Breaks in the Sales Pipeline

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>> Gearhard Hatchwana: assumed spelling Hi. My name is Gearhard Hatchwana with selling power TV. Today, we talk about the breaks that come into the pipeline that slow down the deals, and Eric Shava assumed spelling is the director of sales of Bascha assumed spelling Technologies. He's going to explain how we should avoid those breaks. Welcome.

>> Eric Shava: Thank you. Good to be back. So, again, we, we get into this concept of, of once we're in the middle of a deal, this is where everybody loves each other. We've gotten past the hard part of prospecting, and we've gotten in the door. We're not at that uncomfortable place of closing which, which usually gives people mutual anxiety. We're in that nice no-man's land or that happy land. The problem when you're in there is that quite often, sales people aren't sure of exactly what elements, what actually advance a deal. So there's activities we take. There's activities we may ask of someone else, but do we truly know. Are those activities that truly advance a deal, or that sometimes elongate or just put a deal in a, in, in a neutral state?

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: Aren't there two things you want to test, greed and fear?

>> Eric Shava: laughs You absolutely do, right. What motivates buying? Right. Fear of loss, or fear of missing a game? What I think, what we find more often than not when a deal gets stuck, in large part, the onus is on the salesperson for not articulating to that buyer how to buy their product or service.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: So how do you step on the deal accelerator?

>> Eric Shava: So the way you step on the deal accelerator is A, you have to focus, first of all, on how do you start this deal? If, if we, we would argue if you don't have access to power by the time you get to this middle moribund state that you've got to get there fast. When a deal gets stuck, it's usually because you're not at power. You're not at the, at the level of understanding or speaking to the person who makes the business decision and has the business reasons for advancing this deal faster.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: See, I'm, I'm, you are selling me, and I'm not the power person. What would you tell me? crosstalk Yeah.

>> Eric Shava: So, at this point, and, and after dealing with my own inaudible we do know we didn't get there first, but what we have to articulate to this person is, Gearhard, we've made a lot of good progress here. We're at the point in this process now where we need to art, understand and have you articulate the business reasons that, that, or, or the business value you expect to get from this business. The problem that we're solving, understand where this falls on the overall picture, and, and exactly what needs to happen in order to arrive at an informed decision on your part. To do that, we need to speak to John Smith, the senior VP of sales. So my question to you is, since, since this is something that will help us both, do you want to do that meeting together, or should I contact him myself?

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: Give him a choice.

>> Eric Shava: I'm giving you a choice, but your choice isn't no. Your choice isn't, and, and, and of course, that does not know mean that you magically, I have now sprinkled dust over you to say, well, Eric, I, I will pick one of those choices. You may say, you know, Eric, that's great, but we have this well in hand, and I'm empowered, and, and we can keep going at the pace we're going. Salesperson, and, and inaudible ask that question, but then they get, they get, they get stuck. What is my second order ask? If I know the process in the form of the ask, I know to immediately say, Gearhard, that's great. Actually, I have to step back as well because I, I think perhaps I didn't articulate this as well on my side, but there's the, the specific reason why we're here now is that we're looking at approximately X amount of money spent on both sides, and as I see it, if we don't have this step, this can start to get very costly. And so if we can't go there right now, can we step back, and walk though the things we haven't yet accomplished that also should be in this process so we can get to this point, and discuss your criteria for making that introduction.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: Right. Sure.

>> Eric Shava: But it's, it's constantly going back to, I haven't asked. I, I, I always know what I want, and I ask for it.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: We need to sell the buyer on giving us that access that we need in order to move the deal forward. Let's say we can't get it. It's not possible. What do you do?

>> Eric Shava: So, again, we, we look very, very specifically at the health score. So at that point where we are in this process, I have a score. I have a scorecard by which I know, I know I've gotten, I've given you so many things, and they have, they have value associated. I have asked for several things. Did I get them, or didn't I? I only get my, so again, words are, can be death in sales. If you demonstrate you've taken an action, and I can prove it, I have a much higher like, much greater chance that you're bought and invested in this decision because you are actually spending cycles.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: So at what time do you cut the cord when you see the deal is not healthy?

>> Eric Shava: So A, the goal is to do it as early as possible. So one of the things that we provide through both services and software, assume to be software is we allow our clients to produce a scorecard on every deal that begins from the very beginning. Now what ultimately happens is that you, you get to a point very quickly using 40 scorecards to statistically relevant numbers that say this is unhealthy.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: So after every sales call, you update the scorecard, and you know -

>> Eric Shava: Absolutely.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: Right.

>> Eric Shava: Because there's -

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: You work only the, the best deals and the, in the pipeline if you really need to make your quota, you know exactly who to talk to and what to talk about.

>> Eric Shava: Correct. Once you break, as, as a salesperson, this isn't a mandate from on high. When salespeople see this, and they understand, I have a way of truly telling how I'm doing with an objective score versus the happy years I contend to get. Now you know yourself when you're trending in a bad direction.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: Where can people read more about this?

>> Eric Shava: We actually have a community, the Basha Community on dub dub dub dot basha dot com. To join our community is free, and we have podcasts that we produce and release about every week. We have a blog, and we have information about everything we talked about today. About how we focus on that and take your existing methodology and then bring it down to its, the science that's underneath it.

>> Gearhard Hatchwana: And I've been on your website, and I think it's a great site. It is a lot of resources, and I encourage everybody to go to basha.com today. Take care crosstalk.

>> Eric Shava: Thank you, Gearhard.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====