Sarah Dick’s Post

🚀 Didn’t Close Some Q3 Deals? Shake It Off! 🚀 For those deals spilling over into Q4, here’s a golden rule: Only negotiate the price when the competition is off the table. 🔍 But What If You’re in the Dark? If your champion isn’t spilling the beans about your solution being the top pick, it’s a red flag. It means: - Your relationship with the champion needs work. - Your solution might not be their first choice. - There’s more selling to do. Time to strengthen that relationship and expand your connections within the account! 🤔 Champion Pushing for Price? I’ve tried two responses: 1) “Sorry, but we can’t discuss pricing until we’re confirmed as your vendor of choice. We avoid price wars to maintain our reputation and service quality.” 2) “For reference, companies similar to yours pay between $X and $Y.” 🌟 Pro Tip: Use upfront contracting for smaller deals. If you’re deep into a deal and facing pricing issues, it might be a qualification problem that needs addressing. 👥 Let’s Discuss: How do you handle price negotiations? Share your strategies and let’s learn from each other!

I was working a deal a couple of years ago that was getting close to the finish line. There was some back and forth over email about pricing and payment terms — the usual. After what felt like a hundred rounds of give and take, the buyer asked for my “best and final" to take to his CFO. I squirmed. No sales rep likes giving a “take it or leave it offer” – especially over email. I didn’t want to send it, but I *needed* the deal to hit quota. End-of-quarter desperation was creeping in. I sent it. Then. Crickets. No response. Not that day, or the next. Not ever. I got ghosted at the finish line. I later found out that my prospect used my offer to negotiate against a competitor. They came in lower and he took their deal. S%*&! → If you’re negotiating this week, avoid email. Instead, move the conversation to the phone where you can win. You’ll speed up your deal and maintain control (leading to more wins). Two things that are crucial for closing week.

I had a deal that didn't close last month, and it was all my fault I got happy ears. Closed-Won Killer. At Sales Assembly we have a very defined process we follow to run a sales cycle. It's been designed after multiple years of trial and error + incorporating a number of aspects that pertain to exactly how our buyer buys today, in 2024 (newsflash....sliiiiiightly different than 2022) Part of our process is to build a short, to the point Business Case that highlights a number of things, including the anticipated value and results that the company will get from an investment in Sales Assembly, where the budget is coming from, and area of priority. The business case is built in COLLABORATION with our champion, written in THEIR words and terms, and then given to them to share with colleagues / stakeholders back at work (read: CEO, CFO, etc) This recently deal I mentioned - I didn't build one. My champion was super excited about buying Sales Assembly and wanted to fast track the sales process. I went along. The final step was to get budget confirmation from the CEO / Board. She told me it was a formality Waiting. Waiting. My Pandadoc is ready to go with the contract. Deal is forecasted. Waiting. Waiting. And then....stalled. Another initiative has taken priority for the revenue org, and skills training is now a Q3 area of focus. I'm bummed. My champion is pissed because she really needs this. Matt Green hates me even more than he did yesterday. My whole family is disappointed. My dogs won't talk to me. Will we still win this deal? I'm 99.99% sure. All the right signals are there, and we're already the vendor they've chosen for training. But it's going to have to wait, because we were not able to show why THIS should be the main priority Long story long - don't get happy ears. Stay disciplined. Follow your process!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Like that deal that lacked any excitement in the early qualification stages. The problems existed but they weren’t motivated to solve them. You put it at 10% in the CRM just because it was still in it but didn’t believe it was coming home. The deal felt like it was going to closed lost in discovery. You asked the question to push them away “feels like this isn’t a priority right now?’ You were ready to put them back in the pipeline for 2026. But just then, after being being in the background until that point, the star economic buyer came good. ‘It’s an iniative we want to happen this month’ came like an overhead kick the last minute. Sat in your 1/4 zip cream top, you moved it to negotiation - 25% We still had a chance. At evaluation, we hit an unexpected objection. It didn’t seem we could get past it. We were being compared to a competitor we knew we were better than, but they had fought hard and it could go either way. Some strong execution at the final moment and it was the competition who lost the shoot out. Somehow we were at negotiation. The stakes had gone up and a new found confidence existed. The negotiation call was your best performance so far. First half of the call was really strong, went a bit flat for a while but a stunning end and we’re all agreed with barely any time left in the Zoom call. We move on to Contracting. Their legal team are well respected and know that they have killed deals previously. No one is complacent. It’s 50% in the pipeline but with a close date of Sunday. It might be coming home…. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

