Building Momentum

MOMENTUM STEVE HOYLE argues that, while most salespeople consider what the best things to do during a sale are, too few think about when to do them

During a series of recent box below) and lack of one is a huge lost sale reviews, the warning to us. The more subtle signs of term “time and its absence, however, are difficult to confusion killed the discern, and lead us to examine more deal” kept cropping up, closely what is increasingly referred to as and this often-quoted the “momentum” of the deal. phrase indeed summarises many of the Momentum is not to be confused with issues that face account managers who the concept of velocity, used mostly by have lost major deals. sales operations to help inform progress

Confusion in the buying process is of deals through a funnel, which can be a normally quite easy to spot, with warning powerful method of analysis, particularly signs evident, such as different views from of early stage activities (investigating, individuals on the customer side as to the decision-making process, lack of clarity on the roles or responsibilities and boundaries of the buyers, or no firm business case to fall back on “Without momentum, deals get stuck in a buyer’s ‘important but not urgent’ tray, and wither away” when evaluating different options. All of these, and many others, will start qualifying etc). Velocity is normally sounding alarm bells for an account associated with speed through the sales manager. When examining the “time” cycle, which could be allied to, but is elements, however, the signals that all is different from, the dynamics of the not going well are sometimes more customer buying process. difficult to spot. What we mean by momentum is the

Everyone understands the importance force involved in driving decisions to a of having a strong compelling event (see satisfactory conclusion within the buying organisation, and without it, deals get stuck in a buyer’s “important but not urgent” tray. Here, while not being formally stopped, they just wither away, losing their energy in a downward spiral, while customer time and energy are focused on other more pressing projects.

Momentum in general English language usage is variously described as the strength or force that something has when it is moving, or the strength or force that allows something to continue or to grow stronger or faster as time passes.

In physics, momentum is defined as the property that a moving object has due to its mass and its motion. In selling, momentum could be defined as the force that the deal has because of how quickly it is moving towards a conclusion in the minds of the buyers. There are a number of components involved here: l The speed with which things are moving l The relative importance of the solution in the minds of the various

COMPELLING EVENTS The importance of a compelling event cannot be overstated, as time and time again when we conduct analysis of missed forecasts, or look at pipeline and forecast accuracy, the number one issue is that deals slip (and often evaporate entirely) due to lack of some event forced on the decision-makers. Although almost universally used, the concept of a compelling event is sometimes misunderstood. It is something external to the buying team, over which they have no or very little influence, but which forces them to make a decision by a certain time. Good examples of compelling events might include an office move, product launch, or a presentation to investors. The presence of an implementation deadline on an internal project plan is not normally a compelling event if there is nothing to stop the plan being changed. Always, the question to ask when discussing compelling events is: “What would be the consequence for the key stakeholders if the event slipped?” Of course, as sellers we understand the importance of creating the compelling event, and even the most respected sales organisations sometimes stoop to the rather tacky approach of offering end of month/quarter/year discounts, just as if they were selling double-glazing door to door.

players involved within the buying organisation l The clarity of a decision timescale bringing everyone to a common point.

Momentum is a key component of most complex B2B sales and, interestingly, almost certainly in B2C selling as well – if you don’t close the customer in front of you right this minute, then the chances of them coming back are slim.

In the B2B case, momentum is particularly important when you have multiple people involved, all with different priorities. Buying processes are increasingly complex and long-winded, so unless you can get everyone involved to move it up their priority list (ideally into their “important and urgent” box) it is probable that projects will slip, enter a downward spiral and, as events overtake the original perceived need, eventually disappear.

Some of the most common mistakes found when analysing lost (or “gone away”) deals where momentum was a major factor, include:

PEAKING TOO EARLY This is very common, especially in technology sales, as sellers rush to discuss the solution they can offer before building a cast iron case for the buyers. Indeed, in some organisations salespeople are actively encouraged to get to proposal stage as early as possible (a velocity metric), but if this is not aligned with the customer’s buying cycle then an early gain will invariably lead to problems later.

BUILDING MOMENTUM: GEMMA’S STORY

I first met Gemma during a second month in the quarter, workshop and was immediately and presumed that it was one impressed by her easy-going of the follow-on deals that but professional style together we had planned to come to with her obvious determination fruition. I was feeling pleased and proactive approach. At that that the account plan was time, we’d worked through her obviously working, until account development plan for Gemma started describing the Belinga, which, while still a very same initial deal in the prospect at that time, was just R&D division that had about to sign a first major supposedly been “in the bag” contract in its research and all those months ago. development facility for an While all of the sales intelligent building control managers and sales ops people system that Gemma’s company, in the room were doing a good BLC Systems, is well known for. job of examining Gemma’s qualification

“We drew up a customer and sales of the deal, timeline involving all key players, focused on building momentum” focusing on what needed to be done We had not looked at the deal to bring it in, I was looking in much detail as it was “already backwards and wondering totally committed”, and we what could be learned from the were tasked with figuring out fact that it had been dragging the best way to use this initial on for all this time. success as a springboard into It turned out that the the rest of the Belinga empire. business case had always been “overwhelming”, and that DEAL DELAY budget had been allocated to Recently, almost a year later, the project. The initial slippage I was helping BLC Systems 12 months ago was very review its end of final quarter unfortunate and the result pipeline, when Gemma came of one individual in the into the meeting to present her procurement department being sales funnel. I noticed that there off work with a bad illness for was a big deal for Belinga over three weeks, meaning that forecast for the end of the the offer put forward by Gemma for an end of quarter deal could not be taken up. The deal was then going to be signed in the next quarter, but Belinga suffered a major loss in its South American division, which meant that all capital expenditure was frozen.

