It Isn’t Just Buying That’s Hard…

There’s been huge amounts of very good research on the how hard buying is. We’ve learned about regret, FOMO, FOMU, abandoned buying efforts. I’ve contributed thousands of words in articles focusing on the difficulty buyers have in buying. But let’s look at this differently.

It isn’t just buying that’s hard, all project/change work is hard. Just look within your own organizations and the major change projects, particularly those cross functional initiatives. The majority of these projects fail! It has little to do with buying, it’s more about the difficulty we/organizations have in these change initiatives.

Research report after research report shows these failures in major cross functional change initiatives:

• McKinsey (2015) shows about 70% of large scale change initiatives fail to achieve their objectives.
• Gartner/PMI show 75% of IT projects exceed budget, miss deadlines, of fail to deliver the expected value.
• Standish Group shows about 30% of projects outright fail, about 50% are challenged (late, over budget, under-delivered). About 20% succeed by meeting all criteria.

Failure is the norm, not the exception.

With that as a backdrop, every complex B2B buying initiative we enter into has a high probability of failing, even before they have started buying!

What are the primary reasons underlying these project failures?

• Unclear and constantly shifting goals. Competing and conflicting goals and agendas.
• Poor cross functional collaboration. Communication breakdowns and the high coordination costs.
• Weak sponsorship and accountability. Lack of clarity on roles and decision rights.
• Technology and complexity issues.
• Low urgency or commitment to change. “Is this critical, to all of us, right now?”
• Constantly shifting/changing risks-risks of doing nothing, risks of moving too slowly, risks of doing the wrong thing, risks of failure.
• Absence of disciplined project management.
• Cultural resistance. The tendency to default to the “norms” of the organization, rather than challenging them.

Then overlaid on this is the reality that these aren’t the only things going on! There is competition from the “day jobs” of people on the project team; competing priorities and resourcing challenges across the organization; constant disruption and shifting requirements, lack of sustained focus.

Now the customer brings outsiders into this process. Buyers who barely know each other must figure out how to align and manage the constantly shifting priorities. And sellers add to this confusion, presenting conflicting solutions, information, and insights.

Along with this, sellers goals are different, they aren’t necessarily aligned with what the customer is trying to achieve, rather focused on their own success and “making the sale.”

Often, sellers are just adding fuel to an already raging fire!

Buying projects don’t fail because buying is unique. They fail for the same reasons so many other projects fail.

And this presents sellers a unique opportunity. What should sellers be doing when faced with the same thing in virtually every complex B2B buying process?

It’s not about continually focusing on the superiority of our solutions. Instead, consider:

• What have we learned from past opportunities (won and lost)? How have customer navigated the process? Where do they fail? What causes them to succeed? How do they manage the constant shifting of who’s involved, differing/conflicting priorities, shifting attention? What lessons can we bring to the customer in helping them more effectively manage this process? (Consider an “audit” of past deals. It’s not a win-loss review, it’s about how customers succeeded/failed in what they sought to do.)
• How can we help the customer learn and succeed in their project? Not just in buying, but in managing their overall project success?
• How do we help the customer more confidently manage their discomfort? As much as we may want to help make the process easier, the reality is making it easier isn’t the real issue. Confidently managing their discomfort–with each other, with the change, with the risks, with what it means to each of them.
• How do we keep the urgency to change front and foremost to everyone in the project. Once this urgency is lost, once more urgent issues arise, the project will stop and probably fail.
• How do we help them maintain project discipline and focus, recognizing the reality of their being pulled in many directions?
• How do we help them envision and internalize success?

Change is hard! Projects are tough. Buyers don’t fail because they struggle to buy, buyers fail because they struggle with their own change management process!

Afterword: I’m hesitant to position this as an “afterword.”  It through reading The Framemaking Sale, that I started thinking about this and studying the issues.

My friends Brent Adamson and Karl Schmidt have just published: The Framemaking Sale. It dives into these issues and more. As our customers and we struggle with change, this book is a practical guide in how we can help our customers manage this process. It’s a must read for anyone in selling and for anyone involved in driving change.

Afterword:  An outstanding AI based discussion of this post.  This is an outstanding discussion.  Enjoy!