“If you want to get deals closed by a certain time, look at the realistic timeline and look at the steps left in the sales process.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 307
What about you? Are you being desperate?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. David Weiss from ADP is back today with some advice for sales leaders as we near the end of the month and the end of the quarter:
David Weiss: Happy Friday, Sales Success Community. This is David Weiss with a tip of the day. So this tip is for all those sales leaders out there. As we get into the holidays and as we get into the end of our months, I’m seeing a lot of people that may not be hitting their number or maybe off or may just want to drive in some extra revenue for the end of the year or the end of the month, end of the quarter, what have you. And what I’d ask you to do is just stop and don’t be desperate. I am seeing this in businesses were trying to wrap things up and I’m being asked or you know, people I know are being asked to offer deals or incentives or wave things or discounts and whatnot. And that can be a way to get clients to move forward. However, you need to look and understand what part of the sales process you’re in. If you start offering those things too early before you’ve agreed on even the business terms. You look desperate and you also look like you don’t understand the client’s buying process, which is gonna frustrate them or you actually anger them cause they’re like, I can’t even meet the deadline that you’re trying to meet so I can’t take advantage of this thing and you shouldn’t have even offered me it because now I want it now I can’t have it to you. Cause some frustration there. There are other things like say your business is closing at the end of the month and you’re a week away from its closing and you try and ask your salespeople to go offer this discount if they sign now. But you haven’t even presented a contract yet. Or maybe you’ve presented a contract but you haven’t gotten red lines back and you ask them that and they told you that their legal process is going to take a couple of weeks and there’s nothing they can do about it ’cause that’s just how long it takes. So then ask your salespeople and your salespeople will probably do their jobs and do what you ask them to do. But even if the client says that they want to do business with you now or says that they want to take advantage of that incentive, they can’t because your team hasn’t generated the contract yet or the contract can’t get through legal and all of a sudden you offered an incentive that has, that people want to take advantage of that has no potential of hitting the appropriate deadlines. And you frustrated your salespeople, you frustrated your clients, you set unrealistic expectations and you actually potentially just even gave away some of the businesses money. Cause you know what happens once you offer an incentive with a deadline to it, even deadline passes, people still want that incentive. But you didn’t get your angle, which was getting your opportunity close faster. So what I’d asked, you know, sales leaders to do is if you want to get deals closed by a certain time, look at the realistic timeline and look at the steps left in the sales process. And again, work backward to determine that. If you’re gonna offer an incentive, the client can actually take advantage of the incentive and the client can meet the milestones that need to be met in the timeline that you’re offering it in. And if they can’t, don’t offer it. Just be realistic. We’re all gonna have quota next month, we’re all gonna have quota next year. I know we’re all trying to do our best to hit numbers, but there’s no point in offering something that is unachievable and that sets the wrong expectations and just really can’t get done. It just hurts everyone. And you take something that was organic, that was working, that was going to close anyway, and you throw disruption in it and you throw unrealistic expectations in it and you cause frustration and you cause urgency where there shouldn’t be or where there can’t be because they can’t meet the timelines that you’re establishing. So just food for thought. I hope that makes sense to everyone. Happy to answer any questions around it. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and holiday season and look forward to coming to you with another tip in the future. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
Scott Ingram: David’s tip makes so much sense. I’m going to pile on just a little bit and suggest that once you’ve done the work to identify which opportunities in your pipeline even have a shot at closing that you then go back and listen to Tip #191 from James Muir where he talks about what he calls “The Something Special” variation of the perfect close. It’s the perfect companion to this reminder from David.
That’s it for today. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!