Spotting red 🚩 and dealing with them
Spotting red 🚩 and dealing with them
Can you spot the signs?
🚩
🚩
Red flags are everywhere. Some red flags are more obvious than others.
And in sales, Red flags often go unnoticed to the uninitiated.
Let’s look at some examples of red flags and examine why they are red flags:
🚩 = Prospect is speaking with multiple vendors which likely means you are about to enter into a beauty pageant where the best price and most (free) features wins.
What to do:
Push them towards the competition by Disqualifying yourself..
🐲: You’re going to go with the one that gives you the best price right?
Prospect: Not necessarily. But price is important
🐲: and if you believe we can solve your problem better than they can but come in 27% more expensive, what then?
Challenge them!
🚩🚩 = Prospect is not the decision maker and hasn’t yet spoken with the decision maker or the decision maker hasn’t told the non DM what they need.
When you hear this alarm bells should be going off. This is like an information exercise and a total waste of your time.
What to do:
🐲: What did [decision maker] say were the 1-2 most important things he/she was looking for and why?
Watch them fumble.
🚩🚩🚩 = Prospect asks for a proposal.
Salespeople are convinced proposals need to be part of their sales process because “it moves things forward”
For who though?
You don’t want to be stuck playing in the prospects buying process.
If the prospect is telling you they need a proposal in order to get approval from compliance or whatever then it sounds like compliance makes the final decision!
Stop working for free. Sell your proposals instead. If you can’t sell a proposal costing a few hundred bucks then how are you going to sell a 6/7 figure solution?
Proposals are often used a negotiation documents they shop to your competitors.
🤡: I don’t know how to sell a proposal
Hire me and I’ll show you.
🚩 = Prospect asking for price early in the call is a red flag.
Now there are exceptions.. for example, a C level exec that will make the buying decision based on:
value his subordinates sees
and the commercials (deal terms)
Most times however will be a 🚩
What to do:
🐲: Are you saying it’s going to come down solely to price?
Prospect: No but price is important.
🐲: When you say “important” do you mean it'‘ll be a dealbreaker if we come in 25% more expensive than our competitors despite providing more value?
The answer as usual is Challenge them.
This is a big 🚩 if you’re interviewing for sales roles. Why?
Because this is likely a sign few of the reps are hitting quota. And since most VP’s don’t actually know how to sell anything they are out of touch with the reality of their sales force.
This is also a subjective perspective from someone who isn’t selling. A better response would be:
“Last year we had X% reach quota so we raised it by X% this year. The majority of our reps find the new quota attainable.”
Forecasting isn’t perfect.
Often times sales leadership will set new quotas without consulting their sales teams first.
What you should be looking for is a sales leader who can point blank tell you what % of reps are hitting quota / have hit quota in the past and why the ones who are not, not. Don’t set yourself up to work harder than you need to and still failing.
If you need help prepping for job interviews / breaking into Enterprise Sales, talk to BowTiedCocoon.
The red flags are everywhere, anon.
Do you see them?
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