process in itself. Note also - as Sharon Drew Morgen says - "...this is a decision-facilitation model rather than a sales model. My job, as a facilitator, is to help you make your best decision based on what your solution must look like in your unique culture with your unique buying criteria."

How do you currently train your sales people?
How is that working for you?
Is anything missing?
If there is something further you'd want but aren't getting? What's stopping you from getting what you want from your sales training? From your sales people?
How are you currently set up to fix this problem with the current resources you've got in place (i.e. internal trainers/ Current vendors)?
What's stopping you from using your current resources (trainers/vendors) to fix the problem?
What would need to know in order to consider doing something different from what you are currently doing in the area of sales training?
How will you know that whatever skills you decide to add will work with what you are currently doing, so that there won't be a breakdown, and you won't lose the success you've already attained?
What type of decision would you and your team need to make that's different from the one you made to have the training you are now running?
How do you plan on aligning the (management, partners, initiatives) so that if you decide to add new sales skills, they will be happy to work with you on the change?
What criteria would you need to have filled to understand that a different or alternate training approach would work alongside the approach you are currently using to give you (a higher closing ratio; a quicker sales cycle; increased customer retention; more referrals; increased sales from a unique/new customer base)?
How would you know that a chosen provider or solution would meet that criteria? What would you need to know or see from us to know that our material would meld with what you've got in place?
How would you know we could deliver this and match your criteria?

"Buying Facilitation® assumes that before a seller can place his/her product, the buyer's system and unique cultural issues must be addressed. While product pitch or presentation can be offered after buyers line up their decisions, doing so beforehand faces delays in the buying decision while the buyer lines up the systems necessary for success." (Sharon Drew Morgen)

Case Study

This is a powerful example of the potency of Buying Facilitation®, reproduced with kind permission of Sharon Drew Morgen. The following record (about 10 mins reading) of Ms Morgen's discussion with a senior decision-maker demonstrates the methodology and its potential.

The Scenario

After having several conversations with a new prospect and his team, we all decided to move forward and get them trained in Buying Facilitation®. As per our agreement, I wrote up a contract and sent it out to "Joe". Then I got an email from him saying he needed to put the program on hold for six months at least, so that his new hires could prove their value and start earning money.

I asked, "How can they start earning money if they won't get their training for several months? And what skills will you offer them, given they will now be learning Buying Facilitation® after they've already begun selling the conventional way?"

My prospect gave me very short, almost unintelligible responses.

Finally, he admitted that the COO called him in as my contract come over his desk, saying that if they were going to spend 'that kind of money' on sales training, they had better have a team in place that was worth it and had earned it.

Joe was both angry and embarrassed: he had thought he was the decision maker, given it was his own budget, etc., and "Frank" hadn't exhibited any interest in sales training before this. For me, what appeared to be a 'closed' sale, had just become a money objection from a "C" level executive who had no idea who I was, what I was offering, or how to put a value on it.

Joe and I put our heads together, and decided to have Frank call me to discuss it. We believed that if I could lead Frank through the Buying Facilitation Method® system, he'd be able to decide for himself. I knew I'd have to handle both the money objections and the phone objections, as Frank believed that no business could be handled on the phone. I also had to walk an interesting line regarding Joe: indeed, Frank was stepping on Joe's toes and superseding Joe's authority as a seasoned VP of Sales.

Here is what happened. Here is the call, and I'm including commentary for those times during the call when I had decisions to make.

To help you follow along the Buying Facilitation Method®, the questions are, for the most part, Facilitative Questions, and the summaries are Presumptive Summaries.

The Phone Call

As per arrangement, Frank called. His voice was tough, crisp, and in charge. "I understand you've been speaking with Joe about doing some training. I'm OK with that [If he were "OK with that" we wouldn't be having this conversation.]. He's got his own budget, but with so many new folks, it'll have to wait until they prove themselves. And if you want to have a discussion with me about it, you'll have to come here to visit us (a three hour drive each way). It would probably be a good idea for us to meet anyway. I'm curious to meet someone who charges that much for a training program."

"Gosh, I hate to drive. Hmmmm. How 'bout if we meet halfway – we'll each drive one and one half hours," I said.

"You want ME to drive??"

"Oh. You hate to drive also. Hmm. I have an idea. Since neither of us want to drive, how 'bout if we spend a few moments on the phone, and see where we stand. We might end up hating each other and there won't be any need for either of us to drive."

