1. The power of partnership.
Sales Training Series
Closing Best Practices
Training Module Run Time: 16 minutes

2. Welcome
This training module will present strategies and tactics that help you
• Better qualify leads
• Shorten sales cycles
• Improve close ratios
2

3. Complex Deal Sales Cycle
Get In the Propose Close
Discovery Validation
Door
• Right • Understand • Desire • Compelling • Decision
person? the state? reason to makers on-
• Right time? problem/ • Compelling buy from board?
needs of reason to you? • Handled
the change? objections?
customer? • Favorable • When are
to our they ready
solution? to buy?
• Validated
Approval
Process?
3

4. How has the sales environment changed?
• Market is getting more competitive
• Customers are more sophisticated – they realize they have choices
• Companies/organizations replace vendors more frequently
• Decisions get made at higher levels
• Vendor professionalism, viability, and value proposition become more
important in the decision process
• Pricing has become much more important, transparent
4

5. Why deals are won and lost?
Won Lost
• Relationships • Lack of relationships/access
• Ability to influence • Poor discovery
requirements, purchasing • Did not validate/made too
process, RFP many assumptions
• Scope/price • Decision criteria did not map
• Solution fit to requirements to our strengths
• Qualifications • Internal snafus
5

6. Qualification is iterative and non-emotional
• Is the iterative process of gathering information to decide whether to invest
or continue to invest in a pursuit
• Should be a non-emotional business decision that is not be influenced by:
− How positive an outlook you have
− How much you want this deal
− How sure you are you can do a great job
6

7. The costs of not qualifying are significant
• Financial Cost: Out-of-pocket time and expense
• Opportunity Cost: Could have been pursuing a winnable deal or making a
more strategic investment
• Personal Cost : Work-life/wasted time
• Relationship Cost: If you don’t qualify hard, the prospect or customer may
lose respect for you
7

8. Qualification – The Two Tests
1 Is this a real opportunity?
2 Can we position ourselves to win?
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9. Is this a real opportunity?
• Do they have a problem? Is it worth solving?
• Can we provide a solution that solves this problem? Should we?
• Is the problem urgent and are they planning to take action?
• Do you have access to key decision makers?
• Do they have expectations of what it will take to solve the problem? Are
their expectations realistic?
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10. Can we position ourselves to win?
• What is our history with the prospect?
• Is there an incumbent?
• Have vision, requirements, RFP been created by another firm?
• Who is the competition?
• How do our strengths line up with customer requirements and hot buttons?
• What is our current position? If not good, can we realistically position
ourselves to win in the time we have?
10

11. A Pursuit Drill is a key tool to help close deals
A Pursuit Drill is a tool (template):
• Helps pro-actively manage complex sales opportunities
• Generates dialogue between a sales person and others assisting on the
deal
• Will help determine which deals to pursue and which ones to let go
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12. The Pursuit Drill has two components
Qualifying
Questions
Pursuit Drill
Relationship
Map
12

13. Step 1 - Qualifying Questions
Is this a new initiative or are they looking to replace a current vendor? If replacing current vendor, what are the reasons
why?
Describe the sale cycle to date (How did this project get initiated, how did we get the lead, where are we at in the
process?)
Describe the goals of the project? (Who are they targeting, why, result desired, etc.) What specific business impact are
they looking for?
Describe the goals of the project? (Who are they targeting, why, result desired, etc) What specific business impact are
they looking for?
What are the project requirements and scope? What is the budget? Who owns the budget?
What are we proposing? How does our solution map to their requirements?
What other alternatives are they considering? Are we positioned to win this deal? Why or why not?
What is the decision process? (Steps, what happens in each step, timeline, decision criteria). Which decision makers do
we NOT have access to?
What compelling reason have we provided the decision makers to go with AccuData? What compelling reason do they have
to buy now?
What is preventing this deal from closing?
13

14. Step 2 - Decision Stakeholder Relationship Map
This exercise will expose potential relationship issues. List out all the
people who will have influence in the decision and what you believe to be
their current feeling towards your solution – Then, where do we need them
to be? How do we get them there?
Stakeholder / Where at? Where need to be? Our plan?
role in decision
(decision (on-board,
maker, influencer, u against, neutral,
ser, financial un-aware)
approver)
1.
2.
3.
14

15. Qualification and Pursuit Re-cap
• The cost of not qualifying can be significant
• Complex deals can be defined as sales cycles with multiple steps and
multiple decision stakeholders
• Sales reps must analyze the situation and develop pro-active closing
strategies
• Tools to utilize include the Pursuit Drill
15

16. Creating a compelling reason to buy is critical
• Companies of all sizes are scrutinizing every expenditure
— ―Why should we do this?‖
— ―Why should we do this now?‖
— ―Why should we buy from you?‖
• As a sales person, you MUST help the customer answer these questions
16

17. Create a Compelling Reason to Buy - Examples
• ―Why should we do this?‖
— New customer acquisition is a top priority right now and this solution
will help us make our numbers
• ―Why should we do this now?‖
— If we delay a decision, we will fall behind our customer acquisition
plan and may never catch up
— Our competitors are falling by the wayside and we have a great near
term opportunity to increase market share
• ―Why should we buy from you?‖
— Solution that maps to your requirements (best/only solution)
— Experience/track record (reduces risk)
— Price/value (fits budget)
— Service/relationship (we have worked together in the past)
— Terms of the deal
17

18. Create a Compelling Reason to Buy
Gut Check: Review all the deals in your pipeline that are at least in
proposal stage. For each deal, ask yourself:
• Does the customer have a compelling reason to move forward with this
project?
• Have we provided a compelling reason to buy from us?
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19. Common Scenario
You are restricted from talking to key decision makers regarding your
solution. Your “champion” tells you “not to worry – I will get
everyone on board with your solution.”
How can you get more control of this situation?
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20. An Internal Selling Document helps your
champion sell your solution
Volunteer to help create an Internal Selling Document for the
decision maker that briefly outlines the following:
• Project objectives
• Options we evaluated
• What solution we recommend
• Why
• Details (cost, time frame, etc.)
• How this will support our project objectives (why this is a good idea)
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21. Why isn’t your deal closing?
If a deal is not closing, you must uncover why the customer is not buying
• Customer: ―Thanks for your proposal. We will get back to you at a later
time‖
• Sales Person:
− ―Can you tell me what is preventing you from moving forward
today?‖
− ―Is this project no longer a priority?‖
− ―Do you believe our solution will solve your problem?‖
− ―Are you ok with price?‖
− ―Are you comfortable with our team/company?‖
− ―Have you done enough due diligence to make a decision?‖
− ―What could we do to make this a no-brainer decision for you?‖
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22. Summary: Five tactics to close deals
1 Thorough qualification
2 Pro-active deal management (Pursuit drill)
3 Creating a compelling reason to buy
4 Help your champion sell internally
5 Determining why the customer is not buying
22

23. The power of partnership.
For Further Information:
Call your sales rep
800.732.3440 | info@accudata.com