Every sales opportunity has variables you can't control, and your results depend on the habits you build around the ones you can. Three small habits do the most to tip the odds in your favor: engaging every decision-maker, securing a scheduled next step, and proactively tracking both.
Sales Habit One: Identify and address your entire audience
If you only have a single point of contact at a prospect, you don't have the broad relationship with the organization you need. While having a champion on your side is powerful, there are almost always others you need to win over.
With a single person on your side, you are vulnerable to them potentially leaving, getting overruled, or not being as influential as you thought.
Significant organizational decisions involve multiple people. For benefits decisions, this can include the owner, HR, the CFO, and potentially others whose opinions are deemed valuable. If you've never met anyone beyond your original contact, you can’t make assumptions about their decision-making process.
Ask your contact: "Who else weighs in on a decision like this?" or “How have these decisions been made in the past?” Then, use your contact’s influence to pull the rest of the decision-making team into the conversation.
Once the right people are in the room, the next job is to keep everyone moving forward.
Sales Habit Two: Identify and get a commitment to a clear next step
One thing that is more dangerous than an empty pipeline is one that is full but stagnant. It’s more dangerous because the illusion of potential revenue provides a false sense of security. That false sense of security prevents any sense of prospecting urgency.
Every opportunity in your pipeline should pass the litmus test of having a clearly defined and scheduled next step.
"I'll follow up next week" does not pass this test. At best, it's a vague intention that lacks accountability. This is exactly how good opportunities quietly go cold.
A meaningful next step has a date, a specific action, and a goal or outcome agreed upon by both you and the prospect.
"Let's get 30 minutes on the books next Thursday to walk through the Analysis. Afterward, we will both understand what is currently working and not working in your program," keeps the conversation moving forward. "I'll touch base soon," is sure to result in no response.
Before the meeting ends, be sure you and the prospect both understand what needs to happen next to build on today’s progress.
Sales Habit Three: Identify and track your leading indicators
We’ve all heard the advice to “game film” opportunities (whether won or lost) to learn what worked and what didn’t. Unfortunately, by then, much of the learning opportunity is gone.
The habits that predict your success happen long before you get a final decision. Every step of your sales process, from initial prospect call to a final presentation, collectively determines your ultimate success.
If you only track the final decision of won or lost, you're measuring a lagging indicator that tells you what has already happened. However, tracking the leading activities, such as how many of your active prospects have clearly identified decision-makers and mutually agreed-upon next steps, is critical.
Doing so allows you to adjust before it’s too late. More importantly, you can isolate what is working to ensure you do more of it, and what isn’t working and needs adjustment.
Sales success is a series of small wins
Too often, the only thing we celebrate in sales is getting the order. Those celebrations happen much more frequently for those who were piling up and celebrating the smaller wins of consistently executing healthy habits.
Go pull your current pipeline and mark every opportunity with only one contact or no scheduled next step. These are the gaps you need to correct before the deal is lost for good.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many decision-makers should a benefits producer meet before presenting a proposal?
Meet everyone who will weigh in on the decision. For most employers, that includes the owner, HR, and the CFO, and sometimes others whose opinions carry weight. Ask your contact who else is involved and how similar decisions have been made in the past, then use their influence to bring those people into the conversation.
What makes a next step in a sales meeting meaningful?
A meaningful next step has a date, a specific action, and an outcome both you and the prospect agree on. "I'll follow up next week" has none of those. MORE, our consultative sales system, moves through three phases, the Executive Briefing, Strategic Analysis, and Alignment Plan, and each meeting is built to set up the next one. Whatever process you use, book the next conversation before the current one ends.
What are leading indicators in a sales pipeline?
Leading indicators measure the activities that predict whether a deal will close, well before the final decision arrives. Two of the most useful are how many active opportunities have every decision-maker identified and how many have a mutually agreed-upon next step on the calendar. Tracking them lets you fix problems while the deal can still be saved and shows you which parts of your process are working.
Content originally published by Q4intelligence
Photo by Andrey Popov