This is kind of embarrassing to admit… before I got into sales, I honestly used to believe that deals got closed in a Mad Men style meeting.   The decision-maker comes in with their team, everyone's kind of nervous but excited.   The seller gets up, maybe starts slow but picks up speed and tells an incredible story.   The prospect's team is wowed, the boss is blown away and says: "We're in, send the contract over this afternoon."   ::record scratch::   Boy was I in for a rude awakening.   Yeah, I know it was a pretty silly belief, but at least it's kind of funny too. 😇   I was just missing a couple key steps like:   - Budget & Finance Approvals - Procurement Steps - Legal & Security Reviews   Not to mention, buyers do not care about your close date.   So getting those things done "on time" based on your forecast can be quite the challenge.   However, they do care about your Kickoff date.   Because that's when they start to get what they want.   Join Andee Harris and I today on Leading The Challenger Sale as we dive into Closing, Mutual Kickoff Plans and maybe even an Olympic Sport or two… ⛷   #ChallengerSale #Webinar #Closing

Contract is out. CEO needs to sign. They promised they would today. It's 3pm on a Friday and month-end. You're just STARING at your inbox. Anyone else sweating? And then a text from your buyer - "I think the only sticking point is needing x adjustment to our payment terms, I'll know after this call with our CEO." What do you do? So long as: They're reasonable terms It doesn't hurt your commission structure (you know this by heart, right? Riiiight?) Is fairly standard for your firm Then proactively update the terms now, or put the request to your sales ops team. If you know they're going to ask for them, one step you can skip is doing it now vs. waiting for the end of the meeting. CC your leader for urgent routing if the deal is significant enough. And when you get the okay + the request from your buyer to change the terms, you'll either have the OG draft or the updated one to send, saving you minutes that could matter in getting the deal in.

There are only 2 types of deals in your pipeline. Those that are going to close and those that aren't. You only have to ask yourself one question to tell them apart: Q: Is the next meeting scheduled? If the answer is "no", your deal isn't going to close. It doesn't matter if they asked for a proposal or promised that they'd discuss it internally, if the next meeting isn't scheduled, you don't have a commitment to move things forward nor deadline to make progress by. You deal isn't going to close. Deals that close are invariably built on a foundation of prior commitments and deadlines, so if a buyer doesn't want to commit to meeting with you again they are never going to buy from you. If you want to close a deal, never end a sales call without asking for the next meeting.

We’ve all had them - the deals we were CERTAIN would close. A champion gushing about how perfect our solution is, executives giving the informal “let’s do this!”, and a path to contract looking clear as day. This one's in the bag! Yet despite the fist bumps and assurances, the deal inexplicably stalls out. The buyer goes radio silent or asks for “just one last” comparison. Suddenly it slips by a quarter...then two...then forever. So what can we learn from these “sure thing” deals gone awry? Nate Nasralla broke this down during one of the five Sales Assembly skill development courses we held last week: First, verbal commits mean nothing. - The ecstatic user chanting your praises rarely holds the purse strings. - Secure executive alignment in writing. Second, assume your champion will drop the ball. - Build in regular executive progress reviews to maintain urgency if they stop responding. Third, expect the process to take 2x what buyers estimate. - Build generous buffers into your mutual action plans and accelerate wherever possible. Finally, beware death by consensus. Spreadsheet shootouts with 12 competing opinions will kill momentum fast. Lead with value over features to streamline selection.  By planning for inevitable hiccups on even the “easiest” deals, you avoid surprises that kill revenue. Overcommunicate. Overprepare. Overdeliver.

TIME KILLS DEALS   The absolute best time to win a deal is today.   Tomorrow is not better.   Next week or next month are not better.   As time passes, the probability of winning a deal is reduced—slightly at first, more dramatically as time passes.     Why is that?   Well, the reason time kills deals is that there are so many things that can go wrong along the way during your sales cycle as you try to advance your opportunity and win:   🕐 Your customer can get distracted. Priorities can change and required customer resources (such as legal staff, procurement staff, and executives for approval) might not be available when you need them.   🕑 The people you’ve been working with at the customer organization might change responsibility or leave the company.   What would happen if your main sponsor wins the lottery, or gets run over by the proverbial bus, and never shows up for work again?   🕒 Customer executives could decide to halt all new projects…   They put the hammer down and freeze spending for new initiatives, including yours.   🕓 Key resources on your team could be re-assigned to focus on other key deals and won’t be able to spend time working with you on your deal.   🕔 Your sales manager might inform you that your accounts will be reassigned soon, so to get quota credit and commission payment you will need to complete the deal while you are still assigned to the account.   Always view delays as threats that could kill your deal.   While changes will certainly occur during the sales cycle, you should focus only on what you can control.   That means you should control as much as possible.   A good plan of action will help you take that control and stay on track so you can minimize distractions.   Your action plan can keep your deal on track… or at least let you know about potential flags that can kill your deal. #salesenablement #saleseffectiveness #salesexcellence