Categories: Sales Discovery Process | Buyer Alignment | Sales Qualification
Many of today’s top sales organizations are starting to feel the effects of the economic downturn through increased selling criteria and buyer scrutiny. The new B2B customer is more focused on ROI than ever before, and they likely have multiple parties approving the deal through different criteria. What does this mean for sales leaders?
In order to maintain timely sales cycles and hit revenue targets, it’s critical that leaders enable their sales teams to navigate these complex deals. Here are three strategies to enable your sales force to consistently communicate ROI in multilevel deals.
1. Enable Great Discovery Through Messaging
In a recent conversation with John Kaplan and John McMahon, CSO of Elastic Michael Cremen predicted that CFOs will be involved in every deal in 2023. This means that every seller - not just the top performers - needs to be able to consistently execute at the level of the economic buyer.
We’re increasingly seeing the need for multiple champions in today’s complex deals. Buyer organizations are making decisions by committee, which means sellers are navigating multiple decision makers with cross-departmental interests and criteria. In order to avoid stalled or collapsed deals, sellers need to be able to identify influential players in multiple departments early on in the deal cycle and convert them into champions by communicating value that is relevant to their specific pain.
Sales leaders can ensure consistency of the discovery process in every deal by defining a powerful value message and providing sellers a customer-focused framework for delivering that message. It will be crucial in every deal going forward that sellers can extract high-level insights on the customer organization from just an initial conversation. Discovery should open the door not just to higher-level decision makers, but to stakeholders in other departments early in the deal. When sellers can access these parties and communicate value specific to their decision criteria, they unlock the potential for multiple champions.
2. Encourage Active Qualification
A qualification standard like MEDDICC provides sellers and managers with a unified vision of what good looks like in every stage and element of the deal. Continuous qualification provides visibility into the political landscape of a deal: who has influence, who their connections are, and how their priorities might differ or intersect.
In an increasingly complex sales environment, it’s crucial that potential champions are qualified as they are identified. You can’t afford for sellers to waste time trying to convert non-committal coaches into champions. In the age of multiple high-level decision makers, a successful champion a) has power and influence within their company; b) has a vested interest in the success of the deal and c) actively sells your solution internally. Using the standards outlined in a qualification framework, sellers must determine the eligibility of a champion as well as identify opportunities to convert and enable the champion.
When your whole sales team is on the same page about what defines a great deal and champion, they know what to look for when exploring the political landscape of the buyer’s organization.
3. Utilize Relationship Mapping
The ability of sellers to map the political landscape of the buyer organization is a game changer in today’s sales environment. It enables sellers to identify the following within the buyer organization:
- Who owns the required capabilities
- Who they - and competitors - have leverage with
- Who would rather do nothing or do it internally
When sellers can identify who owns these potential challenges to their deal, they can create a plan to address and influence those criteria. In a complex selling environment, this process is crucial to avoid stalling, maintain forecast accuracy and stay competitive.
How can leaders ensure that relationship mapping is happening in every deal? The most efficient way is technology. Introducing a relationship mapping tool into your team’s sales cadence ensures that the right questions are being asked every time, promoting the collection and sharing of deal data to further enable the manager-seller relationship.
Opportunity Manager® by Force Management is a Salesforce integrated tool that helps ensure consistent application of your core methodologies at every stage of the sales process. The Relationship Mapper feature mitigates blind spots and missed opportunities by facilitating consistency in data collection and helping sales teams visualize what’s missing. Higher availability and transparency of deal data facilitates more productive coaching that progresses deals forward. This podcast discusses how relationship mapping with OM helped project44 accelerate their growth trajectory, achieving bigger wins and shorter sales cycles.
Consistently Close More High-Value Deals with Multiple Champions
As deals continue to face higher scrutiny and more sign-offs, sellers who are able to deliver a powerful value message at multiple levels of the buyer organization will command more revenue. Equip your sales team with the language and fact-finding strategies they need to remain competitive in today’s market. Learn how modern messaging tactics can drive more predictable revenue for your organization in today’s unpredictable environment - download this guide to see how other organizations did it.
