A New Paradigm: Enabling Buying in a World of Selling

Victor Hugo astutely observed:  “You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come.”

The CFS mission — Enabling Buying in a World of Selling —is just such an idea. Let me explain.

Enabling buying demands that you stop selling and participate in the discovery that something is worth buying.

As you know, that’s not the way the world of selling operates today. Sellers concentrate on what’s been rehashed in all the sales training seminars they’ve ever sat through. This includes:

• new techniques to sharpen their delivery
• negotiation skills guaranteed to produce results
• open-ended questions they’re supposed to ask
• and all the games they’re supposed to play

None of these make any impact to buying whatsoever.

Buyers are primed for these encounters, too. One example is having been underwhelmed by effusive emails promising this or that and elaborate  efforts to grab their attention. Additionally, they know to announce the seller has five minutes to wow them. They routinely ask if the seller has “done this before,” whatever “this” is.

Training a sales person to move a buyer to make a purchase is a waste of time.

Buying can occur only after two people who have a mutually respectful professional relationship recognize the positive outcome of working together to solve a serious problem or pressing concern.

That discovery is the buyer’s and the seller’s responsibility.  Together they must explore the reasons that buying should occur. That begins by identifying the questions that they need ask each other. What problem is the buyer confronting?  What information does the seller need to respond? Is there the possibility of either the buyer or the seller saying “No, this isn’t going to work?” while maintaining a positive relationship that includes the possibility that there will be a next time?

All these questions and many more are part of the larger question “What’s needed to enable buying in a world of selling?”

Even if none of this makes sense to you yet, I urge you to remain calm and read on.

A New Paradigm: Enabling Buying in a World of Selling

A new paradigm is needed and its everyone’s responsibility to create it, including yours. When everyone explores answers to the question “What’s needed to enable buying in a world of selling?” the discovery moves forward.  This is in direct contrast to how we are conditioned to think.  We gravitate towards getting “the answer.”  However, once we get an answer, we stop asking the question.  If we hold the question open, then we can discover many answers.

At Criteria for Success, one of the answers we’ve discovered to enable buying is that the buyer and seller must be in a workable relationship.  Simply stated, workability occurs when both parties honor their word and operate with integrity.  In such a relationship, what you say and how you listen really matters. By making a commitment to establishing workability in your professional relationships, you’re confirming that enabling buying in a world of selling is an idea whose time has come.

At CFS, we are constantly at work on our mission.

We have transformed our messaging, our marketing approach, our selling, our training, our conversations with each other, and much more.  New possibilities for all the work we do show up on a daily basis.

We are really excited to invite everyone to participate in this mission.  Anyone invested in transforming selling in the world can empower sellers to enable buying in a world of selling!

Everyone in our organization stands for it and we invite you to stand for it also.