Want To Sell More, Disqualify More!

We all want to sell more.  Usually, the way we go about that is to get more opportunities into the pipeline, we prospect like crazy, qualify the customer, then invest our time in working with them, moving through their buying process and our sales cycle, until we close them. 

It’s not a bad model, but too often, even though the deals are qualified–that is to say, the customer is going to buy something, they are bad deals for us.  In this economy, it gets worse, there are so few deals that a qualified opportunity is someone, anyone, who has answered the phone.  It’s fine to do this if all you are after is more activity.  But that’s not what we want, we want to sell more, we want to book more business.

To me, the easiest way to sell more is to disqualify more.  Focus on the deals that are in your sweet spot, the deals that are really your deals.  You already know what that means.  They are not:

1. The deals where we think the force of our personality, or the compelling argument we can make, will overcome a customer with no real need.
2. Those deals that we only meet a small number of the requirements, but we hope we can convince the customer we are the best.
3. Those deals where the customer is happy with the incumbent and sees no reason to change.
4. Those deals where the only way we will win is to be the cheapest competitor–by a big margin.
5. Deals in an area where we have never had any success  (there are some caveats to this), and we’re hoping to be heroes, getting our company to completely change what we do to address this new niche.
6. Deals with bad customers—customers who will be such a support burden, that all we will get is complaints, and in which we invest too much support.

All of these may be real deals—but they’re not yours, they are probably someone else’s.  Focus on the deals that fit your company’s capabilities, are in your sweet spot, and where you have lots of credibility and references.  Fill your pipeline with those deals, watch your win rate skyrocket!

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5. Pipeline Management: 3 Tips for Sole Practitioners and Small Businesses