I was in my mid twenties and I was in my first sales related role. A wise experienced colleague of mine said to me. "Some of the most important decisions you make in sales are which opportunities to walk away from". At the time I thought, why wouldn't you just go after every potential opportunity? Over the years however I have realised the importance of this advice.
As mentioned in a previous blog, clients are more than happy to listen to what vendors are able to bring to the market. Often they indicate that they find your offering very interesting, sometimes it is to be polite, sometimes they are indeed interested. But qualifying an opportunity is complex and requires careful thought. As a startup or an SME you are usually limited in resources; be it people, time and/or money. You must choose wisely what opportunities to invest those resources in or failure of your company could be imminent. Deciding what opportunities to pursue is critical.
To start off there are some basic things you need to verify at a minimum, these include:
Does the customer have a problem that you can solve?
Is there budget allocated to invest in a solution for this?
Is this allocation in the client's current financial year (and when does that year end)?
What is the sign off level for the ballpark amounts you are looking to charge, is it CEO level sign off or further down in the organisation?
Do they have to follow a formal vendor selection and procurement process (which typically goes through and RFI, RFP, trial face-off between vendors etc.)?
Are they looking at other solutions and speaking to other vendors? Is there an incumbent?
These are boxes that you have to tick. Ask hard questions when speaking to the customer, you dont want to waste their time and most importantly you dont want to waste yours.
Even if all the above boxes are ticked and confirmed, there is one more thing you need to determine - can you actually win? Many opportunities sound like great opportunities, unfortunately that doesn't mean that you have a realistic chance of winning. There is no single easy way to determine if an opportunity is winnable and if you should pursue it but a few things to start with are:
Do you offer something tangible over and above your competition - something that is important to your customer?
Does your competition have an existing strong relationship with the customer?
Do you need a local business partner? If you do make sure you choose someone with a strong and long term relationship with your customer.
Do you feel you can trust the vendor selection process or is the outcome pre-determined?
What level of resources will you have to invest in to win - is it worth the risk?
Do you have other opportunities that you should prioritise over this one?
Very often you get a sense of whether you can win. This can take some time (though sometimes you can sense in one meeting that you can not win) and it may require building a deep relationship with your customer. Make sure you do this well.
To me the secret of winning business lies in empathy. Empathy is a very valuable characteristic in many facets of life. In business no less so. Always put yourself in the position of the customer, see things from their perspective. Understand how they are thinking and what they are feeling. Every time you speak to a customer do this, especially if you are a startup or a non incumbent with no previous dealings with this customer - it will help you immensely.
You will never know for sure about winning an opportunity until a deal is finalised and you have a purchase order in hand but if you have a lot of doubts and sense negative signals along the way, consider making that really important decision - to walk away.
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