Moving deals through the pipeline — from attention to interest to closed-won — can be challenging in any economic environment.
Under current market conditions? Even harder.
Deals are getting stuck, thanks to buyer uncertainty and indecision.
The answer to overcoming this hurdle and winning more deals? Real-time visibility.
Without it, sales leaders spend an inordinate amount of time in “reactive mode” — manually reviewing calls, missing coaching opportunities, and ultimately letting good deals slip.
Every. Single. Deal. Matters — especially today.
If your job is tied to revenue (it is), you must do everything in your power to prevent revenue leak — the revenue loss resulting from breakdowns across the end-to-end revenue process (aka, money your business has earned but not collected).
Clari’s Maya Connet chatted with Nick Cegelski, Founder of 30 Minutes to President’s Club, and Ian Matteson, Americas Vice President, West at Delphix. They shared how to inspect deals closely, maintain momentum, de-risk purchase decisions, and accelerate your path to close.
What is the most effective, efficient way to closely inspect deals?
“Get rid of the noise” is Nick’s advice.
During one-on-ones, reps often share “non-deal” related content. The relationship is important, but during pipeline inspection, all extraneous noise and distractions must be removed so you can laser focus on the most important deals.
Those deals tend to be later-stage ones where multi-threading has begun, where vendor review and negotiations have started.
Understanding what is happening by whom is super important before you even dig into the details. This requires being proactive about potential blockers — knowing them before the buyer mentions them so you are prepared to tackle head on.
One of the biggest blindspots is knowing who has the power to say no. Don’t let someone come out of nowhere to squash the deal.
Get out in front of that possible no.
How can reps best maintain deal momentum?
Deal momentum is the speed and efficiency at which an opportunity moves through the sales pipeline, ensuring buyers remain engaged and interested.
Taking the time to truly understand the purchasing process helps your champion navigate this process while also still (respectfully) questioning who can say no in that sales cycle.
Remember: It is not just about getting the deal signed. Going live is essential, ensuring implementation happens.
To keep deals moving forward to the next stage, Nick follows an “exit criteria” process:
- Discovery* >> Demo. The buyer has a big enough problem and our company can help solve it.
*Discovery never truly ends.
- Demo >> Proposal (or Negotiation). The champion believes this can solve their problem. The person with the power to say yes (or no) agrees the solution solves their problem.
Create your own version of an “exit criteria” for all stages of the sales process:
As you move closer to close, be sure you have a true mutual action plan (MAP) — one that confirms how your solution will solve the big problem your champion said they wanted to solve.
Ian stressed the MAP must be “a tool that makes the buyer's job easier, not harder.” Too often, sales teams think a MAP is a way to “tightly control the sales process, not the buyer's best interest.”
Wrong. “The MAP is a tool for you and the buyer to have that transparent conversation around the ‘typical buyer journey.’”
What are the ways to de-risk purchasing decisions?
Removing (or at least mitigating) risk is critical to the sales process.
The most effective way to de-risk purchasing decisions? Show value, both objective (hard cost savings infrastructure) and subjective (soft savings in other areas)
In many ways, the subjective value is critical: Helping your buyer solve their problems and increase revenue (and/or reduce costs). That is the real driver for deal momentum, ensuring it moves forward.
Also, justify the cost — the dollar value of the deal, the ROI. This helps ensure your deal does not get commoditized.
One of the biggest uncertainties that can prevent a deal from moving forward is the implementation, which is rarely “shiny and perfect and great.” There are always going to be problems, and the unknown is really, really scary.
Start having conversations early on about who will be involved in the post-sale process:
“Here are the three areas we feel good about during implementation. Here are the two areas where there may be complexity. Let’s budget a couple of extra weeks to navigate this piece.”
Nick Cegelski
Don’t be afraid to bring a subject matter expert and someone from the customer implementation team.
“It ultimately comes back to people buy from people they trust. Your champion is making a large business decision — one that can either help accelerate (or terminate) their role in that company.”
Ian Matteson
Volume (and types and level) of buyer communications is a key indicator that a deal is moving forward ... or stalling.
If your champion stops talking to you as frequently or the executive doesn't respond to you. All bad signs.
But it’s not just about volume. You must understand who has the power and what the buying process looks like.
This is where Clari helps.
Clari helps accelerate the path to close
Clari provides the always-on, real-time view into your business you need so you can win every revenue-critical moment and build a team that always beats quota.
That loss of revenue due to breakdowns across the end-to-end revenue process (aka revenue leak)?
With Clari, a 5-10% revenue leak is prevented.
Clari has also helped customers improve committed revenue by 40% more after leveraging the platform for over a year.
Clari helps your team improve overall sales performance by really knowing where a deal stands. Turn your reps into quota crushers with real-time coaching. Hit your numbers, predictability, and repeatedly.
No more guessing.