poweredbycaffeine

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How many times do you close in a sales cycle? (Part 2)

Happy Friday, you lovely humans..and to the lizard people in this community, greetings.

So, yesterday I posted a poll that asked how many times you close throughout your deal cycles, and I appreciate all those that voted and @funcoupons @WCK @paddy @CuriousFox @UrAssIsSaaS @BigMeech @GrizzleMcThornBody @avocadobegood @Justatitle and @HindsightHarry for engaging with comments. This is what drives discussion, and we love to see it.

Anyways this post was spurred after watching this video from John Barrows: https://bit.ly/3jRBXlO

The content dives into how to improve your close rate, and what I took away from that is that you have to close multiple times throughout the deal cycle to get to the big finish: a won deal.

Closing happens:

On your first cold call: booking a demo
On your discovery call: upfront contract (only Sandler bit that I like)
On your discovery call: setting clear next steps that everyone agrees to
On your demo: upfront contract
On your demo: setting clear next steps
On your legal and finance call: upfront contract
On your legal and finance call: pricing and redline agreements
On your legal and finance call: setting clear next steps
On your closing call: upfront contract
On your closing call: trial close
On your closing call: verbal yes
Post-sale: Asking for referrals

There could be dozens more sprinkled in, but you get the point. You are constantly closing during the deal.

Now, 26 of you said you close one. Let me ask each of you this: what is your current close rate? How could you improve it if you got more "closes" during the sales process? I reckon it would improve dramatically, or at the very least, help you close-lost more deals early in the pipeline rather than being ghosted at the end of the process.

I would strongly suggest that each of you take the time to watch that demo at some point in the next week and see what you can do to improve your pipeline in August, and the last month of Q3. Maybe you add it to your post-call notes with a "close(s) from this call" section. Use that to drive urgency and use it, to be honest with yourself: is this deal real, or am I wasting time?

Anyways, if you are reading this far...Go Pats.

23

18 comments

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CoorsKing

WR Officer

13

Retired King of the Coors Knights

This is some absolute fire content @poweredbycaffeine. I absolutely agree, you should always be asking for something… next steps, access to authority, referrals, etc.

funcoupons

WR Officer

9

👑

Thank you for this, we appreciate you!

I completely agree - if you go into sales thinking you only have to close prospects once per deal you're gonna have a bad time. Closing needs to be top of mind every time you speak with a prospect.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

9

SaaS Eater

You have no idea how relieved I am right now. But I wholeheartedly agree with this, regardless of the length of you sales cycle you gotta be closing all of the time.

I call these "gut checks" with my team, and if you "gut check" and get anything short of total buy in, you need to stop, isolate the objection, and confirm buy in before moving onto the next steps. My AE's that do this effectively have a 60%+ close rate. The ones that done are just spraying and praying with like 25% CR's

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

6

☕️

You escaped the cap...this time.

Love the stats on your reps!

CuriousFox

WR Officer

7

🦊

This is the intelligent conversation and guidance that made me want to join the War Room. Thank you for your insight.

Incognito

WR Officer

5

Master of Disaster

Not sure how I missed yesterday’s post - went back and read it after seeing this one.

Thank you for this! It’s kinda the same thing as when I was an athlete - I would never focus on the actual results, just “did I gain something from this experience to make me better next time”. That was the win, not the medal.

This post helped me see my sales career with the same lens (getting this info was a close, getting them to take a meeting was a close, getting them to let me compete with incumbent is a close, blah blah). Needed the refocus today!

GeneralCorp

Notable Contributor

2

General of The War Room

I love then pipin' hawt 'tent

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

3

☕️

I haven't a clue what you're trying to tell me, but god damn do I respect it.

avocadobegood

Valued Contributor

1

MM Account Executive

the only thing i would add to this is that sales gets a fuck of a lot easier once you realize that you're not closing "for a contract" or "for a signature", as you said @poweredbycaffeine - you aren't just closing once.

prospects don't give a shit about that, nor your commission, close them on every call to make sure things are moving forward but also because it allows them to reveal themselves to you as a seller ie. is this person full of shit or might they actually put pen to paper for me. the signature, obviously, is a huge part of the process, but what you've really got to sell is the relationship they are opening with your company - because they're still going to be involved once you're off to the next prospect and deal cycle.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

5

☕️

Avocado DO be good.

HindsightHarry

Praised Answer

0

Account Executive

Reaaaaal goood

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

1

Sales

High quality content. Horrific “closing” with the Pats stuff

:-)

KendallRoy

Politicker

0

AM

Always be closing. The step you're on in the sales cycle isn't done until the next step is closed and accepted.

SalesPharaoh

Big Shot

0

Senior Account Executive

Great read, opened my mind a bit

Samwise

Opinionated

0

SDR

Any thoughts on Triangle Selling? Literally just finished the chapter where they talk about this. PLAN Framework to start the call and the Velocity PLAN framework to end the call and set next steps.

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