The Discipline of the Sales Process
Getting within scoring range
Sales Enablement
January 2021
While I don’t usually subscribe to sports metaphors, with the Super Bowl approaching, I found one particularly useful when discussing the sales process with a sales director recently. He was disappointed that his team hadn’t been able to close deals in a new territory and kept hiring new people hoping their rolodex would open the door and bring in deals. When discussing opportunities, he wanted to know how they can “shortcut” the sales process. After experiencing this a couple of times, I finally told him that there is no way to “shortcut” the process. Every stage you skip comes back to haunt you and eventually delays the close of the deal. What I suggested to him is that, while you cannot shortcut the process, it is possible to accelerate the process.
What I told him was that the sales process is a lot like football. Shortcutting the process would be like throwing long and trying to get a touchdown on each play. But the goal is not necessarily to get the touchdown; but rather, the goal is to move the goal posts at least ten yards to get your team down field to within scoring range. Once there, you have more options for how to get points on the board. After all, it doesn’t matter how you got the points - it only matters that you have more points at the end of the game. If you keep going for the touchdown or "Hail Mary” at each sales meeting, you often lose control over the process or risk others interfering with your ability to close the deal.
Now, going through each stage does not mean it has to take a long time to get to the close. In fact, it’s better to lose quickly than waste time on leads that are not likely to close. To accelerate the process, you need to do your homework, prepare for each stage, and listen to your customer to ensure that they are keeping pace with you. If you have the discipline to follow the process (ten yards at a time), then you can ensure that your customer is coming along with you and will actually help you to identify potential opportunities to close the deal.