Buy and Sell the Change

For years, or at least the years I have been in professional sales, buyers and sellers have always seemed to be at odds, on different sides of the table and often times adversarial.

It shouldn't be this way.

Why?

Both sides are, or should be, after the same thing and that is to implement a change that will drive performance for the customer.

60% or more of evaluations go to no decision.

Over 50% of buyers polled said they bought the wrong solution.

Customers that don't fully adopt solutions they buy are the norm.

Productivity improvement pre-2004 was 3% ave per year.

Since 2004 it is 1%.

I could go on because the list is large but really all of it means one thing.

Solutions were sold.

Solutions were bought.

And in both cases they got it wrong.

Because CHANGE is where the value is.

If sellers would focus more on the change, they would be better able to help the champion navigate a purchase decision that normally results in no decision.

If buyers would focus on the change, they would be better able to understand where the real value is achieved and do more to implement, adopt and optimize the solutions they buy. And of course they would be more likely to buy the right solutions.