The TOWARDS / AWAY System
Prospects are either “TOWARDS buyers” or “AWAY buyers.” For the most part, this is absolute. They tend either to move away from pain or towards pleasure, and how they are motivated affects their buying patterns. How do you find out whether someone is a TOWARDS or AWAY buyer? Listen to what they tell you. AWAY buyers will always have that negative spin. They will tell you what motivates them is the avoidance of something. When asked a question like, “Why would you buy a new TV?” AWAY buyers would respond:
- The old one just isn’t working right.
- It doesn’t have the features on it I need.
- I can’t get the channels I want.
- My old one is pretty well shot.
- I am tired of looking at such a small screen.
All focused on the negative part of the sale. AWAY people are moving away from something, usually away from some sort of pain.
TOWARDS / AWAY buyer
The prospect who is a TOWARDS buyer would have a very different reaction to the same question.
- I like the new features.
- I like the looks of it.
- It will fit great in my entertainment center.
- I want to watch my movies on a big screen.
- I want to feel the action in my living room.
There’s nothing negative about their responses. Instead, they identify all positive, forward moving reasons, and this marks the characteristics of a TOWARDS buyer. They don’t express any thoughts on the previous product, but rather focus on the desirable features of the new one.
There is one other type of buyer who tries to evade the question. When asked, “Why would you want a new TV?” these buyers respond with comments like:
- I just want one.
- I need one.
- I don’t know, I just need one.
For these types of buyers, you need to ask again gently, “Why would you really buy one? When it comes down to it, why would you buy a new TV?” They usually then really search their feelings and tell you their reasons. Nine times out of ten, they will give you an AWAY reason. These people are really saying:
“I am an AWAY buyer. Don’t tell me how great something is, or how much more use I will get out of something, because I do not care! I will agree with your logic, but it will not motivate me. Tell me what I can’t have, won’t get, or will lose by not having your product, and you have my attention.”
Psychologically, 70 percent of the world’s population is AWAY. One hundred percent of your company’s sales literature is TOWARDS. It’s no wonder that the TOWARDS sales literature that pronounces the latest and greatest features and functions about your product or service quickly becomes trash basket fodder for senior salespeople. If sales and marketing people tell customers what they won’t get, can’t have, can avoid doing, they will get the attention of 70 percent of the audience.
Sales Literature Direction Words
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Sales materials should also emphasize the pleasure of buying the product (TOWARDS). Thirty percent of the buyers are TOWARDS, and they have no concept of “finding the pain.”
They have a vision, a mission, a path they are on, and they need those TOWARDS reasons. You want to be able to sell to both types of the buyers’ motivational directions. Buyers are interested in many things. Based on how they prioritize and are motivated over time, their motivational direction to do something about it will determine whether their interest level is high enough for them to continue their movement and to go to the next phase called Educate.
Educate
If they are motivated past the Initial Interest phase, buyers will want to educate themselves more on what they can do to satisfy an initial need they have developed. Salespeople usually have this part down, using Feature/Benefit or Feature/Advantage/Benefit selling techniques. Buyers want more information and they get it through a variety of sources. Take, for example, someone who is interested in buying a car.
Once past the point of Initial Interest, she now wants to gather information about the car. She can read some information about it, listen to someone who has some knowledge of cars or a particular car she is interested in, read about information through advertising, or physically go to a car dealer and see it. There are a variety of ways buyers can get information that they need.
If the buyer’s interest wanes at this point, if the information she obtains during this phase does not keep her level of motivation high, then the buyer will stop the buying process. The potential purchase will become a secondary or tertiary priority and go back into that Initial Interest area with the buyer now having a lower degree of motivation. There will be little or no interest to do anything about it. If, however, the buyer is still interested and is still motivated, she will continue up the buying path. She will stick to her process and go to the next phase, called Transfer of Ownership
Transfer of Ownership
Now comes the most interesting part of the buyer’s process. Here the buyer either gets on board or stops the buying evaluation. This is where the buyer takes ownership of the solution being offered, decides to stay in the education mode, or stops the evaluation all together. Welcome to Transfer of Ownership.
All salespersons know when transfer of ownership takes place because they have been in sales situations in which the buyer “gets it.” The buyer now understands how he would be able to use the product or service being offered and agrees with the benefits—What’s In It for me (WIIFM).
The customers start selling themselves. It is what every salesperson dreams will happen on every sales call. The prospect gets it and now is pushing you on how fast something can be done. The pressure is now on the salesperson to follow through.
Transfer of ownership must occur for a prospect to continue on in their buying process. It happens in one of two ways. Either the prospects take ownership of the product/service themselves, or they are induced into taking ownership. Either they figure it out on their own, or the salesperson has helped them figure it out. The first way is reactive. The prospect is reacting to information, and then on his or her own finally gets it. The second way is ProActive. The salesperson has helped lead the buyer through the Transfer of Ownership stage. He or she has proactively induced the transfer of ownership in the buyer’s mind. If transfer of ownership happens through the first way, the salesperson was simply lucky. If it happens through the second way, the salesperson was good.
Be a good salesperson so you can be proactive in the right situation at the right time again and again and again. How do salespeople proactively induce transfer of ownership?
An Example
As a first example, let’s say you are interested in buying a pair of shoes (And I realy was in Milano April 2014). Either your old ones are getting pretty bad (Yep, for that reason) (AWAY), or there are some new ones you really desire (TOWARDS). Whatever the motivation direction may be, you have an interest in a pair of shoes. The interest is so high that you take time to educate yourself on shoes. You may look in a catalog, a fashion magazine, or at other people’s feet; you may actually go down to the store and window shop. If your motivation is still high at this point, and you see a pair that may be of some interest to you, you pick up the display sample, find a salesperson, and say, “Can I please see these in a size X?”
