In this Expert Insight Interview, Tony Hughes discusses ways to un-stall stalled deals, why the opening is the most important phase of any sale, and how to align your goals with your buyers’. Tony Hughes is an international keynote speaker, bestselling author, professional sales educator, and top-rated author on LinkedIn when it comes to anything related to sales management.
This Expert Insight Interview discusses:
- Why the opening is the most important phase of a sale
- How to get things moving again by revisiting the earlier phases of a deal
- Creating a support structure for the buyer
Opening Principles
One problem that many salespeople have is that they fail to anchor the business-case value or the commercial value for change in the opening. They also often fail to help the client achieve consensus within the organization.
We live in an age of consensus-based decision-making, so even the most Type A leaders know that today, even if they want to drive change through, they need to get people on board first. So, when we open a deal we need to open with the business-case value for change and help the client build the business case internally in a way that gathers consensus.
Backtracking
When a deal stalls, one of the best things to do is backtrack a little and find the parts of the process where you might have missed something as a salesperson. If you can manage to locate some of these problems, you’re much more likely to get a stalled sale unstuck.
Doing some forensics on the early part of the deal is a smart way to get things moving again. This way you can redo some parts of your opening and not only make sure that you’ve gathered consensus, but also focus on creating progression in every single meeting.
Reassuring the Buyer
As salespeople, we tend to forget that the individuals that we deal with within an organization, the buyers, sometimes have a lot riding on the deal personally. This means they can get very anxious about the deal and its results.
Try to reassure your buyers by laying a solid foundation and creating a robust structure for them to follow. This includes asking about all the people within the organization that need to be involved in the deal, so you can avoid any unexpected obstacles later on.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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