“The more you set the table accordingly deliver as promised and continue to do so at every step, the more your prospect grows to expect it.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 762
Do you have a concrete timeframe?
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Jack Wilson on LinkedIn
734: Granular (GREAT Expectations)
741: Reasonable (GREAT Expectations)
748: Explanation (GREAT Expectations)
755: Alternatives (GREAT Expectations)
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Jack Wilson and is the final tip in his GREAT Expectations series. Here it is:
Jack Wilson: Hey there, Sales Tips Community. You’ve made it to tip five of five. I’m proud of you, but if you’re here, it’s no coincidence. It’s probably because I set GREAT Expectations about what you would learn if you listened, and what that journey would look like. Well, either that, or it’s that you just listened to a bunch of these anyways. Either way, good for you.
Tip five, puts the T in GREAT. And that represents Timeframe. Much like setting smart goals. The last and most often forgotten aspect is establishing a hard and fast timeframe. When we consider the time aspect of a sales process, we often take an acute view of what that means, we usually attribute it to one thing. When is the deal going to close? But there are several different timeframes you need to focus on. If you’re going to set GREAT Expectations and ultimately moving an opportunity across the finish line. I like to focus on three specifically. What now? What’s next? And what’s the end game?
What now focuses on the timeframe at hand, whether it’s the initial call discovery demo or you’re at the closing table. Your prospect is always thinking, how long is this going to take? Make sure that at the beginning of each conversation, you’re laying out the timeframe for the call or tasks associated and you’re getting feedback and better yet, buy-in. This is so simple, but often we blow right past it. You should always be saying something along the lines of, “Hey Jermaine. I know we’ve got 30 minutes on the calendar. Is that still good? If we go long, do you have extra time or is our stop a hard one?” Once you’ve completed the current step on time hopefully, it’s important to let your prospect know what’s next. Always, always, always set concrete mutually agreed-upon next steps. That means a date, a time, and a purpose that all parties involved are available for agreed to and have committed to participate in.
Did I say always? Cause I mean it, even if it’s your just checking incall, which I wish we’d eliminate from our vocab, have a purpose, get agreement and schedule it. There’s magic in the relationship between what’s now and what’s next. The more you set the table accordingly deliver as promised and continue to do so at every step, the more your prospect grows to expect it. They will thank you for keeping them organized. And if they ever goes to you, your in the driver’s seat to hold them respectfully accountable.
Lastly, actually firstly is making sure that everyone knows the end game. Think about trying to run a marathon without knowing where or how far the finish line is. The mental anguish of running just to run seamlessly without an end is no different than what your prospects feel when they have no idea when the deal should be ready to move forward. Set a deadline, one that’s reasonable wink, wink chip tick number two, and constantly check-in to make sure you’re on pace. If you’re not press hard for unmet obligations by your prospect before kicking the deadline down the road, otherwise it was a pointless deadline to begin with.
I hope you think this series has been great. All jokes aside. If you’re having problems with longer sales cycles, getting stuck in pending hell or opportunities falling off, do a self-audit and ask. Am I being Granular, Reasonable, Explaining providing, Alternatives and have concrete Timeframe. The more you do, the less of these problems you will have.
Scott Ingram: Let me tell you how much Timeframe matters. As I record this I don’t know how long it will be before Austin Water is able to restore service. Hopefully, this all gets resolved this weekend.
For more from Jack Wilson and this full series of tips, just click over to DailySales.Tips/762. I’m also going to create a Spotify playlist with this complete series of tips that you can get to directly at DailySales.Tips/GREAT
Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!