As we head in to the second quarter, it's important that you have a solid pipeline, one that can be monetized over the next few months. Given the approaching summer season, this quarter – more so than any other – will determine how the rest of the year goes.
Now's the time to look into you funnel, take out the trash and replace it with real, closable opportunities.
The following 10 questions will allow you to separate the good from the filler and go into this key quarter with a winning pipeline. If you're a sales representative, you should make a habit of asking these questions about every active opportunity in your funnel, each and every week. As a manager, make a habit of asking these questions about current active opportunities at every weekly meeting with the team. The great thing is that the answers come straight from interactions with prospects. If you're having those regularly, they will help keep you focused on the best opportunities.
1. When's your next meeting? If you don't know, you don't have a real prospect. Don't pretend that the opportunity is forecastable or that what you have is anything more than a questionable lead.
2. When did you first engage? Conversations are usually leads, not prospects - many people confuse the two. Conversations need to be nurtured and evolved to where they can be converted to prospects. Until that time they should not be in your pipeline.
3. When was the last time you met? If it's been longer than half of your average cycle, it's a lead. If they're not engaged and actively moving through the process with you, take them out and look for a replacement.
4. How's the prospect dealing with or managing the area where you will add value? If they're not choosing to deal with it now, what makes you think things will change? If they're managing now or if they managing fine without, why would they switch? If you can't answer these questions, you have a choice: go back to prospect and find out, or take them out of the funnel and find a real prospect or two to replace them.
5. Why are they not using your product now? This is an extension to the above question, but if you don't know this, you're operating in the dark.
6. If this deal will close as you see it closing, what is the very next thing that has to happen? If you can't answer this, go to jail and do not collect $200. As a sales professional this is fundamental: plan, execute, review.
7. When and how will you make that happen? This one's self-explanatory. Make it happen or make it go away.
8. What does your prospect think is going to happen next? If you don't know this, then you're working in the dark, and at risk of losing the deal or having to it go longer than it need be. What happens if you go in to close, and they think they're still defining requirements?
9. Who or what are you up against? How many times have you worked an opportunity only to be told that they had decided on an alternative you were not aware of. In these days of showrooming, how likely is it that you are alone, and if you are why? If you are not, you need to know who and why them.
10. How badly does the prospect want the deal to happen? While there may be no better way to gauge this than to ask, there are ways to test their resolve. If you haven't asked, what have you done to test things?
Tibor Shanto is a principal at Renbor Sales Solutions Inc. He can be reached at tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca. His column appears once a month on the Report on Small Business website.
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