FORCING THE ISSUE Gemma was unsure when the expenses ban was lifted, but had managed to revive the project a couple of months ago during an update call with her main contact. She had then done what looked like a good job of contacting all of the various stakeholders and found them all positive, and got her support team to revalidate the numbers in the business case, which turned out to be even more convincing. She had also managed to find a compelling event, in that most of the users all took holiday during August, so the facility would be very quiet at that time, meaning that the implementation could be done with a smaller team and less budget – provided that Belinga could be persuaded to place an order in time.

Gemma had actually hoped to get the order in right at the end of last quarter, but it had slipped off the agenda of the final executive team’s monthly meeting, which was needed to gain final approval. Now the deal was forecast as a very high probability for the middle of this final quarter. It was obvious that, although in classic qualification terms the deal was scoring highly, there was a distinct lack of momentum, which pointed to it probably slipping again. Questions Gemma found difficult to answer included: “How often do the stakeholders meet to discuss this project without you initiating the meeting?”, “Has anyone told you that they would take personal responsibility for driving it through in the next few weeks and by the forecast date?”, and “Does your main contact’s boss see this as one of the top initiatives to be progressed this month or quarter?”

Knowing the nature of the problem, we were able formulate a plan to bring it in within the desired timescales. We drew up a customer and sales timeline involving all of the key players, with a focus on building momentum to peak just before an exec team meeting scheduled for four weeks’ time, allowing two weeks to get the final paperwork through the system following the final validation.

EXAMPLE OF A SIMPLE TIMELINE

Timelining is not a complex tool, but can be a powerful one if it is used rigorously. Here is an example timeline that Gemma (see case study opposite) could have used. The trick is to make sure that you consider customer activity first, and use the tool to check alignment of selling and buying activity, as well as ensuring that momentum is building, particularly among the buying organisation’s key decision-makers.

CUSTOMER ACTIVITY

Best and final offer received

Proof of concept

Reference visits

Project manager finalises technical report

Finance team finishes business case; project team submits final recommendations; FD agrees business case; group purchasing approval

Group CIO sign off

Final validation by exec team

Raise PO

WEEK

27 January 3 February

10 February

17 February

24 February

3 March

10 March

17 March

SELLING ACTIVITY

Submit best and final offer

Presales team on site all week. Our team reviews the business case and prepares suggestions

Reference visits; CEO meets CIO and CFO meets FD

Additional references; review business case with analyst

Meet with group purchasing and clarify issues; agree additional groupwide volume of business allowance; CEO call to CIO; implementation workshop with customer project team

Social event with CIO influencers

CFO call to FD

Calls to implementation team

24 March Contingency

31 March Last day for booking this year

This is a simple example. For more complex cases, involving large numbers of people, or different groupings (centre versus subsidiaries versus procurement etc) you may want to split the customer activity into different individuals/entities with separate columns for each.

USING YOUR AMMUNITION TOO SOON Ammunition includes executive engagement, proof of concept studies, and reference visits. If all are used to gain early interest, you will have little new to offer to gain access and an opportunity to increase momentum towards the end of the project.

NOT GAINING ACCESS TO FINAL PHASE PLAYERS IN TIME This is often an early stage mistake. While you need to hold some ammunition in reserve, you generally

STEVE HOYLE is a sales consultant, coach, trainer, interim manager and author specialising in helping clients grow the capability of their sales teams in complex B2B environments. He can be contacted on 07785 381563 or at steve.hoyle@linksdev.net need to initiate relationship-building early. Trying to get to a C-level validator at the end of the cycle is both very difficult and, as you do not have an established relationship, also means that there are only limited discussions that can take place. Often price is the only thing that your sales executive can give at this advanced stage.

DELAYING/ACCELERATING TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS, NOT THE CUSTOMER’S As salespeople seek to manage, or at least influence, momentum in the sale, they often delay (and sometimes accelerate) issues to suit their own needs, such as quarter ends and availability of resources. This may be valid, but highly successful salespeople take much more account of the customer’s needs, seeking mutually beneficial momentum by tying in their own needs with those of the customer.

“Momentum must be nurtured throughout the sale, and in particular, renewed after a stall”

LACK OF A COMPELLING EVENT As described in the box on page 33, this is the biggest single factor we discovered, and while there is only so much that you can do as a seller in this case, it points to issues with the qualification process. LACK OF A COMPELLING BUSINESS CASE Another common factor: momentum can easily stall because of perceived weaknesses in the business case. This could stem from a variety of areas including health and safety, procurement, HR and risk management. Just one stakeholder in the buyer organisation questioning the business case can be disastrous if it is not watertight.

NO CHAMPION The individual who will drive the deal internally through the buyer organisation is increasingly vital. We found that, while identifying a champion has always been a key issue in traditional qualification, their role now is not just to make the case but also to drive momentum within their own organisation.

NOT RESELLING AFTER A STALL A stall can often be overcome, especially if there is a compelling event and a compelling business case. But there are many instances where, although the ingredients are all there, salespeople fail to go back and resell to all stakeholders on all aspects of the sale relevant to them personally, on the assumption that if they were supportive and helping to drive momentum earlier, then they will continue to be so. In reality, momentum must be nurtured throughout the sale, and in particular, renewed after a stall.