Deals slipping past expected close dates are frustrating. Not just for selling teams, but for all stakeholders involved. It can make forecasting difficult and sales teams are held accountable.
What’s more troubling, however, is the reasons behind deals slipping. Focusing on these challenges can provide a whole host of value-driven benefits to your seller, and most importantly, the buyer.
So why do deals slip?
There are 4 main reasons why deals can slip (not limited to):
- The buyer and selling teams misaligned
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- Without both parties knowing specific deadlines and details on the buying process, say goodbye to closing on time.
- Buying is a collaborative process and should be throughout your sales motion, especially those driven by providing value.
- Without being aligned, decisions and tasks become a muddled mess. Li
- Chasing the buying team for signatures and documents
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- Often, as a seller, you don’t have access to the economic buyer - the final decision maker and the person who signs the contract
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- Making sure you know who needs to sign and how to get to that point is critical. Barriers that create friction in the process are a must avoid and good sales people navigate their way around barriers well.
- Liaising back and forth
- Communication is the biggest factor in most collaborative processes (yuh, duh). But doing this effectively and speedily in a digital environment while maintaining that personable touch, is key.
- Not understanding the buyers' motivations in starting the buying process
- Why is the buyer buying your product? Why have they made you the vendor of choice? What outcomes are they expecting? These seem like simple questions, but reiterating this throughout the entire process makes sure you’re focused on driving value and solution fit. If at any point your buyer is questioning the ROI and the deal, something has gone wrong.
These 6 small factors provide the answers unblocking most of the deals you’re working on today.
#1: Understanding your buyer
Map out the buying process on both sides; make sure you and your buyer know what tasks need to be completed to move to the next stage and mutually agree on when these steps will be completed, along with who needs to complete them. This significantly reduces the chances of deals slipping and shows commitment from day one.
Aligning everyone in this process will allow teams to understand not only where the deal is at today, but what needs to be done to get the deal closed. This is valuable insight often missed in CRMs - the answers are in the why, not what!
Establish the goals of the deal and the outcomes needed for both sides as soon as possible. Asking your buyer consistently, about any queries, concerns, and main motivations will keep your value proposition nailed down. Every business wants solution fit and personalisation. This ensures that they get it.
#2: Know what you're being evaluated against
Now you know the process you and your buyer will need to embark on, it’s critical you understand what you’re being evaluated against and the questions/considerations the buying team are asking themselves. This is not establishing ‘technical fit’, for example. It’s deeper than that. Examples;
- What are the indirect costs of implementing this technology?
- How disruptive to our existing workflow and process will this technology be to our organisation?
- How will we transition through change management now and in future as our needs change?
#3: Map out stakeholders & their influence
Use your sponsor inside your buying organisation to map out everyone they know that will be an influence in the deal. Who holds influence and to what extent? How active will they be in the evaluation? What’s their level of influence internally? What’s their availability? Critically, what is their perception of our organisation and solution? This data brings real detail into your deal and gets everyone aligned on the most efficient way forward.
When we say efficient, we don’t just mean the selling team being able to burn through close wons and move on to the next. This is incredibly valuable for your buyers too.
Getting a software product integrated, as well as onboarding takes time. Being able to go through this process as quickly but thoroughly as possible, is a massive benefit, time-wise and more importantly, gets the customer to value much faster.
Do this as early as you can. This will allow you to remain focused on critical tasks throughout, without spending time on inefficient tasks that won’t progress the deal further or enhance the buyer experience.
#4: Create an efficient and quick communication flow
Emailing all day sucks. It can be laborious and let’s be honest, in 2022, with apps like slack, WhatsApp and other messaging services, it makes email look archaic. Finding an efficient, quick and frictionless way for your buyer can communicate is imperative for closing deals on time.
Nailing this also gives the buyer a delightful experience, being able to seamlessly engage with the selling team, like a high-functioning, collaborative team. You’re on the journey to creating a powerful two-way buying process.
#5: Align team & buyer on important deadlines
Deals closing on time is all about deadlines. There’s nothing worse than gearing up to get a deal closed internally, that turns out, the buyer had no clue about. Build MAPs (mutual action plans - more on this here) and a two-way buying process to align both sides on what’s happening when it's happening and who’s doing it. This brings clarity to the process as well as responsibility & accountability. Agree on dates and sync your calendars. You might think this sounds a little pushy, but the art is to make this a two-way process you control. Showing clarity and transparency is a must in building a lengthy and trustworthy relationship.
#6: Removing as many barriers as possible
The buying process is the first experience your buyer has of you, how you do business and your solution. Make it as easy for them as possible, and show off how you do business!
It’s easy to forget once caught up in the details of your own job and tasks, that people are busy. The buyer is taking time out of their day to entertain the possibility of you making something easier/more profitable for them. Show them what they need, when they need it. Touch base, and keep them in the loop. Check-ins go a long way. There’s a fine line between being pushy, however. This is why having access to a mutual digital space, where you can collaborate, can be incredibly powerful during the purchasing process (more on this later).
It’s also worth reiterating that it’s best practice to ask about anything they’re unsure of. A flimsy deal sucks, especially if it ends in no decision. And even if it doesn’t, they might not be a customer for long, if they're not seeing the ROI.
“What are your main worries, if any, at this stage?”
In essence, it’s all about being transparent and open. Finding innovative ways to do this in a digital environment and being able to collaborate efficiently is key to closing deals and MOST importantly, building a strong business relationship.
That’s what keeps people hanging around.
What is a dealpad?
dealpad is software that enables organisations to create personalised, two-way buying experiences.
Key product highlights;
- A platform for SDRs and marketers to convert prospects into sales meetings
- A personalised Digital Sales Room to engage and collaborate with your entire buying team
- Integrate your CRM data into dealpad to build out deal plans for each of the deals in your pipeline. Align your buyer and selling teams on crucial dates, decisions, tasks and goals, adding cadence, rigour and accountability to the buying process.
- Map out stakeholders and their influence, to make sure you know who will influence the process and when to get the deal done on time.
- Build out Mutual Action Plans and the buying process WITH your buyer collaboratively, so you both know what’s happening at every stage and when. Use this cadence to bring valuable insight and data to your pipeline.
- Use the Closing Certainty Index, a proprietary scoring algorithm, to predict the likelihood of each deal closing + recommendations on how to increase the likelihood of closing the deal.
- Use dealpad to win more customers, close deals faster and forecast better.
