The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

I see this happening all the time. You may not stop to think about it, but it’s probably happened to you. 

Think of the last family wedding you attended. Did you sit at a table with Aunt Nelda, picking at your salad? Or did you get up and mingle and dance? Did you do the funky chicken?

Too often salespeople are looking for a fast answer and end up getting a NO. You don't want a fast answer, you want a fast YES. When you ask for the business too fast, you are often relying entirely on a product pitch.

The belly flop… a dive with great potential that… well… flops. It’s the perfect metaphor for all the things that can go wrong after the sale. Over the last few months, I’ve watched too many big ideas fail—and not because the ideas were weak. These projects were brilliant, and they could have produced a nice profit. As a consumer, number one fan, and a marketer, I’m frustrated that these ideas fell flat before they ever had a chance to take off. I’m sure you’re wondering… if the concepts were so stellar, what went wrong? Two words: poor planning.

We live in an age that seems to encourage complexity. You can slice and dice research six ways from Sunday to build a compelling argument as to why your product or service is better than the other guys’.  Spreadsheets, pie charts and white papers are only a few keystrokes away… and illustrate why the competition is inferior to the company you represent. 

Our company’s reason for being is to help our clients turn talent into performance, and I spend most of my time making sure we have everything operating in such a way that we can delight customers. I don’t get to sell that often, but recently I found myself in conversations with a friend who runs his own business. After a few conversations and a meeting with a few key managers, I presented the owner with a pre-proposal and asked him to review it with his management team.