Planning and Mitigating the risk of Fire Drills
A few ideas to help with efficiencies.
Are you bookending your day with planning, in the morning and at the end of the day? Are you defining what is the most important thing you can do that would make everything else easier? Maybe asking for the PO, maybe emailing the CIO to schedule a meeting for a discovery call to determine interest in an ELA or larger deal. Maybe it’s killing that opp that has been sitting in the forecast and has gone dark. Are you looking at tomorrow and what your plan could be, who, what, where, when why you will call certain customers to move the deal along the sales cycle? Are you adapting quickly?
Deadlines – Do you work them backwards? How long does x take? How long does y take? Give yourself a buffer, a flat tire amount of time in case a delay comes up. They typically do…
Year end, quarter end – are you asking for PO by the 15th of the month? Are you struggling to get your deal in on the last day? If so, WHY? Plan, collaborate with the customer. Ask for the PO by the 15th, over and over until you get it.
Are you Tracking the order like a shadow? After all, it’s your commission!
Bids – Are you driving it? Are you coordinating with the customer, reseller and Distributor? How about internally? Deal Desk, Legal, Product and Pricing, Support, Sales Support, Marketing, Operations, Engineering and Leadership? Who do you need to work with to close the deal? How are you tracking it? Are you staying in touch with the technical and purchasing people from the customer? Does the customer have enough bids? When does the bid end? Have you asked the customer if they need any more bids? Does the customer need anything else? What happens if the customer doesn’t get enough bids? Will they kill the deal? Will the deal fall apart? Will the deal go from 5 or 3 years to just a one year deal? What are you doing to prevent that from happening?
Confirm meetings – Why reschedule when you can simply confirm? Confirm for the afternoon meeting the day before or early morning. Confirm for a morning meeting the afternoon before. Confirm for a Monday meeting the Friday before. People get busy, confirm your customer meetings.
Did you suggest 2 times to meet? Not 3 or 4, 2? Keep it simple… Too many options and a customer will choose none. They will delay, will want to think about it and eventually will forget about it.
Are you Aligning to the customer buying cycle? Do you understand their purchasing process and decision process and who all is involved. Who has to sign off? Do you know?
Why is the customer buying? What business problem are you solving? Did you ask? Do you know?
Are you leasing? How is that working out? Is the paperwork signed? If not, WHY? Do you have a Contract? Is it signed? Is there any other Deal Desk or Legal docs that need signed? If so, when are you getting them signed?
The Finance Company cannot agree to termination for convenience rights or partial refunds in the event of an assignment.
Distributors cannot agree to termination for convenience rights or partial refunds in the event of an assignment. It falls upon the reseller and not the Distributor. Will the reseller agree? Get it in writing, talk to your Legal team.
Are you following up with the customer on the status of the deal? Are you uncomfortable asking every week of the last month what the status is and where is the PO? Does it feel awkward? Have you called your contacts that you have been working with? Have you called their boss? Have you called Technical? Have you called purchasing? Have you called the CIO? Have you called the CFO? A Professional Sales person will make these calls because they want their commissions and they will do it early and often and won’t wait until the last minute.
At the end of a quarter 70% of deals evaporate from “the deal is coming in” WHY? Are you working it backwards? Are you asking for the PO by the 15th? Are you tracking the deal like a shadow? Are you driving it? Are you confirming everything? Are you aligning to the customer? Do you know why they are buying the product? Is the money there? What is the status of the deal and who have you called? What are you going to do to pull that deal in? How bad do you want that commission check?
Are you letting Distribution know that you are working a new Software Consolidation? If not, why? Their probably working the maintenance renewal if there is one and it could be sent out to the customer and shipwreck your deal.
Are you focused on the execution? Single largest difference between success and failure is ability to execute. Can you execute to close the deal? Can you execute to continuously as in daily build pipeline? An example of a Hunter Role is to spend 6 hours daily prospecting/discovering to build pipeline, 2 hours negotiating and closing deals. An additional 1 hour on admin. And, an additional 1-2 hours on planning. That’s a 10-11 hour day.
Proof of Concept – POC – Are you setting expectations, and getting quid-pro-quo? Is there a sense of urgency from the customer? Are they committing to a less than 30 day POC? Are you asking for it to be less than 30 days? Are you on the call with the engineers tracking the progress of the POC?
Question on whether an account belongs to X, Y or Z? – Start with me. Do not make this decision yourself. I’ll research it rather than burning hours of multiple people’s time debating who should cover the account. If the account has belonged to our team for years, why would we toss that away? I’m spending hours defending accounts that another team wants…, This can be faster when following the protocols.
Are you providing Heroic Support? Does a customer have an issue? Are you solving it? Customers are more likely to buy if taken care of…
Is everything Urgent? Are you lighting a fire under 10+ people at the last minute because you waited and didn’t engage resources early on and you had the time?
Is all the paperwork signed and do you have it? The deal isn’t over until it’s over and you have signed paperwork.
Do you check your facts, quote details, pricing, language? Checking the details eliminates constant revisions and spinning your wheels.
Good Luck!
Jerry Lang