"Sounds reasonable," said Frank.

SDM: I hear you are having thoughts about my prices.

F: Well, they are higher than I've ever heard of for sales training. But of course, if we end up getting fair value for it, it would have been worth it.

SDM: Given that you don't know who I am, or what I've developed, or what your folks would learn, or what it is about the system that is worth more than conventional training, or how to know upfront if you'd get value from it, you must be uncomfortable.

F: Not uncomfortable, exactly, because I trust Joe's decision making [He obviously didn't trust Joe enough!]. But you're correct. I'm not happy spending that kind of money for something I believe I can get cheaper. [Good for him. He's put his cards on the table. Shows a certain level of trust.]

SDM: So how would you know that Buying Facilitation® – the new paradigm selling model I've developed and will be teaching Joe's folks – offers a new set of skills that would actually give you the type of ROI that you're seeking?

F: I wouldn't. I'd just have to take Joe's word for it. [I recognised that he didn't offer to read or learn anything. That gave me an interesting dilemma: he was leaving me no opening, wasn't taking Joe's word, and didn't offer any opening to change his opinion.]

SDM: I wonder if there is a way that you could get to learn enough about Buying Facilitation® to give you comfort, get you to recognise its value, and see if it's the sort of model that would make it possible to get your numbers up to where you want them to be. What would need to happen for us to figure out a way for you to get comfortable here?

F: I suppose I should know something about the Model. Is there something you can send me so I can learn about it? [Ah. An opening.] Obviously if Joe is willing to use his entire training budget to bring this in, it must have value and it would probably be good for me to learn about it. What else would you suggest I do? [I must take care to continue helping his decision making process. If I pitch now, I've lost the beginnings of the trust he's offering because he still doesn't know how to choose me; giving him information here will be moot.]

SDM: I can send you some essays, and Joe has a copy of my e-book you can read. I hope you enjoy them. I understand that before we move forward, you'd have to figure out what my value is. [I've moved the conversation from 'trusting Joe' to the real issue: why would he be willing to pay a lot for something he perceived he could get cheaper?] How would you know that my program is worth what I'm charging?

F: I probably wouldn't know until after the program.

SDM: And then it becomes like a Bungee jump – you won't know if it's going to work until after you've jumped. And then it's too late.

We all laughed.

SDM: So, what would you need to understand about Buying Facilitation® that would help you understand that it would give your people a new set of tools to double their numbers, as you've required?

F: You're saying that it's a different model from sales? That's interesting. [I hadn't told him that, but my Facilitative Question implied it.] I guess if we kept using the same selling model we'd keep getting the same results. Different from sales. Hm. And I'll be able understand the Model from what I'm going to read? [Although I was absolutely dying to give a pitch somewhere in here, Frank never asked me to explain anything. All of his learning criteria were based on reading something, not hearing something.]

SDM: Correct. And it seems that prior to moving forward, you would like to understand the Model, who I am, and what the material will do for you. [I was pushing a bit here so I could name his apparent criteria for him, since he just gave me a bit of leverage.]

F: You're right. But I bet Joe did his homework already, and has this under control? [His level of trust was now pretty high for both me and Joe. But he evaded my question again, so I had to let him off the hook to stay in rapport.]

SDM: I think we all hope you're right.

We all laughed again.

SDM: What would need to happen for you to get comfortable enough for us to move forward in the time frame that best suits your company given the revenue increases you're seeking for next year?

F: Tell you what. I'll read whatever you send me. If it's as good as I assume it must be for Joe to go out on a limb like this, given that he's had to do some hard thinking to figure out how to meet the objectives I've given him, I'll give Joe a tacit agreement to move forward when he thinks it would suit him best. [It seems I've proven myself, and the money objection is gone.] But I'd like to call you with questions if you don't mind. And, when we're ready to sign the contract, let's do it over lunch – my treat – and we'll drive up and meet you half way.

Joe and I burst out laughing. After a moment Frank starting laughing too.

F: I suppose you just used the model on me, right?? You haven't sold me a thing – no pitch, no presentation. You just helped me decide how to choose you. And I'm hoping this is what you're going to teach my folks. Not only did I not want to sign the contract when I began, but I didn't believe it was possible to use the phone for anything more than getting an appointment. This conversation will also get me to reconsider my predisposition to using the phone only for making appointments. Thanks, Sharon Drew. I'm excited. And I'll even pay for lunch when we meet.

