Empowering buyers to complete their journey

January 28, 2010 By David Crankshaw

A friend of mine works for a solar installation company. Recently he told me a story.

Many Jewish synagogues are investigating the idea of installing solar panels to generate electricity. Like churches and community centers across the country, these synagogues all have Green Committees that are evaluating ways to operate more sustainably.

After some discussion, the Green Committee members at these synagogues say to themselves “Let’s get a sales person in here to talk about solar electricity generation so we can decide what to do.”

The sales person gets the call and though she doesn’t know much about synagogues, she wants to go make a presentation. She’s thinking, “Hey, they called me. It’s a good lead, right?”

And if she hesitates, the buyer says “We called your competitor. They’re sending someone. Why can’t you come out and make a presentation?”

But my friend, who is a member of a synagogue and has served on their Board, knows what’s going to happen:

  • The sales person will make the presentation.
  • Everyone in the room is a “green” activist. They will all get excited about the possibilities. They can picture clearly the story they will tell their friends about how they were able to get the synagogue to “go solar”.
  • The salesperson will leave (feeling positive about this great opportunity) and the Green Committee will discuss the next step, which will likely be a presentation to the Board.
  • The Board will listen sympathetically. They’ll probably even be warm to the idea. But then questions will come up about how this fits into the overall Facilities and Capital plan. Questions about budgeting and financing. Questions about evaluating multiple vendors.

If the Green Committee isn’t prepared for these questions, it will be sent off to do more research. It will have to meet with the other committees.

This will take time.

Ouch. Both the salesperson and the Green Committee misunderstood what they were getting into.

Could the solar company take a different approach that would produce a better outcome for the solar company and the synagogue?

At this point, let’s step back and recognize a fact. Collectively, this solar company knows more about the buying process at a synagogue than the buyer does. It has worked multiple deals. It knows the internal policies, the people who must be involved, and the likely pitfalls they will encounter.

Beyond having a great product and the ability to demonstrate its capabilities, how can the solar company create value for the buyer and increase the probability of a purchase?

Here’s the answer. It can create value by preparing the Green Committee for a journey in their own organization that they don’t even know they will have to take. By teaching them how to navigate the obstacles and move their agenda forward. By giving them the tools to prepare for each step in the journey.

If you were running the Marketing department for this company, what would you have to do in order to support the salespeople for this strategy?

  1. Negotiate agreement with Sales on which markets are viable for your company. Evaluate whether the opportunity in the synagogue market (or any other vertical market) is worth the investment, then act in accordance with the decision.
  2. Map the buyer’s journey and how the company can create value for the buyer at each stage. Many of the ways to create value have little to do with the product and much to do with enabling the buyers to navigate their own organization.
  3. Create the marketing structure that responds to the buyer map – articles, web pages, instructions, case studies – anything that will enable the buyer and make the salesperson’s job easier.
  4. Create the persuasive arguments for each stage. Ask yourself: What is your goal at this stage of the buyer’s journey? What is your goal for the buyer at this stage? How do you create trust that your company has the synagogue’s interests in mind? What logic will you use to make your case? How will you persuade them to make an emotional commitment to your goal and to take action?
Filed Under: Buyer's Journey Tagged With:

Why facts and logic are unconvincing

January 27, 2010 By David Crankshaw

When Obama speaks, why do his words confirm the beliefs of both Democrats and Republicans? Whatever he says reinforces the agreement that Democrats feel. And it reinforces the skepticism of the Republicans.

It’s our psychology. If someone tells us something, even if it is factually or logically sound, we will ignore the facts and logic if we are feeling skeptical.

Why does this happen?

Our memory is largely composed of stories. When we communicate, I tell you a story which reminds you of a story which you tell to me, and so on. When we hear Obama or any politician speak, it reminds us of a “story”, in this case the story of our political beliefs on that particular subject.

If the speaker’s words conflict with our story, then we work to dismiss the speaker’s comments so that we can confirm what we already believe. Once we’ve resolved the conflict, we actually experience a kind of pleasure.

Scientists have observed this operating in the brain. When people are feeling skeptical, the factual evidence they hear doesn’t engage the reasoning part of their brains. It engages the parts of the brain that are involved with regulating emotion and the parts involved with resolving conflict.

Psychologists call it a “confirmation bias.” What we hear tends to confirm what we already believe.

Now imagine what happens when a skeptical buyer reads or hears information from your company. If you start explaining the facts too early they will turn your facts against you. Your logical argument will simply confirm what these skeptics already believe. The audience will actually become more resistant to you, not less!

How to combat confirmation bias?

Focus on the moderates. You aren’t going to persuade everyone. The most confirmed skeptics will remain skeptical no matter what you do, so stop trying. Focus on the audience in the middle. These people are more moderate in their skepticism and more open to the possibility of another point of view.

Put your audience in a state of persuadability. As Cicero said, you want your audience to be attentive, trusting, and willing to be persuaded. Before launching into the logic of your argument, gain their attention and trust. Communicate how you share their values. Demonstrate that you have practical experience in the subject. Show that you have their interests in mind.

Begin with values or beliefs the audience already holds. Make the premise of your core argument something that the audience already believes. Then build the logic of your argument so the audience believes your choice to be the one that is also advantageous to them.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: ,

The passive voice. Killing me softly.

January 19, 2010 By David Crankshaw

Entrepreneurs are energetic. They are ambitious for themselves, their ideas, and their organization. They hustle to convince investors, employees, and customers to believe their vision.

