Stuck Sales Opportunities

stuck sales opportunitiesA sales rep is stuck – he has 3 deals he says are qualified and none of them are moving forward. We talked about them and I’ll share the general circumstances – no names, no companies.

The industry is technology – software-as-a-service. The rep has been with the company less than a year but more than 3 months. He has a good sense of the value of the company and their services.

The first thing I tend to notice with sales professionals when they have stuck deals is that they get all lumped together into one big pile of “nothing’s happening with any of my deals” or “I’m stuck.”

We took each opportunity apart, from beginning to end. It went something like this:

-How did you find this opportunity?

-Who did you first talk with?

-Who else is involved in the decision-making process?

-What are they trying to accomplish?

-What other options do they have? (What will it cost them to not go forward?)

-What did you tell them / show them and what feedback did you get?

-What were the next steps?

-Why do you think this opportunity is qualified?

After we walked through each potential buying / sales opportunity we learned that two of the opportunities are NOT qualified. There is not enough known yet – so the rep is going back to find out the missing pieces – in both cases to learn how their prospect company works through a decision like this, and to learn what will happen if they don’t go forward.

Leaving things “as is” – or, the status-quo, is one of the biggest competitors to you closing business. If there is not enough compelling reason as to why to move forward with you and your company OR if it is complex, difficult or confusing you can figure things may come to a screeching halt.

Your buyer is “just not that into you” because no matter what you propose, it takes work to make a decision and it takes effort to make a change in their company.

Do you have a good system for helping your reps (or yourself) with deal coaching?

Here is another post - "Get Creative When Stuck"

You might want to download a sales coaching e-book with no strings attached. It is the first comprehensive sales coaching e-book for B2B SDRs that we have found. Our friends at Rivalry created it.

Help your reps (or yourself, if you are a rep) to get clear on what needs to happen to move a deal forward.

Help your reps (or yourself, if you are a rep) to know what IS a deal and what is just an interesting conversation.

Be honest about your sales opportunities – get rid of the junk possibilities that really are not potential deals but look good in your pipeline. When you do that, you’ll make way for more real opportunities.

Help your buyers get the answers they need, and help yourself to better understand how their company works so that you can help bring more wins to fruition for everyone.

Lori Richardson - Score More SalesLori Richardson is recognized on Forbes as one of the "Top 30 Social Sales Influencers" worldwide. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside sales teams in mid-sized companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog and the "Sales Ideas In A Minute" newsletter for sales strategies, tactics, and tips in selling. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.

email lori@scoremoresales.com | My LinkedIn Profile | twitter | Visit us on google+

We’ve got even more coming

Sign up for our newsletter