Measuring Your Sales Funnel (Part 3 of 4)

In Part 1 of this four-part visit, I outlined the goal of this series on measuring your sales funnel, explained some key rules to apply to determine whether a prospect is in your sales funnel and gave you some guidelines for segmenting your sales funnel into different levels you can track.

In Part 2, I explained how to measure your actual sales funnel and how to look at your target vs. actual funnels, so you could easily determine what you should change.

Today's post is on getting inside your prospects' heads, so you can better tell where they are in their buying cycles and better predict when they'll close, or when you should stop trying and save yourself an enormous amount of time.

Imagine, If You Will ...

We're going to do some pretending for a few minutes. In this scene, you're shopping for a new car -- you're the prospect, not the salesperson.

Got your buyer's hat on?

Good.

Now imagine the conversation that happened between the sales manager (Bob) and his salespeople long before you walked into their showroom -- the one about the process he wants them to walk you through to close the sale in your first visit to their dealership. How they're supposed to ask you a series of questions designed to get you excited about the car. How they should start outside if it's sunny, or inside if it's a dreary, ugly day. How, when the timing is right, they're supposed to get you back to their desks to crunch numbers, discuss options and toss out scarcity conditions, such as the deal they're running that ends today. And, when they get you to finally make an offer on the car, they're supposed to leave you sitting, while they go "run it by" their sales manager to see what he says.

Now imagine you walk into their showroom and the salesperson (Greg) greets you then immediately starts playing his game -- begins to lead you through his sales process like a dog under command.

How long, exactly, will it take you to to see through this? One minute? Five? (I doubt longer than five, because when you walked in you knew you were entering hostile territory, so your manipulation radar was undoubtedly tuned to its maximum setting.)

Of course you're smart enough to see through this garbage -- the vast majority of intelligent adults are. And you're also smart enough to let Greg continue anyway, because you know that doing so is your best way to gather information and better arm yourself for the salesperson at the next dealership you visit.

You listen. You nod. You ask intelligent questions. You even test various objections to see which ones will get you the best deal later.

You throw out a ridiculously low offer just to test the waters. Of course Greg acts surprised at how low it is, and carefully sits back in his chair, so as not to appear threatening, while he says "I don't think Bob will go for that" then leans forward, one elbow resting on his desk, as he whispers to his new best friend "but I'll do my best."

Of course, at whatever point you finally tire of the game, you thank Greg for his time, promise to get back to him later, and turn south as you exit the lot, because the next dealer is in that direction.

Now imagine the utterly pointless conversation between Bob and Greg as they talk about how Greg successfully navigated you to step seven of their eight-step sales process -- and how they can probably salvage the sale by "following up on the phone in two days," or by "inviting you to their barbecue next week."

And think about the sales funnel report Bob will give the president of the dealership -- the one that says you're on step seven of the eight-step process, so there's a 92 percent chance they'll sell you the car within two weeks.

Do you want to be the executive who uses this information to predict your budget for next month?

Back To Reality

You're a salesperson (or sales manager) again. Do conversations like the ones described above -- about your sales process and your prospects' positions in that process -- sound familiar? How about the plotting and planning that happens when a prospect interrupts your process, or forces you to change directions?

And how many times have you found yourself feeling like a prospect was just about to close, only to learn through phone calls not returned and appointments not kept that you once again have no chance whatsoever to make that one sale?

Yes, you should organize your sales process to ensure that you do not miss anything. Yes, you should have a step-by-step approach for selling, so that you're prepared to work with a prospect who actually is willing to buy the way you sell. Yes, you should measure your results against that process, so you can tweak your methods and gradually improve them over time.

But gauging any individual sales opportunity based on where you are in your sales process is totally useless, and a huge mistake when it comes to budgeting, because it's not where you are in your process that counts, it's where your prospect is in his or her buying process that truly tells the tale.

It's The Buyer's Way Or The Highway

To effectively measure a sales opportunity, and thereby predict the likelihood that it will close, you must measure it from the point of view of the prospect to whom you are selling. You must get inside the head of your prospect and measure exactly where she is in her buying process. You must understand the decisions she will make before signing on the dotted line, and you must ask questions that will tell you her answers to those decisions.

To demonstrate how you accomplish that, let me be your sales manager for two of your current sales opportunities.

First, go through your list of opportunities and select one that is In Progress and one that is Contract Out. For each of those two opportunities, I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Because I really don't care what you think might be in the prospect's head, you are allowed only two answers: Yes or No. If you answer with anything but Yes or No, then the answer automatically becomes No.

If you burp, grunt, sneeze or fart instead of answering, then the answer is No.

Got it?

Here goes.

Pick one of your two prospects. On a blank sheet of paper, write the company name and the name of the person to whom you are selling at that company. Write down what you think you are selling (best guess as to what the prospect will buy) and your best guess as to what the account is worth to your company. Write the date you had your first appointment, and the date of your next appointment.

Note: I'm numbering these questions so you can write the numbers 1 to 16 on your piece of paper and place the Yes or No answers next to them. However, these questions do not have to be answered in a linear manner. Treat every one like a milestone that must be met. It doesn't matter in what order these questions get answered -- it's merely important to get them all answered "Yes" before you submit your contract for signature.

Now answer all the questions honestly (remember, I'm your sales manager, so for this exercise we work for the same company):

1. Have you and the prospect agreed on the objective he or she is attempting to achieve?
2. Have you and the prospect defined status quo (the starting point), and how to measure it?
3. Have you and the prospect agreed on the end result, and how to measure success?
4. Does the prospect have the ability to effect change at his or her company?
5. Does the prospect want to effect change?
6. Have you identified the person or people with the authority to effect change, and are they on board at this point?
7. Have the people who can stop this deal been identified and managed?
8. Can we actually help the prospect achieve the objective?
9. Does the prospect agree that we can help his or her company achieve the objective?
10. Have you and the prospect agreed on the date [the project will start?] [the items will be delivered?] (Insert your own wording to describe the starting point for the deliverable.)
11. Have you and the prospect agreed on an end date?
12. Is the start date within our normal sales cycle time frame? (If your normal sales cycle is six months, and the prospect wants to get started in two years, then something is wrong.)
13. Have you communicated the costs for our solution to the prospect?
14. Has the prospect agreed that these costs are reasonable?
15. Has the prospect allocated the budget for our solution?
16. Have you and the prospect done the math to determine the prospect's return on investment if he or she chooses our solution?

Bottom line: These are the 16 things that prospects will always answer for themselves before they buy. So you can either assume you know what the prospect is thinking, or you can ask the prospect questions designed to learn exactly what is in his or her head on each of these issues. And if you submit a contract before getting Yes answers to these 16 questions, you are, quite simply, screwing up.

To drastically increase your success at closing deals, for every sales opportunity in your current pipeline, answer these 16 questions Yes or No. Then, for every No response, go back to the prospect and have whatever conversation you must have to turn that answer into a Yes. Then, once all 16 questions are Yes, submit your contract for signature.

And to make it easier on you, here is a form you can use to track every opportunity in your sales funnel. Just check off any question where the answer is Yes, and work with your prospects to get the remaining questions answered in the affirmative. (Note: Because this is not a linear measurement process, sometimes answers that were Yes change back to No during the sales cycle. When that happens, uncheck that question, and work with the prospect to change the No back to a Yes.)

In our next visit, we'll talk about the relationship between sales managers and salespeople that use this method of measuring sales cycles, and then tie everything together so you can make a quantum leap forward in sales success.

--
Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association