Four reasons why deals get stalled in the pipeline - the problem has gone away...your price is too high...they don't have confidence in your proposal...they don't have confidence in you.
The question you should ask: "which of these four reasons is preventing you from making a decision today?"
Why can't Ohio State run the ball??????
Ohio Stadium on a sunny fall afternoon is a beautiful site.
I am a big fan of Herm Edwards on ESPN...he has talked about playing all the way...doing all the little things...not just some of the things to win and he calls that sweeping the corners. Kind of reminds me of working in a retail store in high school and the older lady who managed the store made me "sweep the corners."
Reminds me that salespeople need to do the same things in terms of getting all the pain out on the table...of getting to all the decision makers.
Are you "sweeping the corners" with your prospects?
Click on this link for an excellent reminder from Seth Godin about choosing customers:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/11/choose-your-customers-choose-your-future.html
Many times salespeople become "POW Prospectors". We have all seen the movie where the hero is made a prisoner of war and stuffed into the bamboo cage and is given slop to eat by his captors. And he thinks "this is slop...but I have not eaten in a long time...and I don't know when I will eat again...so he eats the slop."
Salespeople do the same thing when they decide to work on an opportunity that is either not qualified or not in their sandbox. It sounds like this: "this opportunity is slop...but I have not closed anything in a long time...and I don't know when I will have another shot at a piece of business...so they work on the slop."
Remember - a full pipeline tends to provide courage and clarity...particularly about choosing your prospects and customers.
In LA this week on business and needed some gas for my rental car so into the first station I came to...where I was expecting to pay at the pump...only to find out while this station had pay at the pump it was not located on the pump (where it always is located) and that they don't take credit cards...only debit cards.
Not finding this convenient, I drove away and bought gas at another station.
How convenient do you make it for people to do business with you? Unless your relationship with a client is 100% safe, you should be asking your clients that question...before it is too late...and they drive away to another station.
By the way, they wanted a .45 administrative fee for me to use a debit card.
So here is the scene - my 6 year old daughter Madison is selling coupon books as a fund raiser and she shows the book her grandmother after dinner. Grandma (who will certainly eventually buy) is going through the book page by page and wondering how many of the coupons she will use as she doesn't get out all that much.
After a few minutes, Madison simply asks "are you gonna pay for this or not?" Classic. It was a humorous reminder that every sales call must end with a clear call to action. You need to put something out there that the prospect could say "no" in their response. Risk it. I would argue that opportunties never get stalled. They are either moving forward (the relationship is getting better and deeper) or it is moving backwards (the prospect is headed in a different direction but they are not telling you that).
Have the guts to find out which direction you are headed. I know a 6 year old who can help you.
Check out this article by Dave Kurlan:
Do you have salespeople with happy ears? Do you have happy ears?
That is defined as a tendency for salespeople to hear what they want to hear from prospects instead of understanding what the prospect is really saying. For example, when the prospect says "we are always open to new ways of doing business" the salesperson thinks they hear "change is no problem."
No, I am not talking about the literary classic by Charles Dickens (and no, I am not referring to the Cliff Notes version either).
I am referring to the NFL Sunday Ticket that I ordered for the first time this season on DirecTV that allows me to watch all of the NFL games in HD. It includes a mix channel where I can watch 8 games at the same time and a Red Zone Channel that constantly cuts to live games when a team enters the red zone.
What does this have to do with selling and managing clients? Your competition is any company of anything who raises your clients expectations. If you are an accounting firm and your client has a dazzling experience with their IT vendor then expectations (while indirectly) have been raised for you. For me, DirecTV has raised my expectations for all of the other companies I do business with. Fairly or unfairly, my expectations of Marriott, Delta, AT&T and Avis have been raised.
How about you? When is the last time you did something to raise your client's expectations?