The Delicate Balance of Speed & Trust in Our Rush to Close Deals
In sales organizations, there is always a growing expectation to sell more.
The mantra is “close, close, close”.
Does this need for speed get in the way of cultivating greater trust with customers?
How do we balance these two?
You can’t control the organization's expectations of you.
We all know they are only going to demand more. Your target for today is the baseline for tomorrow.
The perspective shift here is what I call your - Circle of Control.
Let’s walk through all the elements within your circle of control that can help meet sales objectives without burning bridges or rushing customers.
1.Work Smarter, not Harder
This phrase reminds me of a powerful concept from the book, Who Not How.
If you have to operate at speed and scale, see who are all the other people in your team who can collaborate with you.
What is the internal orchestration, and how you could go and serve your customers that much better.
2.Qualify Better to Sell Faster
In almost every client engagement, I always say:
A person who defends everything, defends nothing.
If you have to sell faster and be more successful, you have to qualify better and focus on the right deals.
Prioritize transformational multi-year engagements over small transactions.
3.Leverage AI
AI is upon us and It's going to transform the speed at which we can execute.
On a daily basis, how much of AI can you leverage in your customer engagements? If done right - this is a game changer.
Start thinking, What AI insights can I leverage to better articulate customer needs? What can be automated? How can I exponentially increase productivity?
4.Prioritizing Value to Gain Speed
Customer value is probably the most dependable lever to accelerate pipeline into deals.
Are you able to,
Recommended by LinkedIn
These are the underlying elements that all come together and encourage customers to take a swift decision of working with you.
5.Closing Larger Deals
Activity is not a proxy for progress.
Just because you're busy with smaller deals doesn't mean you're making meaningful progress.
Start thinking about how to create larger deals.
How do you map multiple stakeholders?
How do you make it effortless for your customers to understand your value?
How do you join the dots between your solution and measurable, monetizable results for customers?
6.Bring Your Organization to Your Customer
I remember a managing partner from a successful advisory firm, sharing with me, “Venkat, I want all our partners to bring the firm to the clients”
This is so true.
All of you are part of an organization.
Are you bringing the organization to your customer?
These 6 levers can be used to build speed and scale in your customer engagements without sacrificing trust.
Finding the right balance is crucial for long-term success.
*****
If this was helpful,
Subscribe to the CxO Sales Playbook
Every week, I share 1 actionable tip to get your sales teams to over deliver and quickly move deals over the line even in a slow economy.
Take Our Deal Review Quiz
Drawing from our work with multiple Fortune 500 clients, It’ll give you the exact probability of winning your deal & highlight specific areas of risk and concern - in under 90 seconds.
Review Our Clients & Case Studies
We’ve coached the sales teams of Fortune 500 & 100 companies such as Microsoft, SAP and Google.