Categories: Sales Leadership | Sales Discovery Process | Economic Change
Recently, we’ve all been living in a constant state of economic uncertainty. Market trends show a leveling off of growth and consumer confidence is steadily declining across global markets.
Economic downturns are particularly challenging for sales organizations. It’s often harder for your team to close deals and meet their quota. Your customers are experiencing the effects of economic headwinds, and their buying behaviors are changing. This means the way sellers approach deals, move them through the pipeline, and close at maximum value has to change in response.
We created a resource with 5 strategies learned from elite sales leaders who have been able to maintain their sales organization’s momentum during this time. Today we’ll explore one of those strategies: Enabling Your Salesforce to Execute Deep Discovery to Leverage Multiple Champions. To see the other 4 strategies, make sure to download the full playbook here.
Why Deep Discovery
Your buyer is more protective of their budget and deals involve more C-suite decision-makers than ever before. Your sellers need to be able to quickly and confidently identify and connect with key stakeholders and their biggest pains to move deals forward at a high value.
That means using the discovery process to draw clear maps of the buyer organization and triangulate the truth of where they are in a deal. Sellers need to be able to identify the most pressing outcomes of the customer organization and know who in the organization owns those requirements. This will enable your reps to attach your solution to revenue-driving outcomes and drive deals forward quickly at a premium, creating more predictable revenue for your company.
Why Multiple Champions
By leveraging multiple champions within the buyer organization, sellers are able to personalize their sale to multiple C-level stakeholders and address a wider range of required capabilities. They’ll be capable of driving urgency for your solution, justifying a premium price and closing larger deals overall despite external economic challenges.
C-level decision-makers in your buyer organization may be dealing with tighter budget restrictions and have competing solution requirements. Finding and leveraging internal champions who have influence with each of these stakeholders can help eliminate stalling and indecision in the late stages of the deal. Deep discovery is key to identifying these players early, while content and coaching around how to enable champions is necessary to successfully guide these opportunities to close. Sellers will be better equipped to enable multiple champions if you as a leader provide them with materials and proof points that their champions can leverage while selling internally.
Questions to Ask
- Are deals being stalled because of hesitant buyers or difficulty creating urgency with multiple decision-makers?
- How do sellers map the political landscape of the buyer organization?
- Is there a unified strategy for deep discovery across our sales team? If so, how are we tracking implementation?
Action Items
- Establish a process for defining and recording the political landscape of deals
- Train sellers on how to identify and coach multiple champions
- Develop proof points with evidence of your solution’s results to enable champions
More Strategies for Leaders
We created the definitive playbook for sales leaders to drive success during an economic downturn. Discover the 5 key strategies that have driven provable revenue-boosting outcomes for sales organizations, even in a market full of hesitant buyers. Download Cut Through the Noise: Your Playbook for Sales Success in a Down Economy to get even more action items, discussion questions and resources to help you lead your team to success.
