Yesterday’s session on Sales Management Metrics 101; Best Practices for Creating a Predictable Pipeline was informative. It was hosted by Cloud9 Analytics - leaders in the sales analytics space. They invited Chad Burmeister, VP of Corporate Sales at IronKey to share best practices for pipeline analytics. That means tracking opps and deals in the pipeline, how they mature, how they change, how they grow but what about when they disappear?
I was so glad Chad shared his Lost Deal strategy- how he successfully salvaged deals that were tagged as “lost.” Makes sense if you have sophisticated analytics in place, why not track what is lost? Chad chased after lost opportunities and salvaged 10% in revenue dollars within a short timeframe.
My theory is most salespeople are delusional and when they are selling to that skiddish and commitment phobic customer 2.0- it’s easy to assume something will close when it won’t and close something too soon because you heard ”no” from someone who had no power to say yes (No-Po).
Richard Schroder’s new book, From a Good Sales Call to a Great Sales Call examines this strategy that is often overlooked in the sales process. He found that prospects share the truth of dead deals less than half of the time and it’s rare to get the complete and accurate truth. And 90% of salespeople believe they could improve on the debrief process with prospects.
This sounds similiar to HR exit interviews- and according to the Evil HR Lady, the number one reason people leave their jobs is because of a direct supervisor yet the data captured on exit interviews lists “opportunities” as the reason. Just think of how much talent we have watched leave because we didn’t get the truth on their unhappiness.
Check out Richard’s slideshare- get his book and go after salvaging deals you may have tagged as “lost” this past year. Good luck.
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