“Best In Class Sales Moments of Clarity”

The “Wild Wild west” is still the most common sales process used. Many companies at various stages of their journey into the market still use their product or service as the driver of their sales process. Once a seller understands their products and services, they are sent “off to the races” but often struggle to get across the finish line.

A consultative approach focused on the buyer’s journey, rather than the seller’s, is still the most powerful approach in both B2B and most B2C selling. There is overwhelming information available on most every product and service sold today at the fingertips of buyers. This causes “differentiation blur” for buyers who struggle to find the right solution. The value the seller brings is looking at their product through the eyes of their buyer and helping them make the right decision.

Our research validates that many salespeople spend more time with opportunities that fall to a no decision because the buyer is unsure of the right solution.

The pipeline and forecast are the best predictors of how a team/company will perform yet often, neither are dependent of the other.

The pipeline must be aligned to an informal or formal sales process where there are gates at the completion of each stage that are objective rather than subjective. They become objective when the buyer and the seller are in documented agreement. The most reliable forecasting is the capture of the pipeline data for that time period, which identifies opportunities where a “stretch goal” is possible, or a gap that needs to be addressed before the pressure is on to close at all costs. Switching to this approach can change behavior from reacting to a committed number that is subjective to focusing on using the objective process to drive the pipeline.

The statistics we have on this one has shown a lot less sleepless nights, fewer wrinkles, and gray hairs on leadership.