Sales Managers - When should you be most involved in the selling effort

High on most Sales Managers annoyance list is the late Friday call from a Sales Rep looking for a price discount to close a forecasted deal. Here is that typical call.

---------

Manager (phone ringing) - "Hello this is Marc".

Sales Rep - "Marc, I need your help." I am here at the Widget Manufacturing Company working hard to close the $250K deal we both need."

Manager - "Jan, it is 5pm on Friday, what do you need?"

Sales Rep - "We have this deal in our forecast and I am afraid it is slipping into the next Quarter. The customers doesn't seem to have the urgency they once had on this deal, certainly not equal to our urgency. I believe if we offer a nice discount, we can keep this deal in this Quarter."

Manager - "Discount? This deal is supposed to be closed, heck it is in our forecast. What happened? How much discount do you think is needed?"

Sales Rep - "Marc, now don't get too excited, but I think we need to offer a 20% discount. Anything smaller and I am not sure they will take it."

Manager - "Jan, this is unbelievable, this customer called us just 2 months ago eager to explore our solution. They have had the price for a couple weeks now! That discount amounts to $50K and I am not sure the business can support that. Are you telling me if I approve the 20% discount right now, you can get the signed order today?"

Sales Rep - "Marc, you and I have talked about this deal from day one and you know how hard I have worked on this. We are both counting on this deal. I really need your help! However, I can't promise the customer will sign today at that price."

-------

We need not go any farther on this scenario. You have all participated in such a situation.

What options exist for the Sales Manager at this point?

• Marc could say "NO" take the risk and reengage on Monday, perhaps re-engineering the whole deal.
• He could say "YES", and gamble.
• Marc is pretty savvy and always creates other options. He is thinking of the negotiating concept "give to get". So, he is thinking of saying "YES" only if the customer agrees to sign the deal today.
  

Wow, not many options at this point and most of the options are very risky. Marc will chastise the Rep, but on Monday will be too busy putting out other fires to really address the causes of this situation.

Now let's consider an alternative scenario late on Friday.

--------

Manager (phone ringing) -"Hello, this is Marc"

Sales Rep - "Marc, I am here at Widget Manufacturing Company picking up the order. The customer is eager to begin the project and start the clock on the benefits schedule."

Manager - "Jan, congratulations, this is great news to start the weekend. Well done."

Sales Rep - "Marc, I want to thank you for your help. If it wasn't for your guidance I would have got caught up in their urgency and bypassed the necessary sales steps to thoroughly understand their pain/needs and adequately quantify them. You saw this happen with another of my deals and I am thankful you took the time to coach me on this. Marc, the news is even better - they are paying list price and have agreed to closely monitor the project benefits so they can be a future reference."

-----------

OK, this is a bit dramatic, but I think it is warranted. It should be clear to all involved that early in the sales cycle there are more corrective options available vs. the end of sales cycle options available when desperately trying to close the deal.

Managers, use your vast skills and coaching powers to eliminate errors and defects early in the sales process before mistakes are made that can not be undone. You have significant leverage and can create a much easier closing environment by enforcing discipline in the early sales process steps.

Look carefully at the skills of each Sales Rep. Identify strengths and weaknesses and build a plan to focus on skill building with an eye on improving results. I play a bit of poker (not well sometimes though) and am willing to bet a large number of un-closable deals, discounted deals, stalled deals, etc. are the result of 3 deficient skills or these sales steps skipped.

1. Solution Vision Creation
2. Pain identification and quantification
3. Finding and committing the Decision Maker

More on these factors later.

Good luck and good selling..