Now the store clerk goes away for a few minutes, and comes back with the pair of shoes you want to try on. Then you make a decision, yes or no, on this particular pair of shoes. This is a typical shoe selling experience. If the salesperson was ProActive, he came back with not just the pair you asked to see, but with two or three additional pairs of shoes for you to try on. Why would a salesperson take so much time in the back room, risk losing you because you don’t like to wait, to bring you out a pair of shoes you have requested, and two or three pairs you did not request?
Good salespeople know their job is not to sell you shoes; it is to get you to try them on. They know once you have a pair of shoes on your feet, they have a better chance at a sale than if you did not take some physical action and get involved. Good shoe salespeople are not wasting time; they are just trying to increase their odds at getting a sale. Good shoe sales people are ProActive and can proactively induce the transfer of ownership.
A second example . . . @ an exhibition
A software company has just given an hour demonstration to a client. The demonstration was set up to transfer ownership, not just to educate. The salesperson is a ProActive one. The meeting is about to adjourn. All she has to do is give a final closing summary, have the software engineer say a few final words, and then propose a next step. You might think that the demonstration, or transfer of ownership in this case, was the 45 minutes or so the software engineer had the customers in front of the computer screen. They asked some questions, the salesperson answered them, and things looked good. They seemed really to understand the software.
The salesperson might make the mistake of offering as the next step a proposal to keep this sale moving. Instead, now is the perfect time to complete the transfer of ownership. The salesperson, before the final summary and proposal to go to the next step, stops and turns to the customer and says:
The conversation is now completing the transfer of ownership in the clients’ minds. The salesperson is using a Time Slotl, which is a transfer of ownership system. Instead of the salesperson pushing, the clients are talking about how the system will solve their problems. They are thinking about how they could make decisions on important business issues they cannot make now since they do not have this type of information available to them. Transfer of ownership is the step most salespeople skip. They very incorrectly assume it is part of the education step.
Rationalize
Once the buyer has completed the transfer of ownership, a unique thing happens. He starts to think:
“Is this the right time to make a decision like this?”
“Have we looked at enough options?”
“Is this the right tool for us or should we look at a few more?”
Salespeople have names for things that happen when buyers enter into the Rationalize phase, such as objections, cold feet, buyer’s remorse, final objections, stuck at the final step, and maybeland.
Salespeople do not anticipate the buyer having to go through a final rationalization process. But buyers do. After a great demonstration, salespeople are eager to put together a final proposal, get it approved, and have the customer sign it ASAP. Reactive salespeople think like this because this is how salespeople generally have been taught to think. However, it is not how a buyer, or a ProActive sales person for that matter, thinks.
After completing a transfer of ownership and proceeding up the decision path, buyers need one more final justification, one more rationalization. This happens all the time. You try the shoes on one more time. You are ready to buy the shoes, but want to try both on, just to be sure. You are ready to buy the car, but want to look at it one more time before the salesperson comes back with the final papers. Executives call a final meeting with the people who are in charge of using the product or service to make sure, one more time, “we are doing the right thing” by investing the company’s resources and the executive team’s reputation. You want to sleep on a decision overnight just to straighten out your thoughts. This is the buyer’s final justification experience, or their final rationalization.
Sometimes the buyer breezes through this phase; sometimes it takes a long time and can most definitely kill a deal if it “hangs” in this stage too long without progress. It seems the larger the sale, the more time a buyer spends in this stage. However, buyers who stay in the Rationalization phase too long tend to see the proposed solution now as too old or not current, or, after having slept on it, still cannot make a decision, so was it really right the first time? Buyers need to rationalize a purchase before they make a final decision. The ProActive salesperson is aware of this step and uses ProActive tools to stay in control of the sale.
Decide
The actual decision is the final buying step. If a buyer has gone through the buying cycle and is still motivated, she will make a decision. It will be either yes or no. It is that simple. The buyer decides yes or no, not “Should I sign this order today?” so our definition of close is not the reactive “getting an order.” Getting an order is a “selling” mentality. Buyers dislike being “sold to.”
Our definition of close is obtaining a decision, either yes or no, without delay. Yes’s are great, no’s are great (for different reasons); it’s the maybes that will kill you. Time is the enemy here, and here is where most salespeople make the biggest mistake.
“I just need to polish up my closing skills.”
“I can sell. I just need to add a few more closing skills in my repertoire.”
“I do everything right, then things fall apart at the close.”
“My boss says I am just afraid to ask for the order, but I am asking for the order. It’s just not coming in yet.”
As a matter of facts, there are really no good “closing skills.” There are some negotiating skills you can use in this or any step of selling, but if you are looking for those great closing skills, or even great “trial” closing skills, you will not find them here. Buyers don’t “close.” They make decisions based on the buying process that has just been described. So the skills you will learn about in Close will be focused on having the buyer feel like the close of a deal is just the final step in a natural buying process. There are no high-pressure (money losing) tactics here, just some tools to help the buyer through the final step of his buying process.
Remember
Throughout ProActive Selling, you will use the buy process, match it to the sell process, and see how you can always be in control of the sale. Own the process; own the deal.
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| A buyer goes through | A seller goes through a similar, parallel process. |
If you own the process, you own the deal and win the sale. It is very true that people buy from people they like and trust. It’s important to improve rapport building and communication skills so that you convey trustworthiness, but it is more important to concentrate on leading the process so that you will own the deal.
