The Four Things That Make a Deal Real
Every rep has a pipeline full of deals that felt great on the first call. A lot of them were never real. When I review a first call with a rep, I'm looking for four things:
- What's broken.
- Why it sucks.
- Who cares the most about fixing it.
- How they're going to decide if your product is the fix.
If you walk out of a first call with all four, and they all point at a pain you can solve, you've got a qualified deal. Economic buyer, buying process, and the rest can wait until after the demo.
Pain isn't real until they say it out loud
Even when you already know what the problem is, and after a few years in a space you usually will, the prospect still has to say it. Think about going to the doctor. You say your arm hurts, and a good doctor asks how long it's been hurting and what it stops you from doing before they write anything down.
Discovery works the same way. How long has this been going on? What have you tried to fix it? Why isn't it fixed yet? What does it stop you from doing? When they say it in their own words, you get to use their words in the business case later.
Find out what doing nothing costs
The question I lean on hardest is "what happens if you don't fix this?" If the honest answer is "we keep doing what we're doing," there's probably no deal. Most of the time your biggest competitor is the status quo.
People are more likely to buy to stop doing something than to start doing something. So I get two pictures from a prospect, where they are now and where they want to be. I call them Hell Island and Heaven Island. Ask how much they think they're leaving on the table, then what they think they could get back. Say they guess $100,000 lost and $250,000 of upside. That's a $350,000 gap, and the rest of your sales cycle is about bridging it.
The numbers don't have to be exact. Directional is fine. If someone tells you they lose "maybe fifteen hundred bucks a week," do the math out loud with them: six grand a month, more than $70,000 a year. A yearly number is the one finance cares about.
Why your champion is fighting for this
Companies only buy for three reasons: more revenue, less cost, or less risk. That's what finance, procurement, and the board care about. People buy emotionally and justify rationally, though. The person you're talking to wants their evenings back, or to stop getting chased by their boss, or to finally catch up on paperwork.
You need both. Ask your champion how the problem feels day to day. When they tell you they're working late and not sleeping well, ask, "If I can show you a solution that takes care of that, will you be my person inside the company, even when I'm not in the room?" Then build the business case in revenue, cost, and risk so they have something to bring to finance.
Interest and intent are different things
Plenty of people take your meeting because they're curious. When someone says they're "just seeing what's out there," I ask what's going on behind the scenes that made them want to look. If there's nothing, I tell them it doesn't sound like they have the friction I solve for and suggest we reconnect later. Handing out free trials to people with interest and no intent burns your time, and your forecast pays for it.
Happy selling!