Recently I was reviewing some feedback from a multinational client I'm training. I was really pleased to see the participants had got loads from their two days. But one thing struck me. The comments they left suggested that they felt the Sandler stuff was at odds with their sales process. In fact, if you look at their Sales Process (nothing wrong with it in my view), that process can run on Sandler Methodology. So why did they feel there was a clash?
Because they have always interpreted their own sales process as "Find Prospect, Ask what the problem is, Work out if we can fix it, Send Proposal, Chase" But their Sales Process doesn't say that. It says " Identify Ideal Prospect, Qualify, Send proposal".
It all comes down to properly qualifying. If you have identified with your prospect not only the technical aspects but also Pain, Investment commitment, and Decision Cycle, you then have a qualified prospect.
If you are currently closing say 20% of proposals, that means 8 out of 10 will never do business. Which probably means MOST of the proposals going out should never have been sent. If you are sending out just half (the right half) then that puts your close rate up to 40%. If you are really doing it right, you should only be sending out proposals to those who have already agreed to do business, at least in principle. That puts your close rate up to more like 70% or even 80%!
But, wait, that means you're going to send out almost no proposals. If you're still only going to do business with those 2 out of 10 (in the worst case scenario) then that means you probably only send 3 proposals instead of 10. TWO THIRDS of your pipeline has just disappeared.
This is why the participants were so worried. If you're not developing and sending out proposals and then chasing them, how do you justify your time to your managers and directors? Well, you need those managers and directors to also have been on the training so they know what to expect. And then they will be insisting you spend your time not on expensive, resource- hungry non-closing proposals but on even more good quality, more likely, conversations. The Sales Process hasn't changed. What you do and how you do it HAS changed dramatically.
I don't know, do you want your revenue-generating world to transform dramatically? Or are you happy with sending out lots of proposals which your competitors (and internal client teams) can use against you? Worth a conversation?
