What’s the Status of That ‘Sure Thing’ You Forecast?

By:  Gary Walker, managing partner, CustomerCentric Systems, LLC

It's the middle of the month and you are sitting at your desk reviewing the preliminary monthly sales forecasts submitted to you by your sales representatives. You note for about the eighth month in a row, you see the same prospect you've seen lingering, month after month, again, forecast to close. This is the same prospect you authorized the multiple “four-legged” sales calls, prototyped the “must have, or we won't buy” reports and hosted a full day visit at your corporate headquarters. Your company has put a lot of time and expense into selling this account. You are under increasing pressure to close this sale. Having considered all these things, you decide to place a telephone call to your sales representative to determine what else needs to be done in order to insure that this prospect closes this month…as forecast. Upon reaching your sales rep she informs you that, even though the prospect had assured her that this sale was a ‘sure thing’, she has just spoken with the prospect and they have informed they are going to conduct business as usual; they have simply elected to do nothing. She goes on to tell you that she has been encouraged to follow-up in about three months. This opportunity has just been lost to ‘No Decision’.

Have you experienced this lately? If you have, you're not alone. One of the chief concerns we continue to hear from the senior sales executives with whom we have worked, is their frustration with the large number of qualified sales opportunities that are lost to ‘No Decision’ after long and expensive sales cycles. Our research shows that between 60 and 80 percent of all losses are due to ‘No Decision.’ That's more losses to ‘No Decision’ than to any single named competitor, making your number one competitor… No Decision, Inc.!!

Why do your prospects elect to do nothing, despite you and your sales representatives best efforts? We see primarily four major reasons.

1. No Goal CustomerCentric Selling ® is helping the buyer achieve a goal, solve a problem, or satisfy a need. It should go without saying that if a buyer is unwilling to share a goal with a sales person (much less a problem) then the seller doesn't have a prospect. It is as simple as that.

When we help our clients define their sales process, an opportunity typically goes from “Inactive” to “Active” status when the buyer shares a goal. We use to define a prospect as a buyer who had admitted a problem or “pain”. Over the years we discovered there were very few sellers (particularly young sellers) who are able to get a C level executive of a public company to publicly admit a problem. As my partner Mike Bosworth likes to point out; as we approach middle-age, it is much easier for us to ‘volunteer’ that we'd like to lose a few pounds (a goal), than to get us to admit that we're fat (a pain). Think about it.

Business executives don't authorize the spending of large sums of money just to be the proud owners of whatever it is you are selling. As a result, we subscribe to a core concept, “No goal, no prospect.” At the very minimum, the buyer must be unhappy with some aspect of his business, and want to fix it, to engage and initiate a "buy cycle" with a sales person.

Sales people who fail to take the time to diagnose and understand their buyer's goal, and the business issues/obstacles that are preventing them from achieving that goal, either lose the sale to no decision or, get outsold by the sales person who does.

2. No Solution Despite your best efforts (the four-legged sales calls, the “must have, or we won't buy” reports, corporate visits, etc.), the buyer still does not have a clear understanding of how he will achieve his goal(s) by purchasing your product or service. Again, this is a result of the sales person leading with product feature and function, before first taking the time to understand the goal that the prospect wants to achieve, then diagnosing and understanding the business issues and obstacles, and then relating how the capabilities of the product or service can be used to eliminate the prospects business issues/obstacles allowing them to attain their goal.

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Published by Bizlogx, LLC.
Copyright © 2006