“What the hell was that?” You try a SAYA sale! It doesn't work the way it was supposed to. 1) What actually happened and why? 2)  I wish I woulda...! 3) Now that it’s over, what could I do?
Send me a selling situation you’ve encountered that didn’t go the way you expected. I’ll attempt an autopsy that will help you and others to avoid those pitfalls. 👉 [email protected] 

In the last Sales Club session, Chris reviewed and built on the use of the Decision Timeline…A subject near and dear to my heart! Chris’s dialogue and a recent comment from a Sales Clubber recalled to my mind situations where sellers, in their debriefs, related so many situations where the unexpected occurred in the Proposal Step of their sales process and completely derailed what should have been a no-brainer. In most of the cases, after they thought they’d moved through their steps well, to the point of using a pretty good “If, Then Check” something went awry! The awryness was usually caused by the weakness of the commitment made by the Buyer to the Seller. 

The Prospect’s Commitment to Make a Decision

If you search “selling”, “to sell”, “sales” most of the definitions you find will not satisfy my feelings about the role of a professional salesperson. In so many instances the definition falls short of the type of control a professional should have. Many of those definitions imply that selling is about buying and allows that the act of buying defines selling.

I believe that Professional Selling is a proactive process conducted and “controlled” by the salesperson, conducting the process from “Hello!” to “Thank you!”

Perhaps the most critical part of the process rests in the stage after the Target has been deemed a Qualified Opportunity, meaning there is leverageable need, a required budgetary component, and the involvement of the full decision-making team.

Once at that point, there must be full, all-in commitment, 1st on the part of the Seller to test the Qualified Opportunity (QO) and create a binary choice – “Yes” or “No”!

Without control and confidence at that point, Selling could devolve to chance. To avoid chance, and, in turn, the traditional “amateur” salesperson’s Chase, the Professional must excel at the Steps before and be able to say to the QO, “IF I show you how my solution will solve the problems you’ve told me about, and you’re 100% certain it will work, and it fits your budget, THEN will you buy that solution from me?”

At that point if there’s ANYTHING but a firm Yes or No, the professional salesperson, no matter how frightening or “risky” it seems, must challenge the QO’s stand. Perhaps they’re not really a QO. The sales-pro must STOP and revisit the previous Steps in the process.

If any of the questions were answered “No”, the pro recognizes that weakness before the glitch prevented them from successful forward movement and immediately goes back to the SAYA steps before the weakness and works to find the glitch.

It is, at this point, that the SAYA Salesperson earns the right to be called a Professional. No leaks can be allowed to exist in the linear system. If they are not recognized and fixed, and the sale happens, it is strictly an amateur experience, not controlled and probably not replicable!

Send me a selling situation you’ve encountered that didn’t go the way you expected. I’ll attempt an autopsy that will help you and others to avoid those pitfalls. 👉 [email protected]