How do you manage your year-end deals?
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Jacquelyn Nicholson on LinkedIn
Jacquelyn Nicholson on Sales Success Stories Interview
Mike Simmons on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tips is a little bit unique as it features both Jacquelyn Nicholson and Mike Simmons in the second of several joint tips they recorded together. Here they are:
Jacquelyn Nicholson: The year did just disappear. It’s a little bit crazy.
Mike Simmons: What are you thinking about now that your end is this year? Where are you putting time, energy, and focus?
Jacquelyn Nicholson: Well, you know, it’s a few different things, right? I like to think of things through the lens of a MEDDPICC or MEDDIC, depending on your methodology. And it’s also the concept of if you don’t have answers to certain questions right now, with the number of days left in the year, depending on when Scott decides to publish this, is you don’t have a deal. You have the hope for a deal, but you don’t actually have a deal. And I’d rather have a real deal as opposed to having the hope of a deal. So I heard something really awesome from Kristen Conner on LinkedIn the other day and she was talking about when people at this time of year, they say stuff like, hey, can we pick this up next year? Of course, your deal is gone for this year, but you can ask questions that might actually accelerate it back into the year. Things like, well, if this isn’t solved in January, are you going to regret that, or what’s on your plate that’s taken over this priority? So asking questions that have led them to say that they want to pick it up at the end of the year, that’s one thing. But also if people don’t have answers to very specific questions that you’re asking them, you’re kind of in rough waters. So I was thinking more along the lines of what kind of impact is this going to have if it’s not solved, what took its place? I don’t know if that’s everything, but that was something that really had a big impact on me as I was thinking about your end.
Mike Simmons: We don’t know what Scott’s going to push this live or even if he is going to push it live, but it’s a couple of days before Halloween and the thing that scares the crap out of me when we get this late into deals is if we don’t understand the buying process, specifically around once a decision is made and who all needs to make the decision. So will they be around? Given that we’ve got Thanksgiving coming up here in the States and then we’ve got Christmas and New Year’s coming up, who needs to make the decision once those decisions are made? Who needs to approve anything or sign, and will the signer be in town or the signer taking off with their kids on the 20th December and not coming back until the 3rd or 4th of January? If you can’t answer those questions, your deal is at risk. You’ve not identified the big potholes in this deal. And if the person who you’re working with can’t answer those questions, they may not have access to the right people inside the organization or the right cloud or juice to be able to get something done. So ask the question, but ask it from the perspective of I’m looking to help you get this thing done because we agreed you wanted to get it done before the end of the year. You wanted to implement. You want to have this put aside before everybody went on holiday. Here we are. We’re in crunch time. Get to those questions who, what, when, how.
Jacquelyn Nicholson: Absolutely.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with both Jacquelyn and Mike, and also to see the video version of this tip, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1373. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!
The post Sales Tip 1373: Managing Year End Deals – Jacquelyn Nicholson & Mike Simmons appeared first on Daily Sales Tips.
