These exercises are built on the following principles of facilitative sales.
1. The seller's job is to help people understand what their systems require in order to change.
2. Only a person working or living within a culture or system can understand it, that is, the seller can never truly understand the buyer's system because it is so complex and dynamic.
3. People only make a change when they're sure they can manage the resulting chaos. A seller is uniquely positioned to help the buyer discover how to solve a problem within their system.
4. Only the buyer, never the seller, is able to work their way through the decision within the system. However, the seller can help the buyer do this because the seller has the macro view.
5. The buyer needs to recognise all the specifics of what a solution will entail within his or her unique environment. By matching the buyer's unique buying criteria, the seller is a true advisor and can be easily differentiated from the competition.
6. The seller is uniquely positioned to be a brand ambassador for the supplier. In these activities, groups are split into teams with various roles: buyer, seller and supplier. The aim is for the whole group, that is, all three roles or departments, to be successful. This is the point of facilitative sales.
7. The sellers are only as successful as their clients, and the suppliers are only as successful as their buyers. Thus all three have to work together with the interests of the group as a whole, as well as making sales and therefore money. Teams can compete against each other if time allows, and roles can be changed within the groups to allow for changing dynamics and learning outcomes.