When Is It Right to Speed Up the Sale?

Having a no-brainer business case doesn’t always happen, and getting one that’s 10 out of 10 in every area is like Nirvana — it’s a beautiful time for the client and for us.

In less than two minutes, I share the criteria for when it’s absolutely right to speed up the sale and what this means for your clients and for your business development team.

When do we slow down the sale? Click here to watch the video.

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The following text is an edited transcript of the video.

So what are we looking for in an absolutely winner business case and a no-brainer sales narrative?

1. It’s got the future desired state of where we want to go to
2. It’s got an understanding of the upside if we succeed in doing the work in exact phraseology and in dollars
3. It’s got an understanding of the downside if we do nothing at all
4. It should look at the specific criteria for making the evaluation
5. The urgency and the key timelines
6. Budgetary requirements 
7. It should handle any objections that usually happens in our category or that we might have picked up in the sale
8. Key criteria or stages the client expressed will help them make decisions
9. Any missing information that might need to be discussed to build the business case

Now having all those things is an absolutely beautiful place. And it’s art, not science. Our job is to get as many as possible but, most importantly, to get both of parties to realise that, “Yes, this is the right thing to do.”

For clients, what this means is that they can spend less time in sales overall, they get the solution that more exactly suits their needs, and they get close to their results, and better long-term partnership.

For the business development consultant or the salesperson, it means high conversion rates in the long run, there’s an accurate understanding of your client’s needs, better expectation management in the long run, and less time formatting proposals, which really doesn’t deliver any value to anyone

Interested in sales? Check out this 2-minute video on the Killer 3 in B2B Sales.

Jeff Cooper is Step Change’s Founding Partner. Jeff learnt his most valuable lessons in strategic thinking by spending his own money. His entrepreneurial pursuits began back in 2004 when he started his first business, designing exhibition spaces and running events, eventually giving birth to an interactive event concept later adopted by the likes of Big Day Out and other major festival organisers. A decade later, in 2014–2015, startups Jeff was involved in raising over $1m in investment, and Step Change — which he co-founded — became a multimillion-dollar strategy consultancy, serving clients across five continents. He’s a true generalist, with ownership and Board interests in businesses from retail solar to beauty and beyond, at life stages from startup to over $150m revenue annually.

Featured photo by PAUL SMITH on Unsplash