This article is reposted from a LinkedIn Pulse article posted on May 30, 2018
As I write this, my 10 year old daughter is working diligently under a heat lamp to save the life of a baby chicken. From the time she was a hatchling, we knew there was something a little off about Sunny. While her siblings grew quickly into a gangling amalgam of feathers and down, Sunny remained small, yellow and fuzzy for at least an extra week. Her size also made her an underdog at feeding time, as she was often dominated by the larger and more dominant chickens.
As I woke up this morning, ready to tackle the last week of Oracle's fiscal year, Sunny lay unresponsive next to her food bowl. And so would begin Animal ER: Poultry Edition.
Understanding that Finley was wired from birth to nurture anything with breath and a pulse, it is no surprise the care that she has put into Sunny's well-being. Now, with one foot in the office while I keep watch over Finley's fledgling vigil, I wonder how many of my colleagues are applying the same degree of desperation and care to their end-of-year pipeline.
Your prospect is not a baby chicken.
In my time as a business owner, a sales leader, and most recently in presales I have seen a consistent pattern among salespeople. The salesperson receives a list of accounts and a quota, does a little math, and plans their quickest path to quota relief. As most of us have experienced, smaller deals usually do not mean less effort required (in fact, sometimes it's the opposite), so that usually means finding our white whale.
Sometimes this technique works exactly the way it is supposed to: we spend 80% of our time on the efforts that will get us to our goal, and another 20% on everything else. Other times, however, we find ourselves nurturing a seemingly lucrative prospect whose odds of thriving are slim to none. It takes a significant amount of wisdom and emotional fortitude to know when it's time to recognize a languishing customer for what it is and, in my experience, these customers take on a few common forms.
The hobbled customer
In the ancient near east, conquered kings presented a conundrum for their conquerors. While they served as a testament to the conquering king's military prowess, at the same time they posed a risk of rebellion. Their solution was to hobble the king, often by removing his eyes, thumbs, toes or all three, so that he could serve his new master without the risk of insurrection.
The hobbled customer is most often one who has not earned the right to act on their own authority in purchasing decisions. The hobbled customer often presents itself in the way of consistent interaction with a single point of contact in a middle management position. If you suspect you're dealing with a hobbled customer, ask questions in discovery that relate more to company strategy than the tactical execution of their department's day-to-day tasks. One of the most telltale signs of a hobbled customer is lack of insight into how their division plays into the big picture. If you suspect you're dealing with a hobbled customer, take a look at their LinkedIn profile. If they're very early in their career or new to a middle management job, this may confirm your suspicions that they have not yet earned the right to make a purchasing decision on their own.
The sampler
Our neighborhood frozen yogurt shop has become a mecca for young teenagers, thanks in part to the sweltering Austin summers and the self-serve candy shop available to garnish their frozen treats. As an added bonus, the shop has an "unlimited samples" policy. A tray of small white containers often used to hold ketchup remains perpetually stocked next to the self-serve yogurt machines.
As you might expect, budget-strapped teens have taken full advantage of the store's laissez faire approach to trying before you buy. For example, some have learned that the pleated sides of the containers were designed to expand, so that you can hold more product in a single container.
Industries with significant media coverage or recent innovations are teeming with samplers. In my industry, customers are especially eager to learn about GDPR, big data, and the opportunities presented through machine-based learning and predictive analytics. The sampler is eager to run "evaluation cycles" to understand how providers like ours will fit into their changing environment.
Unlike the hobbled customer, the sampler is likely to invite the house to early meetings. If you are in an industry that uses product demonstrations, they are often quick to demo and often show little interest in detailed discovery sessions. Especially for less experienced reps, it is difficult to distinguish between a fast-moving prospect and a sampler. They show a lot of the same signs: high levels of engagement and fast movement through the early stages of the sales cycle, for example. Unfortunately, though, your conversations are unlikely to progress beyond the academic nature of your business.
One of the best ways to identify a sampler is to pay close attention to how they interact with your presales team. Are they highly engaged with both of you, or are they treating your sales consultant with a significantly greater level of attention and interest? If so, they may be more interested in the academic discussion than they are in making a purchase. Are they requesting most of your best practice and product expertise in writing? If this is the case, they may be preparing for a business case that is yet to be approved, or even worse, they may be using the sales cycle to learn about the newest shiny object in the industry.
Jeff
Sometimes Jeff doesn't bring his wallet to the restaurant, but he always has a compelling story. It's in his other pants. His wife took his debit card. If it's just the two of you, he reaches very slowly for the check, feigns surprise when you pick up the tab, and vows to pick it up next time. Sometimes Jeff orders twice as many drinks as everyone else, all top shelf, and suggests that you evenly split the tab to keep things simple. Don't be like Jeff.
Jeff bears a strong resemblance to the sampler and the hobbled customer. He is the customer without an approved business case. He loves your solution and may have already selected you, but he's going to prolong the cycle indefinitely to avoid putting pen to paper. The more expensive your solution is, the more likely you're dealing with a Jeff.
Sometimes you can't save Sunny.
Sometimes, either through your own sales skills or blind luck, a languishing customer comes around and surprises you. Most often, the hobbled customer, the sampler and Jeff will burn a sales rep's time and effort as long as the rep lets them. As sales reps we need the confidence to ask frank and difficult questions to keep the deal alive.
Dealing with a hobbled customer? Maybe it's time to offer help delivering their pitch higher in the organization. A sampler, or even Jeff? Perhaps you can help them develop their business case.
As humans, most of us share two common fears: rejection and uncertainty. As salespeople, these fears manifest themselves at the beginning and the end of a sales cycle. Why do salespeople hate cold calling? Most often it's because the risk of rejection and the impact of failure are heightened. Why are salespeople often content to keep a languishing customer on the line rather than asking questions that will result in a firm yes or no? It's for the same reasons. Asking for a firm yes or no means dealing with uncertainty and rejection, and getting a "no" answer means finding a new prospect to fill their place, which in turn may mean more cold calling.
A few years ago I worked with a sales team who had the best year in my organization's history. All five of our organization's President's Club members belonged to the same team. Because reps at the time had five products to sell to customers, they spent the next year trying to expand the same handful of accounts. The strategy only saw nominal success, and none of the team made President's Club the next year.
A year and a half later, in a new role, I reconnected with two members of the old team. While catching up, I asked which accounts they were working on. Both team members named the exact same accounts, speaking to the exact same people, that they had been working on almost two years ago. They had not replaced a single client.
There are 21,024,000 minutes in a 40 year career, including sleep, time off, and time spent living the rest of our lives. As salespeople we have the unique opportunity to determine how much we will earn with each remaining minute. Each additional minute we give to a customer who lacks the budget, authority, or compelling need to buy our product represents an opportunity cost: a minute we will not get back.
As for me, I did take the opportunity to invest in a moment that I could not indeed get back: being there for my daughter as she fought as hard as she could to save Sunny. But I digress. At Oracle, the end of our fiscal year usually falls just after Memorial Day weekend. This means that, in addition to surreptitiously working during block parties and barbecues, we face a short week. So each of us faces a choice with each new minute: are you spending your next one on a customer who will thrive?
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