There’s an old expression that “10,000 Philistines were slain with the jawbone of an ass and a like number of sales are lost every day with the same weapon.”
All good salespeople have learned there’s a time to stop talking. But that suggests that the sole objective is to get the order and the selling job is done when you do — that you are “there.”
I wish it were that simple, but it isn’t. Too often, salespeople believe they have done their job when the client says “yes.” They work to that end alone and put all their effort into getting to “yes” as quickly as possible so they can move on to the next opportunity.
Unfortunately, the reality is that they have done their job only when they hear “yes” to a project that’s going to succeed, not one that’s going to turn into a “sale from Hell.”
There’s a lot of buzz about quality in our industry: in design, engineering, integration, installation, service; this standard or that one, this process or a better one. Meanwhile, over in the sales department they’re still talking mainly about quantity: volume, gross profit, pipelines, number of proposals, close ratios.
The quality discussion is long overdue.
Related: Is Content the New Sales Call?
What do professional account executives who know and care about quality do that lesser ones don’t? Plenty. For instance, they:
Know the difference between a project that will succeed and one with unanswered questions and significant risks.
Get answers to enough of the right questions to assure that people who come next in the process can work with complete and accurate information.
Don’t undervalue labor — a practice in our industry more common than in almost any other.
Engage the client at every step of the process: site survey, scope of work, kickoff meetings, milestones, change order processes and others. They leave nothing to chance in documentation.
Conduct thorough discovery with the client: not just about the project at hand but about all the people involved and about the client processes that affect its completion.
Put enough thought and effort into the scope of work to assure that it:
- Explains the purpose and system function requirements.
- Contains a project overview and a statement of function.
- Lists the assumptions used in its preparation. These are the factual (not wishful) conditions that are believed to exist when planning the project. If later information proves them invalid, they create a basis and a case for change.
- Identifies milestones within the project and who is responsible for each.
- Explains the change order process and procedures.
- Clearly states what is in the scope and what is not.
Some will argue that these things are not all the responsibility of the account executive, and they’d be right. There are almost always others involved.
Related: The Days of Cold Calling are Over
I’m simply noting that projects that don’t start well at the sales stage rarely end well at the collection stage. It doesn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa to know that the next job depends heavily on the success of the last one.
Here are a couple of suggestions to management:
Vigorously review your processes to remove deterrents to quality at the sales stage and allow good hand-offs (not drop- offs) to operations. Keep sales engaged in the process long enough for them to see the results of their contributions.
Assure that sales compensation plans don’t stress quantity over quality (many do).
Include sales in post-project reviews. Address “how the job started” as well as “how the job went.”
Create and document sales processes that focus on quality and not just quantity.
Hold everyone accountable for their respective performance in following the process.
Best practices always rely on sound principles, and principles that work take work. Maybe we never really get “there” in a dynamic business because “there” is a moving target — all the more reason to give it our constant attention.
