...that isn't specific." This quote is from an excellent story teller and filmmaker, Dan O'Rourke. Dan was speaking specifically of the art of asking good interview questions. But the meaning is especially poignant in today's sales environment.
When you're in sales, dealing with ambiguity is part of the deal. In today's world it is even more acute. Prospects and clients don't always know what they want or why they need it. Budgets can appear and disappear quicker than people with more than 10 items in the express check-out lane. Decision criteria changes faster than a 14 year-olds Facebook page. Unfortunately, this condition will not change any time soon. That is why it is more important than ever that your plan for closing a sale be as specific as it can possibly be - and in writing!
A plan where the smallest of details is left to interpretation (or if it is not in writing) will most assuredly result in inertia and non-compliance. In the old days, when people and processes were relatively static, you could "discuss" a plan for moving forward with a prospect and have a reasonable expectation the plan would be followed. Today, unless you document a plan which requires some type of behavior from your prospect within short, defined period of time, there is an even chance the ball will get dropped and growing chance your prospect may be gone before they can execute.
Whatever plan you agree to, it must be dynamic in nature. In other words, the plan must be specific and include contingencies. Ask them point blank, "what do we do here if we hit a wall", and document that contingency. Without a plan in writing, you will have nothing to hold your prospect accountable and no reason to contact them (from their perspective) asking why things may not have progressed.
It is no longer enough to ask your client to "go to the well and get a bucket of water". You have to share with them,"Pick up the bucket and hold it approx. 2 feet from the ground. Take 19 steps to the well. Pick the bucket up until it is over the lip of the well. Submerge the bucket into the water...." Why this detail? Because you may very well know more about your client's purchase process than they do. Why is that? Because in today's world there is better than a 50/50 shot they are newer to the company than you are.
Also, be sure and review every step with your client to discover any obstacles that could possibly emerge to keep them from completing the task in the required amount of time. Not only is this plan specific, but it is now dynamic! It has life and meaning and a purpose. If they agree to it, you are well on your way to a "timely" sale.
If you don't, then you are allowing the winds of fate to control your sale; and we all know where that wind will take you.
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