🌊 Wave #7: Self-reflection, Forecasting, The Internal Sale

October 06, 2020

🌊 HIGH TIDE

Self-reflect On Your Deals

Read 113 words below.

Every week my boss asks me which deals are real (or not).

Here's how I judge my own opportunities:

1. Does the prospect have a problem we can fix?

2. Does the prospect agree they have a problem?

3. Does the prospect want to fix the problem?

4. Will the prospect go on a journey with me to fix the problem?

If you answer "No" for even 1 of the above questions, you should scream BOSS, THE DEAL IS NOT REAL.

Steal this framework. Be real with yourself and ask these questions for your opportunities.

*ps - notice how each question above incorporates the keyword "problem". The problem is the foundation of the deal.

🌊 MID-TIDE

Do you have a forecasting problem...? Or a pipeline problem?

Read 167 words below.

I noticed an interesting trend this week. 1 CMO and 1 VP at separate companies that I spoke to this week had the same problem:

"WE ARE TERRIBLE AT FORECASTING"

So, I dug into the "why",

Why was forecasting a problem?

Why were they WAY off to the board?

What do they believe the root cause to be.

In both conversations, we concluded that it wasn't a forecasting problem.

It was a pipeline problem.

And the root cause? An inflated pipeline with fake opportunities.

Opportunities that shouldn't have been created in the first place. Opportunities that were never updated after they died off.

Opportunities sitting there in the ether.

Any time I've heard of "forecasting" issues, the root cause has been an unorganized pipeline.

And, unfortunately, I don't have the perfect solution. Here’s a product idea ;)

And here's a simple system I've created and shared amongst reps I work with:

- Treat your opportunities like "Inbox Zero". Once you realize and opportunity is not real, close it out immediately (i.e. archive it).

It is not perfect, but will help the cause.

🌊 LOW TIDE

The sale you sometimes forget you are making

Read 250 words below.

The internal sale.

Let’s look at an example.

I had a fellow rep come to me in the past asking for advice on a particular deal.

The prospect was looking to buy if and only if we were willing to build a feature.

There were two things I made clear:

1) We now have to sell our internal why we should build this feature

2) We now had leverage for a larger deal

Let's cover #1:

Product teams don't simply build features. They have a roadmap tied to an entire customer base that has been planned out over months or years.

So here are some tactics to make the internal sale:

1. Before you move on, understand whether the feature is a deal-breaker.

2. Assemble your internal champions. Find a sales executive champion that understands the importance of building the feature.

3. Have your sales engineer be the point person in speaking to why the feature should be built.

4. Build a business case on how the feature would help the entire customer base. Also, why this should come before other features.

5. Help the product team understand how you've leveraged the request. (i.e. 3 year deal vs 1-year deal). Make them feel like they are winning too.

I learned the art behind the internal sales from a mentor of mine and SaaS sales legend, Lee Hacohen. He would probably humor us and say I missed a bunch of important pieces here but you get the gist ;)

This newsletter was created with 💙 by Andrew Mewborn, a solution seller, SaaS enthusiast, and creator of getlimelite.com. Connect with him on LinkedIn.