How Deals Die in the Final Mile of the Sales Process
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Adam Becker, Director of Sales at Tinderbox.
As a sales manager, I spend a great deal of time creating and implementing effective work practices in the sales process to make sure my team knows how to get organized, develop a call plan, and use tools to keep track of their notes and appointments. You can’t cater to the laggards in this business; as a colleague of mine from AG, Craig Ferrara, once said, “Bad oysters equate to lost time and money.” That’s why creating processes for the high performers to accentuate and try to replicate success is so important.
The fact is, most sales representatives only spend on average 40 percent of their time selling, according to Domo - Where a Salesperson Spends their Time. Instead, they're compiling the right lists, sorting through dirty data, qualifying prospects, doing administrative work, and drafting effective call campaigns. I hate to see all that hard work by both sales managers and sales teams go to waste because of inefficiencies at the bottom of the funnel.
TinderBox recently completed a study with the Sales Management Association and Miller Heiman on proposal management best practices in the final stages of a sale. We found that the three most important things to most sales managers that they lacked confidence in executing well were:
- Quick turnaround time for their team’s proposals and contracts.
- Easy-to-read sales documents that prospects could quickly understand and that are relevant to their needs.
- Buyer intelligence to gain visibility to what actually matters to the prospect and what his/her time is spent reviewing.
Any or all of these pitfalls can kill a deal in the final stages. (If you’re interested in learning more we’re hosting a webinar next week.) Sales documents sent in the final stages of a sale – like proposals and contracts – are, arguably, the single most important document your prospects receive in the sales process. There are now tools and technologies that can aid your sales team by spending less time with sales document creation, management and collaboration, so they can spend more time selling. Just as marketers have benefitted from the automation and measurement offered by marketing automation systems, sales professionals can benefit in the same way with the sales technologies now available today. Automate your proposal creation and gain insight to when and what your prospects are actually looking at to close deals faster. Make all the hard work and process pay off by focusing on addressing inefficiencies near the finish line.
As Director of Sales, Adam Becker is responsible for leading the sales organization and driving overall company revenue for TinderBox. He brings hands-on experience managing sales and partnership relationships at fast-growing technology companies. Prior to joining TinderBox in 2012, Adam thrived at Indianapolis-based technology success, ExactTarget. Starting in 2006, he helped the company grow from 80 to 1300+ employees. Most recently, he acted as a Strategic Channel Development Manager overseeing the success of the top ExactTarget partners in the central region.
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