I’ve run quite a few deal reviews over the last few weeks.
Three of the deals were “stuck.”
Next steps had been (generally) proposed, and (generally) accepted. But nothing was being happening.
Even though each of the three deals are at very different stages, my advice for “unsticking” each deal was the same:
“Make the next step easier for the prospect.”
Sellers have to remember:
99% of your prospect’s job is not related to buying your product.
100% of your job is helping them buy your product.
So you should do all you can to make every step as easy as possible for your prospect.
Today, I’ll break down how you can do this for deals that are stuck moving into a proof-of-concept/PoC stage.
The most common reason deals get stuck at this stage is sellers wait for the prospect to finalize the PoC criteria.
Think about all the work this creates:
- Prospect needs to schedule internal meetings to discuss requirements
- Prospect needs to document stated requirements, and determine outcomes
- Prospect needs to circulate document internally to get feedback/sign-off from anyone that missed the meeting(s)
Add in vacations/busy schedules and these few steps could easily take weeks.
A better route is making the next steps easier for your prospect – here’s how we did it for our deal:
1) Built our recommended PoC requirements and outcomes
I told the AE to review the discovery and demo transcripts to make sure we cover customer mentioned required capabilities and tie to customer stated metrics.
Then, I told them to add in additional required capabilities we know they’ll need to be successful, along with the outcomes they drive. Ideally, at least a few of these would be required capabilities we know our competition struggles to provide.
2) Position us as experts + make prospect’s job easier
Once our recommended proof-of-concept approach was built, we sent to the prospect with a note:
“We’re looking forward to kicking off your proof-of-concept. We’ve done a ton of these so we built out an initial template you can use as you build out your requirements – we made sure to include everything you mentioned as being essential in prior conversations + what we’ve seen necessary for customers with similar goals.
Feel free to add/remove from this starting point, but hopefully this saves you some time.
How’s your calendar next week to discuss this template + any necessary revisions?”
Sure enough, this approach got the prospect engaged again.
Take 30 minutes this week to review “stuck” deals in your pipeline. For each deal, write out:
- What is the next step the prospect has to take?
- What part of it can you do for them?
And I bet you see a few “stuck” deals get moving again as you make it easier for your prospects to evaluate your solution.
