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| English: Flowchart of Rational Planning and Decision Making Process (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Maybe it’s just me, but that’s doubtful. My sales campaigns are always like games of chess – moves and counter-moves. Aggressive advances and defensive fortification. Back and forth, tacking into the wind.
But I’ll always start out with a sequence of events planned to steal the deal. Depending on how things progress I’ll modify the individual steps to take advantage of new information, or I’ll walk away – preferring a graceful retreat to humiliation.
Here’s where I’ll start – understanding:
- The requirement, and how the prospect will benefit.
- The funding, where the money‘s coming from and the justification for the spend.
- The timeframe – when will it happen, and what’s driving that.
- The competition – alternative options for the investment.
- The decision process – and who will decide what.
- The Coach – somebody on the inside to help me.
Finding out all this is my plan on the first call -I call itqualification. Whatever happens after that depends on how the sale develops. That’s when I move into General von Moltke’s way of thinking.
When you go into the first call do you have a plan? What is it?
For the rest of the campaign I have another strategy. It’s a set of objectives we might call milestones but we’ll describe those in another article.
But how do you stay with the game as the rules change?