Analysis of Call and Implications

Money objections - Objections happen only when someone's criteria are being pushed; money objections occur when folks don't understand value. And telling them what the value is by pitching, handling objections, or presenting, doesn't help. When two things appear equal, the only differential is money. When value is understood, money is not the criteria. In this conversation, I had to deal with several things:

Frank's fear of spending 'that kind of money' on something he understood to cost a lot less, over-rode his trust in a senior executive
Because Frank couldn't say that he didn't trust Joe, he used the excuse of working with a 'proven' team and moved the training forward several months – and we know what would happen then, given they'd be using the same sales skills they used when they weren't getting the success he wanted
He hated doing business on the phone
He had no idea who I was, and was so confident in his understanding of the necessary criteria (i.e. 'sales training' cost X) that had no criteria around figuring out why I might be worth it

If you go back to the conversation, you'll note that I never made a pitch, that I kept going back into the issues and making Frank make his own decisions that would lead him to figuring out for himself how to choose me and my material. And although I never made a pitch, the way I worded my Presumptive Summaries and my Facilitative Questions led him to understand what I was selling, and my value as a Partner.

Also, it was a very 'pushy' dialogue. The conversation might appear at first glance to be soft, but indeed it was very controlled and relentless: I kept leading him into making the decisions he needed to make.

At no point did I defend my price or change it – we never had to get into that. Note that if I started pitching product, and defended price, the conversation wouldn't have gotten very far. Price wasn't the issue: it was his discomfort not knowing how to spend 'that sort of money' for something that was new to him.

I just lead Frank to all of the decisions he'd need to make to justify my price to himself. He had to recognise his own criteria – which he never really shared – and make a quick, internal, judgement call as to whether or not it was being met. I had no way of knowing if he successfully did this except by hearing how he eventually accepted my agreements with Joe. It was all hidden from me, and even if I understood what was going on for him, it wouldn't have mattered. HE needed to understand, and make some sense of it all.

And he did. Once he found a route through, he could go back to trusting Joe's decision. All I did was to facilitate his decision. I didn't sell a thing.

Buying Facilitation® - In terms of the parts of Buying Facilitation® that I used, I did a lot of Presumptive Summaries that showed Frank his unspoken beliefs, and then led him to the decisions he had to make to trust me and Joe. And most importantly, I taught him how to decide what 'value' he might get, even though he had no content to work from. I operated out of the following assumptions:

That any COO wants what's best for his/her company
That Frank would have preferred to trust his VP, all else being equal
That money is an objection only when a product seems the same as other products in the same category and there is no means to differentiate
That if I could get Frank to figure out for himself how he needed to figure it out, he'd make the best decision (and telling him what I thought he needed to know to figure it out wouldn't get either of us very far)
That no matter where it went, I had to work with it: it wasn't about my product, my price, or my delivery
Frank was smart. He figured it out. I didn't pitch, present or propose. I didn't have to handle objections or prove my value. I used the phone to help him make a six figure decision and didn't have to meet him in person. All I did was lead him through his own decision criteria to his own best decision

That is our new job as sellers: help our buyers make their own best decisions, using their own criteria, and use our Facilitative Questions to help them position our product as their own solution. It's ethical, based on win-win, truly supportive of a collaborative Partnership, and uses no manipulation or influencing strategies. Ultimately, it trusts that the Buyer will come up with his/her own best answers, and if me and my product fit into the Buyer's solution, I'll be chosen.

Selling In Tough Economic Times

Many experts in business communications and selling offer advice on how to make business happen in a depressed economy.

Sharon Drew Morgen's ideas are among the best you will find, since they draw on the proven effective facilitative principles.

Enable, rather than persuade. Help, rather than sell. Offer a broad expert overview, rather than narrow self-interest.

In a depressed or pressurised climate it is all the more vital to avoid the urge to persuade and influence the other person to do what you want. They simply cannot. So they won't. Instead, follow a facilitative methodology, and you will rise head and shoulders above all those (your competitors) who are persisting with old-style push and persuade techniques.

Here's Sharon Drew Morgen's interpretation of how to approach business and selling when the economic mood is resistant and cautious:

What's Different?

