Don't Get Burned

Getting burned because of putting too much faith in a buyer is a recurring problem for many business and sales people (same thing).

Here is how it works: You (we) put a lot of time and faith in landing a big fish and it never happens. Unfortunately, many of us are faced with this too often.

We are, by nature, a positive and upbeat breed. We believe what people (buyers) tell us and tend to count on the things they tell us. When they don’t give us the promised or assumed order we are set back. Are the buyers liars? Not necessarily. A lot of things can happen to make your deal go south. The net result is that you don’t make your numbers or your commissions. If this happens to you often can lose your job or your business. When you forecast orders and profits that don’t materialize, at the very least, you lose credibility.

Let’s fix the problem. Getting let down by buyers won’t go away. We live in a word of rejection and have to deal with many crafty buyers. (Read Negotiate to Close by Gary Karrass) The answer is to work smarter. By taking control of the sales process you can mitigate the damage from losing orders that you depended on.

Ask more qualifying questions. Be very specific when talking to your buyer. There is nothing wrong with asking when the order will be released. Make sure you are working with a decision maker before going through the sales process. Understand their problem(s) and make sure that your proposal aces their needs. If your buyer can’t afford your solution you have just wasted you valuable time. If you qualify the customer and ask the right questions you will be able to correctly evaluate your chances of landing the business.

The next solution, the best solution, is to have more things cooking in your sales funnel. More sales calls equal more sales (Mark Thelen). If you are depending on one or two big deals to close, and they don’t, you are screwed. If you are sitting on ten or twelve big deals, and lose a couple, so what?

My advice is not to depend on a few pending sales to make your numbers. Work smarter and continue to prospect for new business while closing others. Using the word “funnel” to describe your sales pipeline is easy to imagine. You should follow the funnel strategy to keep your career moving. By putting many prospects in the top of the funnel you will have a strong and steady stream of sales to prevent you from getting burned by a deal that goes south.