Why can't selling be more like buying?

Maybe it's me, but I keep wondering why the selling process is so different than the buying process. It's simpler to frame in thought than execution, but the goal is to get buyers to buy and somehow selling doesn't match up.

When marketers and salespeople talk about selling, some of the things that come up are:

• Budget - approved and at the ready
• Need - defined project
• Authority - the person with the clout
• Timeline - within a period we think is important
• Demographics - who we've decided we want to sell to
• Circumstances - indicators we can use to sway their decision
• Lifetime Value - how much we can get from them over time
• Upsell and Cross sell - potential to sell them other stuff

When buyers look to solve a problem, [buying is the end result] some of the things that come up are:

• Reasons - why we need to change
• Risk - how much we're putting on the line
• Outcomes - what we'll get - how things will change
• Adoption - what it'll take to put this change into practice
• Characteristics - how this solution affect with what we have
• Collective - what our peers and competitors are doing
• Superiority - best practice applications
• Proof - we're making a great choice to achieve business objectives
• Consensus - getting the stakeholders to agree to a course of action

When you compare one side to the other, do you see any similarities?

Don't you think a shift is in order?

I can't help but think that if our thinking was more in alignment that our go-to-market approaches would be, as well. Not to mention the response to them...Your thoughts?

Comments

[Christian Maurer]

I like this post as I am a firm believer that things are bought, not sold.

[Alen Majer]

It is not true that new products are manufactured to supply the demand. There is no demand. Both the demand and the products have to be manufactured. The public has always held fast to its old-fashioned discomforts, until the sales people persuaded it to let go.

There was no demand for the Railroad, and for years many people believed that thirty miles an hour would stop the circulation of the blood.

There was no demand for the Telegraph, and Morse had to plead and beg before ten Congresses before he received any attention.

When Bell first showed his telephone at the Philadelphia Centennial, it was endorsed by the greatest scientists of America and England. It was tested and proved. But the average man called it a "scientific toy" and refused to either use it or finance it.

[Seamus Walsh]

Great post! Ahh the good old days. I love antique auctions, they are fun because things are both bought and sold.

Sales is the last of the wild west, Sirius Decisions is calling for an end to that process as we know it. Kudos to the company who can tame this once magic art. Rest assured, look inside the head of any great salesman and you will see a process that aligned to the buyers wants and needs. Process, metrics and taxonomy is the new differentiator.

There will always be auctions, perhaps one where someone will sell me an early Bell phone.

[Christian Maurer]

Alen,

admittedly new product categories do not necessarily find a demand initially. "Education" is needed to create this demand. The question is though how this demand is created. Primarily with the sales person's commission check in mind or with the value this new product category could provide to a customer. I understand Ardath's post as an invitation to consider the latter. You might also want to consider this link: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/sell-like-you-buy.html

[Ardath Albee]

Good discussion. Christian, thanks for phrasing my invitation so well.

I think we should consider that "demand" may be the wrong concept. What about "need?"

Nobody needed a railroad. What they needed was a way to move goods and people across longer distances and do so faster.

Perhaps what's called for is a focus on context and, as Seamus suggests, a shift in taxonomy that keeps us parallel with that context.

Just a thought.