Garp! Should I Be Prospecting Or Closing?

How you spend your time is the most important decision you will have to make if you are in a business development role with your company.  In sales school 101 the question is, "Should you be prospecting or closing?" All hands go up for closing, every time. Unfortunately, every person that raised their hand is wrong.

That’s the good news, why?

These folks can now be taught that prospecting is where they should be spending the bulk of their time. The bigger issue is that most people don't go to sales school or do any reading on the subject. They are never taught correctly so they spend all their time closing. After they are done working on a deal, by either winning or losing it, they have nothing more to work on. In the long run this hurts both their company and their own wallet. 

So let's discuss what sales people should be doing with their time and why. Prospecting should take up about 70% to 80% of their time. This includes working with Marketing to create the universe of leads, then helping to segment it and discussing how to attack it. Equally, if not more important, is getting close with the Product people to trade information on what the market is saying about your offerings and listening to what the they are thinking, building and why. It's a three legged stool between Product, Marketing and Sales. A break in any leg of the stool or a silo'd approach creates risk that is hard to overcome and will hurt your results. 

Standing on the head of Marketing’s desk and asking what kind of lead generating activities are planned to help the prospecting effort is time well spent too. It gets even better when sales and marketing are talking in unison about how to work on campaigns, initiatives and selected events.  Next it is talking to prospects, delivering demo's and following up on outstanding items to help demonstrate capability. Working on the business case and RFI/RFP's is also a good use of time.  The business case is likely the most valuable tool in the prospecting shed (we'll discuss the more in future posts). Also, keeping your CRM database updated with accurate information helps for more accurate forecasting which your CFO will appreciate when he delivers his revenue forecast to the board.

Closing becomes a natural process for strategic and solution selling. With sales cycles of 12-18 months (or more) your prospect will likely be as anxious as you are to get the deal done. Therefore, they won't need too much closing activity from you. That leaves roughly 20% of the week, or one full day, to focus on the bottom of the funnel. Keeping in touch with your contacts and understanding the buying process and contractual negotiations fills this time up. If you are in a highly competitive situation demonstrating capability again or reinforcing it is good work.  Gentle reminders of your solutions most desired value propositions and the ROI you demonstrated in the business case is always a good idea as well. 

No amount of pressure you put on your prospect will make them move any faster. The "Always Be Closing" attitude will likely backfire after the actual close and damage your relationship with your new client.

If you have to take anything from the Hollywood business version of sales, make sure you are doing everything you can to develop and work your own Glengarry leads.   

My Best,