What is the difference between selling in a robust economy and selling in a failing economy?

A lot. But perhaps not what you might think.

Your product is the same
Your pitch/presentation is the same
The buyer's need is the same

What's different is the decision-making process the buyers need to go through.

They will now be asking themselves:

Do they have a problem that needs to be resolved now, and the economy has mitigated the types of solutions they seek?

Do they have a problem that can be fixed with a partial, cheaper solution, or with internal resources that can be modified to create a solution?

Do they wait until they have some belief that their business won't be at risk?

Buying Criteria are now Different

(Assuming there is actually a fit between customer and supplier) your wonderful product data or needs-analysis are irrelevant here:

They need you, they need your product, and they need a solution. But they now need additional levels of buy-in before they can spend money: it's no longer 'who' or 'what' or 'how much', it's ' when ' or ' if '.

'Solution' is not their criteria, ‘Preserving Assets' is.

This requires a fundamentally different approach when compared to old-style conventional selling.

There is a way you can help buyers decide to choose you now. But it means adopting a shift in focus - from the problem solving/solution providing outcome that you are currently familiar with, to a decision-support focus that will enable a possible purchasing decision:

Until your buyer figures out what immediate needs must be addressed - whatever that means to them - they will take no action.

In other words, getting their 'needs met' might include resolving the problem with a creative or temporary solution rather than a product purchase. If you can help buyers actually figure out their immediate needs (for example, staffing might be a priority, or outsourcing, or finding an alternate route to a problem resolution), you will be in line as the first vendor they will connect with once they decide to purchase a product.

If you can help the buyer to see their best most appropriate choices, within the criteria that constrains them - quite separate from focusing on a product sale or the criteria you would prefer that they work from - then you will be a big step closer to sustaining some sort of business relationship.

And also consider that the buyer is just part of a larger team, which must be suitably aligned before a positive buying decision is made.

Until the buyer's entire decision team agrees to take action, no action will be taken.

And in tough economic times, these decision teams tend to get bigger.

This means that your regular contact - who may have been the driver in the decision to purchase your product - now has a larger buying decision team.

Decisions rest more crucially on corporate economic factors. And the risk is too high for anyone to make decisions without agreement from the team. If you help your buyer bring together their entire decision team so they can reach agreement - even if their ultimate solution cannot be to purchase your product at this time - there is a greater likelihood of a quick decision to act, although the action might not be the one you would prefer. But it puts you in high regard with the buying decision team.

Until the entire decision team recognises that it would make economic sense to resolve the problem using an external solution such as your product, no action will be taken. After all, they have been resolving the problem in a less effective way in their current daily activities, and there is a case to be made for continuing the status quo until the economy gets stable. If you help the decision team evaluate the difference between the cost and results of continuing doing what they are doing versus the COST (human, time, political, organisational) of reorganising around a new solution that ensures the people involved with the status quo are stable, you will become part of the buyer's decision team. And, if the client sees that all COSTS can be mitigated, or can be seen in a way which overrides their economic concerns and leaves them better off, they will be able to choose to make a purchase now.

Within these considerations it's vital for the buying team to have understood the realities of the situation (denial and neglect are always tough barriers) and to include the human systems as well as the financial ones. So there is ample opportunity for an outsider to help bring clarity and objectivity to the situation.

If you can augment your job to include being a 'decision consultant' or a 'trusted external adviser', you can make good use of economic uncertainty.

Your competitors continue to push and persuade - which gets nowhere. While you can be seen as a helpful adviser, and eventually part of the team.

The methodology underpinning Buying Facilitation® works with the buyer's buying decisions and is a perfect add-on to the sales process at this time. In a world where buyers are inundated by choices, Buying Facilitation® gives the seller a new set of tools - different from selling methods - that provide a decision support capability for buyers to help them understand, manage, and regulate their new economic environment.

Make use of difficult economic times to differentiate yourself as a true trusted expert adviser. You'll not only get more business (and faster, as you help prospects shorten their decision/sales cycle) than you otherwise would in a tough economy, but you'll also gain access to the buying decision team, line up future business that will close once the economy turns around, and be seen as an genuinely helpful external resource.

Authorship/Referencing

Morgen Buying Facilitation Method® and Buying Facilitation® are trademarks of Sharon Drew Morgen.

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Sharon Drew Morgen - Buying Facilitation