Sales Pipeline Performance - the 5P's
A salesperson’s single most important asset is the type and quality of sales questioning. Understanding the key answers you need to know and an appreciation of the questions that will deliver those answers is imperative. We work with sales teams to design tailored Prospect Analysis Sales Scorecards that will rank the opportunity gap statistically from identification through qualification and onward through the buying development phase to agreement or EXIT!
“….A 2007 CSO Insight survey tells us that 49.3% of all deals fail to close as originally forecasted. In addition, nearly 20% of all deals result in a “no decision”. The buyer simply did nothing….”
Opportunity development and accurate forecasting are fundamental to profitable revenue. Every company has their own set of unique selling points and commercial or market characteristics. It is only natural that for every selling company there should be a tailored sales qualification scorecard that highlights the key opportunity indicators that describes a prospective customer’s propensity to buy. Meritum calls this the Prospect Analysis Sales Scorecard (PASS).
For each major customer contact the opportunity gap is gradually closed as the list of sales and buying unknowns, weaknesses and threats are decreased. The assessment areas are as follows:
- Qualify buyer intent. Status, deadline, budget.
- Establish the buyers need – the practical requirements, the business drivers and the absence of mandatory infrastructure or other barriers to entry.
- Develop the buyers “want” – this is the relationship piece that is the intangible of people buy from people. Assuming all other things are relatively equal the customer will buy on emotion – from who they like and trust