Archives for September 2019

The context the problem exists in may change your perspective both on the true pain that the prospect is experiencing and on your approach to the solution. If my prospect is having issues with production and throughput in the factory, that is one level of problem. But consider the same problem in the context of the owner of the company getting ready to retire and it shines a different light on the problem and whether there might or might not be an incentive to address the problem. Or imagine that the company has just been bought by a much larger firm. Will they shut this plant down or invest in upgrading? Why did they buy the firm? Was it for the customer list or the manufacturing capacity? Each would have different implications on the approach to dealing with the throughput problem. So, you can see that knowing the problem and what you think is the pain is not enough. Unless you understand the context the problem exists in, you will never truly understand either what the compelling reason to buy is or what the approach to the solution should be.

If you have a sales question you would like to discuss follow the link to schedule a call:
https://calendly.com/dancaramanico/callwithdan

Pipeline bloat occurs when your pipeline is full of deals that will never close. Sure, there are deals that will close … but not a very high percentage. This happens when you fail to completely qualify the prospect. Your gut tells you that the deal is good, but you never asked them for a time-frame. Or you think they have enough money to complete the deal, but you never actually asked. They have told you that the deal is being reviewed by management, but you don’t know how long that will take or whether management is on board with the purchase. There are many other scenarios, but the essential point is that in each of these cases the prospect is not properly qualified. We don’t know if there is a compelling reason to buy. Or we don’t know if there is any urgency to buy now. When pipelines are bloated your forecasts are inaccurate and unreliable, your closing rates are low, and you waste too much time chasing the deals that will never close. Qualifying harder is like taking an antacid for the pipeline. The bloat disappears.

If you have a sales question you would like to discuss follow the link to schedule a call:
https://calendly.com/dancaramanico/callwithdan

Are you waiting for a response for proposals you have sent? Does it feel like they are in a black hole? Most of the time the problem is that the salesperson does not know what will happen to the proposal after they submit it. This is especially true if the approval must come from someone you did not get a chance to meet and qualify. If you do not know the steps that your contact has to take to get approval, how long each step will take and what the concerns of the people involved in the final approval are, then your proposal has a great chance to end up in a “black hole” sometimes never to emerge into the light of day again. The solution to this problem is simple just ask you contact what steps she has to take and how long each step will take. Ask about the concerns (pain) of each of the decision makers you did not meet with. Get a commitment from your contact for when she thinks you should follow up. If you do these things you will accomplish two things. You will be able to give an accurate forecast when a decision will be made. And, more importantly, you will know when to follow up which will give you some peace of mind and keep you from being a pest to your prospect.

If you have a sales question you would like to discuss follow the link to schedule a call:
https://calendly.com/dancaramanico/callwithdan

Often, you get what you expect to get. Getting an answer to your questions involves more than just asking it correctly. Communication involves more than just the words you say or the order in which you say them. Tonality and body language convey much more meaning than the words themselves. Your mother always told you it is not what you said but it how you said it that mattered most. To increase your odds of getting an answer to tough questions you ask, you must expect to get an answer to the question. If you ask with the expectation that they will answer, your tonality and body language will reinforce your words and the prospect will most likely answer. But if you ask a question with the belief that they will not want to give you an answer, or, even worse, that they shouldn’t answer, they most likely will not answer. So, convince yourself first that the prospect should answer and then ask the question. Asking without that belief is most often a waste of breath.

If you have a sales question you would like to discuss follow the link to schedule a call:
https://calendly.com/dancaramanico/callwithdan