What do you do once your content strategies bring in the prospects?

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Drool, Britannia? Is the UK Failing the Cloud?

By Roger Strukhoff

Richard Davies wrote: The UK has a good crop of technology pioneers in cloud computing - for example ElasticHosts, FlexiScale, Flexiant, OnApp - and also some strong government initiatives such as G-Cloud. We will have to see whether this kind of technical leadership converts into swift mass-market adoption or not.

Jan. 8, 2012 11:38 AM EST

HOW WE DECIDE TO BUY MAY OR MAY NOT BE CONTENT BASED

In reality, with all of the content we’re offering and strategically placing, we cannot be assured that the buyer’s buying decision will include us. Certainly we’ve influenced the process. But what happens when we actually speak with them?

And here is where Buying Facilitation® comes in. As Ardath says in her book, “It’s ridiculous to think that your company will be involved in all the crucial conversations that take place during the course of a complex purchase.” We know that. We know that we are not there when the department heads speak to each other, when the tech team wants to be involved and they shouldn’t be. Sharing content is a great first step, but what do you actually say to someone when you follow up a great lead, or they call you?

As we drive sales by having the right content and following up strategically, what is stopping us from closing the sales we should be closing? Obviously it’s not our product or our content. It’s just that sales does not manage the strategic facilitation of the internal, behind-the-scenes issues that buyers must address before they can choose us – whether they need us or not.

But by adding decision facilitation skills to our conversations, we can actually take the next step once we’ve driven prospects to our door. And I’m not necessarily suggesting we can change buyer’s behaviors (although Buying Facilitation® can influence the stakeholders by helping them make decisions that will ensure the integrity of their culture and relationships), but I am suggesting we can influence the behaviors of sellers.

I recently was on a site that seemed as if it might give me something I needed. I began signing up, and then decided to not send the query. Miraculously, I got a call from this company seconds (yes seconds) after I left the site.

“Hi there. I’m from X company. I saw that you were on our site (gosh – it really feels like Big Brother is Watching me) and saw that you didn’t complete. Is there anything you’d like to know about us that I can help you with?”

“Nope. I’m ok.”

“Well, if you need me, here is my number.”

I didn’t take the number down. That was the end of the relationship. Did they have good data? Yup. But I didn’t think I could use it.

Imagine if the conversation had gone like this:

“Hi there. I am calling from X company. I saw that you were just on our site, and I hope you don’t mind me calling and following up. I noticed you got off the site before completing. Is there anything you would have liked to have gotten from our site that we didn’t make available to you?”

Companies are doing a fabulous job with their content strategies. It’s now time to add some skills for the sellers to bring home the business. And if you want even more content, take a look at my new book Dirty Little Secrets to help you start thinking about how to add new skills to be even more successful.

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Published Nov. 16, 2009— Reads 136
Copyright © 2009 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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About Sharon Drew Morgen
Sharon Drew Morgen is the visionary and thought leader behind Buying Facilitation® the new sales paradigm that focuses on helping buyers manage their buying decision. She is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity as well as 5 other books and hundreds of articles that explain different aspects of the decision facilitation model that teaches buyers how to buy.

Morgen dramatically shifts the buying decision tools from solution-focused to decision-support. Sales very competently manages the solution placement end of the decision, yet buyers have been left on their own while sellers are left waiting for a response, and hoping they can close. But no longer: Morgen actually gives sellers the tools to lead buyers through all of their internal, idiosyncratic decisions.

Morgen teaches Buying Facilitation® to global corporations, and she licenses the material with training companies seeking to add new skills to what they are already offering their clients. She has a new book coming out October 15, 2009 called Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it which defines what is happening within buyer’s cultures (systems) and explains how they make the decisions they make.

Morgen has focused on the servant-leader/decision facilitation aspect of sales since her first book came out in 1992, called Sales On The Line.
In all of her books, she unmasks the behind-the-scenes decisions that need to go on before buyers choose a solution, and gives sellers the tools to aid them.

In addition, Morgen changes the success rate of sales from the accepted 10% to 40%: the time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers is the length of the sales cycle, and her books – especially Dirty Little Secrets – teaches sellers how to guide the buyers through to all of their decisions, thereby shifting the sales cycle from a failed model that only manages half of the buying cycle, to a very competent Professional skill set.

Morgen lives in Austin TX, where she dances and works with children’s fund raising projects in her spare time.