Month: December 2023
Finding the Right Fit in Sales
I won’t sell a product or service if I don’t believe in it or in the company behind it. But that is only part of the picture. Not all products or services fit everybody, but most fit somebody. Qualification matters, and qualifying accurately and quickly helps you earn more money. Whether you are a seller or leading a sales team, understanding the best-fit use cases can help you build your ICP and a repeatable sales motion, allowing you to:
- Find and prospect the best candidate companies.
- Demonstrate benefits for a credible and relevant use case.
- Find a sponsor who benefits from your offering.
- Accelerate the deal velocity – even in a large enterprise business.
- Close large deals faster – and more of them!
When I started selling at my last company, I was told that the typical deal size was $75K-$80K, with a 9-12 month sales cycle at a midsize company. I sold a Kubernetes Fleet Management platform, and I quickly found that most midsize companies lacked the containerization needs Kubernetes provides. Most also needed to gain the skills required for fairly complex solutions, which can take months. So, a great solution for some may not be the solution for all.
Large Enterprise companies had the need and the expertise to support Kubernetes, which started my profile development exercise. Large companies with a corporate-standard containerization product were less likely candidates, with a much longer sales cycle. Financial Services companies require strong end-to-end security and cannot afford breaches (reputationally and actual costs). Therefore, they had larger budgets and immediate needs, so they became a primary focus.
While looking at these companies’ environments, it became clear to me that with the right targeting, an initial deal could easily be in the $500K-$1 million range. And, if you successfully delivered what you promised, there could be several more significant follow-on deals. The icing on the cake is that by selling those companies what they need, solving significant problems or concerns, and treating them like the valued customers they are, they would reward you with loyalty and long-term business. That became my focus, and my assumptions proved to be accurate.
Finding the right fit for your product or service takes analysis, investigation, testing, and time. Getting this right creates the perfect opportunity for ongoing success and to scale results across the entire team. It also provides credibility when customers are willing to speak with prospects and sing your praises. Success breeds success.
Knowing When to Stop
What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?
Jetpack Question of the Day
In 2000, we started developing a Franchising System for Business Consulting. We had invested over $100K and were making progress, but we were about 6 months behind schedule when 9/11 occurred.
Everything came to a standstill for a few months. In early 2002, we reevaluated the situation. We were about $50K and less than 6 months from completion. But the total addressable market had shrunk considerably, and there was no telling if or when it might recover.
We had to decide whether to invest more and potentially lose more or kill the project and cut our losses. The decision was difficult. We ultimately decided to cut our losses and walk away from our investment in time and money. It was probably the right decision, but it was still very difficult.
For anyone interested, this post goes into more detail on this topic.
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 