Scientists and engineers who start companies are especially energetic. More is at risk. Their ideas are unproven, but confidence in their technology propels them forward.

And yet, the communication from these companies too often hides the bustle and the drive underneath. The text on their websites and in their white papers uses a passive voice. The reader gets the impression that an unseen actor is causing events to occur, that no one in particular is driving the machine.

Why is this? Why do these hard-charging risk takers allow their company to communicate a sanitized story in a passive voice?

One culprit you can blame is the tendency of bureaucratic large companies to obfuscate. And our tendency to imitate their flabby and passive language. To avoid showing any weakness or imperfection, in business writing we too often adopt a language that allows no one in particular to take responsibility.

But that’s not the only cause. You can also blame scientific writing and the scientific training of people in technical fields. In science, the goal is to discover and communicate facts. We don’t negotiate facts, they are the truth and we discover them. The passive voice is often used in scientific writing to communicate the message: “This isn’t just me saying these results are true. These experiments were conducted and the truth emerged.”

However, business is not science. It is not only about facts. It is about a truth that you negotiate. It is a truth that requires more than the just the logic of your argument. To persuade others, they must have confidence in your character and feel you have connected with their emotions and attitudes.

What should business writing be like? Richard Lanham states firmly:

It ought to be fast, concrete, and responsible. It should show someone acting, doing something to or for someone else. Business life offers few occasions for the descriptive set-piece; it chronicles history in the making, depicts someone working on matter or with people. It seldom relates abstract concepts for the fun of it; abstractions occur as parts of a problem to be solved. Business prose ought, therefore, to be verb-dominated prose, lining up actor, action, and object in a causal chain and lining them up fast.

In business we have to know who is doing what to whom. Buyers have to know you will take action and what you will do. The active voice states clearly that you take responsibility for the results you will produce.

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Layers of trust, Part three

January 4, 2010 By David Crankshaw

The last two posts were about the nature of trust and levels of trust that exist between people who work together (here and here).

If common stories are how we build trust in each other, where do people start who have no stories in common? How can two people initiate a business relationship that requires a level of trust to even get started? How can they develop confidence in each other about actions they can’t control?

  • Start with realistic assumptions about how much the other individual can trust you.
  • Study the other person’s professional life. Companies they’ve worked for and what they did, where they went to school, the arc of their professional development.
  • Learn about what they are trying to accomplish and the obstacles they face.
  • Find the links between the other person’s stories and your own stories – people, companies, geographies, experiences you might have in common.

Now you have questions to ask, areas to look for connection. You can remind the other person of their own stories in a way that coordinates these past events with the possibility of future events that include you. You can simulate common stories with the other person in order to initiate trust more systematically and quickly.

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Layers of trust, Part two

January 3, 2010 By David Crankshaw

In the last post I described Schank’s idea on intelligence and storytelling:

Intelligence is our ability to understand what has happened to us well enough to “predict when it might happen again.”ť

“We get reminded of what has happened to us previously for a very good reason. Reminding is the mind’s method of coordinating past events with future events to enable generalization and prediction.”

And further that conversations between people strike at the heart of intelligence because they involve reminding.

“Storytelling and understanding are functionally the same thing. Conversation is no more than responsive storytelling. The process of reminding is what controls understanding and therefore, conversation.”

Trust derives from common stories

The level of trust that exists between two people is largely a function of the stories they have in common. The more stories that you have in common with another person, the better able you are to coordinate past events with future events in relation to this person. These common stories allow you to generalize and predict what might happen in the future with this person.

The common stories are strengthened if there was something important at stake in your common experiences (jobs or lives were on the line) and if you faced significant obstacles together (the deal with the customer kept threatening to fall through or the emergency surgeries almost failed).

You may have a long history with your mail carrier, but very little is at stake and you faced few obstacles together that tested your character. But if you were in battle with another person or worked in the same firehouse or raised children with another person, you have a history together. You had something at stake and it tested your character.

If two people are considering doing business together – a project, a deal, a purchase – they need a level of confidence about what the other person will do if far away, or if it is in the future, of if their actions can’t be verified. They need a level of trust. The risk of the business and the level of trust between them will determine whether they will consider moving forward.

You could divide the amount of trust between two people into three levels.

First level – You and the other person have a long and deep relationship. The two of you have faced many obstacles where the stakes were high. You tell each other your common stories until they are the same story. You coordinate these stories in relation to your plans for the future. Because of your history together, you have a high degree of confidence in your ability to face obstacles in the future together, even if you are far away from each other or if what the other person does cannot be verified.

Second level – You and the other person don’t know each other, but you have a third party in common with whom you both have a history and with whom you share many stories. If this third party introduces the two of you, the third party brings up the stories that he or she has in common with each of you and begins to build a story between the two of you – colleges you attended, other friends or family in common, companies where you worked, books you’ve read and places you’ve travelled. The third party coordinates the stories in common with both of you to create an imagined future where the two of you would create your own stories together. The third party uses story to create an initial level of trust between the two of you.

Third level – You’ve never met the other person. You don’t have any third parties in common that can share a story with each of you. The two of you are on your own and you are starting from square one.

If you want to do business with someone, the best person to choose is someone at the First Level where a high level of trust already exists. If that’s not possible, then a good introduction to someone is the next best. You’ll still have to establish trust with each other by building a history of common experiences where you face obstacles where there is something at stake, but the third party gives you a foundation to start from.

The Third Level is the hardest. You are starting from scratch. In the next post we’ll look at how to simulate stories in common with a person at the Third Level that will get you closer to agreeing to initiate a relationship.

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