3 reasons you are wasting time on the wrong deals

Distractions. Noise. Feeling overwhelmed. We all face overflowing inboxes, distracting social media feeds and incredible demands on our time. Today’s B2B sales people are no exception – on the contrary, we are facing ever growing quotas while simultaneously needing to spend more and more time on administration and other non-sales related activities.

In this environment, your ability to focus on the right prospects and opportunities, rather than getting caught up with the unimportant, is key. If you want to become a more effective sales person, you need to have a system that helps you turn off the noise of the many so you can concentrate on the few that matter. 

Qualifying your prospects

The best way to avoid wasting time on wrong deals is to prevent them from becoming opportunities in the first place. 

A sales person’s pipeline cannot be the dumping ground for every single suspect/prospect/MQL that happens to come their way. You won’t be able to dedicate time, money and resources to close everything – and neither should you. Take the time to evaluate each prospect early, as part of your sales qualification process. Make a list of the questions you need to ask to determine if something is worthy of entering your pipeline. If the prospect does not fit your criteria to proceed, disqualify and move on.

Sounds obvious. Unfortunately, this is a best practice rarely practiced. Subsequently, pipelines are filled with so much noise, so many distractions, so many bad fits and low probability deals that we can’t focus our attention on the ones most likely to close.

Lacking an opportunity qualification process

Qualifying is a continuous exercise; it doesn’t stop just because a prospect converts into an opportunity. Winning fast is great. However, consistent performance is the result of losing even faster. Letting go of low probability deals early may not be as riveting as bringing home a large order, but it is equally important.

So what can we do to consistently evaluate the opportunities in our pipelines? Lots, actually. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

How old can an opportunity be before it’s time to let go?
Say your average sales cycle is 150 days. If you have an opportunity that is over 200 days old and you’re not even halfway through reaching the various milestones in your sales process, it’s likely time to walk away.

How long can an opportunity remain in the same phase of your sales process?
This relates to pipeline velocity – the speed at which your opportunities are moving through the funnel. If the opportunity has been stuck in the same phase for 3 months, is it worthwhile adding even more time and resources towards this deal?

How long can a deal stall before we concede lost momentum?
Say your next step was to book a call with the main decision makers and gain commitment. However, they never returned your invitations and 2 months go by. Is it worth adding more of your time and resources towards a deal with minimal likelihood of progressing? Cut your losses.

Are your decisions data driven?

I know, boring topic alert. However, using historical data will help you make better future decisions about the type of deals that deserve your focus and energy. Now, there are a million and one sales metrics you could be looking at, however I will focus on a vital few.

Review your last two quarters and answer the following questions:

What was my win rate?
What was the average sales cycle?
What was the average deal size?

Now, separate the deals you won from the ones you lost and look at the sales cycle and deal size again. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. 

(…)

Great, note down the answers. Let’s dig a little deeper:

Start by looking at the hard facts of the deals you won over the past 6 months. You already have the sales cycle length and average deal size. Now look at things like products/services sold, client industry, company size, geographic region etc. What do these deals have in common? Write it down.

These are the types of opportunities you should pursue going forward.

Now do the same for your lost opportunities. Use the data to make sure you disqualify these types of prospects before they become opportunities that pollute your pipeline.

Finally, see if you can locate any “softer” common traits between your won and lost deals. It can be something as simple that, when you win, you develop great rapport with the client decision makers very early on. However, this never happens when you lose deals. In this scenario, what’s stopping you from adding rapport – whether you get along with the client contacts early on – as a qualifying factor for your prospects? Most likely, doing so will make your selling life both more productive and more fun.

The only way to make this stick is through employing the help of a system – in this instance, your sales tool. Make sure to apply the capabilities that will allow you to qualify prospects, temp check active opportunities and analyze the historical data that will confirm where to focus and where to let go.

In summary
To stop wasting time on the wrong deals, prohibit the wrong prospects from entering your pipeline in the first place. Go through the historical data to figure out what your won and lost deals have in common and build your sales qualification criteria and questions around these findings. Apply, apply, apply. 

Make a habit of continuously qualifying the active opportunities in your pipeline. You’ll want to make sure you’re not spending precious time and resources on anything without a pulse. Look at things such as overall age, time in phase and time elapsed without progress to eliminate the noise.