Advancing Deals — Ascender Community

How Do You Prep Others to Join Your Sales Calls?

Rachel Clapp Miller — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 12:05:02 +0000

Would love to hear ways you like to make sure everyone joining a call with your prospect is prepared. We shared some tips in this article. Share the ones you would add!

Customer Dragging Out a Deal?

James Reach — Tue, 07 May 2024 21:02:16 +0000

If you've been in sales long enough, you’ll encounter situations where a customer drags their feet on making a decision.

Once follow-up messages start to go unanswered, it's probably time to take a step back and think critically about where the deal may be stuck and how to get it moving forward.

This article will help you ask the right questions to figure out where you need to go back and reassess an opportunity. When I really map out these areas, it's often painfully obvious where I may have skipped steps in the process. Hope it may do the same for you all!

Leveraging Trap-setting Questions During Discovery

Mike Montour — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:37:08 +0000

The insights on leveraging discovery and trap-setting questions have transformed my sales approach by connecting solutions to prospects' business problems, driving urgency, and securing funding. This article provides you with a fantastic overview of what questions you should be asking during the discovery phase in order to quickly uncover pain points prior to highlighting your unique advantages leading to more meaningful conversations and increased success rates. Learning to ask the right questions distinguishes offerings from competitors and guides prospects to recognize the value of solutions, leading to surpassing sales targets. Never under estimate the power of a great question.

I highly recommend taking 5 mins out of your day for this quick and helpful read.

Are You Leveraging LinkedIn for Lead Generation?

Pouli Pouliopoulos — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 14:27:19 +0000

Utilizing LinkedIn for lead generation is crucial in today’s competitive business landscape. With its vast network of professionals, targeted search filters, and content-sharing capabilities, it offers unparalleled opportunities to connect with potential leads and help to grow your business. Do yourself a favor and don’t miss out on tapping into this invaluable tool!

This article provides great perspective on how to get this most out of LinkedIn for lead gen. Check it out and let me know how it’s helping you in the comments below.

And since I’m talking about it, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn!

Leveraging Multiple Offers to Build Partnerships

David Chimenti — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 13:26:17 +0000

I am working a deal with more than 5 locations currently.

Based on their previous experience with other providers and some tech challenges they face due to location, we would be a huge advantage to them.

We can try to win the deal on $ value, but that seems like small potatoes for us on the value side and doesn't send the message to the prospect that we will be any better than the service level problems they've had from a larger and non-industry specific provider, more recently.

I think a 3-offer approach, one at fair market for a fair deal, but two separate offers with discounts to get them closer to what they currently spend with contingencies and service level agreements for a case study or partnership has way more value for our company.

Looking for experience or things to trade in a scenario like this from others who have been there

Expanding existing accounts

George Haywood — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 21:04:12 +0000

I am in a position where I have inherited 3 spending accounts. All 3 accounts should spend at least 5x more with us based on their business and how we can support their initiatives etc.

A large part of my plans for next year is expanding these accounts, and i have put together some compelling reasons why they should at least engage with us outside of the current use cases.

Now, the logical step would be to run these plans by my champion, sense check and ask to be introduced to the relevant teams within the organisation - BUT, i don't have any champions in these accounts yet - They are all inherited contacts, and are all 'hugging' my solution a bit meaning asking them for referrals is proving slow to yield results.

Has any body been in a similar position? If so, how did you negate the situation and open the conversation up into other teams within the org?

Thanks for any help/advice in advance!

The Deal Desk

Joe Huber — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 14:54:28 +0000

This post should be used as a thread for you to ask questions about possible deal issues, how you're qualifying things, and tips for others. Any questions or tips to help you and others close any open deals.

Have a question that you want to ask anonymously? No worries! Go ahead and message Joe Huber with your question and he'll post it on your behalf.

Let's close some deals!

Decision Process - Discovery

George Haywood — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 18:12:34 +0000

Hey,

I have just finished the Decision Process module in the MEDDIC Essentials course.

An area that I really liked and will work on is asking discovery questions early in the sales cycles to identify the "backward timeline"

From here, you can identify if the customer even has a solid decision process.

Could anybody share some examples of some killer discovery questions they have used at this stage of the sales cycle, please?

Really keen to bring some of them into my deals!

Thanks in advance 😁

Increased Buyer Scrutiny

Rachel Clapp Miller — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:18:07 +0000

We just published a podcast with @Tim Caito on how to manage increased buyer scrutiny and stay focused on your value. Curious what everyone is experiencing in their respective sales environments? What are you seeing right now? What angles around this topic would you like to see more information on?

Here's the podcast link: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/Explore?post=managing-increased-buyer-scrutiny

Using Your Champion as You Push Your Deal to the Finish Line

Rachel Clapp Miller — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 13:39:39 +0000

We just posted a video with @Brian Walsh where he shares a few ways to make sure you're equipping your champion in the late stages of the deal. Are you trying to get a deal closed before the holidays? Watch this video - ask your questions - let us know your perspective!

https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/Explore?post=trying-to-close-deals-have-you-done-this-with-your-champion&referrer=773744af-7e67-4fd0-9616-647df1ebe453

Deal Advice

George Haywood — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 10:19:38 +0000

Hey,

This question would be good for the upcoming deal clinic; however, I have a customer meeting 2 days prior that I would love some advice on.

Scenario:

I'm working on a net new logo opportunity - We have won technically and are well aligned to the business pain, and the CISO has chosen us as the winning vendor. However - We are replacing the existing solution because they are becoming a cloud-only offering - the customer's specific requirement is to remain on-premise (regulatory).

The customer has 1 year remaining on their existing solution contract, and we have offered to "buy out" the remaining year as a one-time discount against the price of our solution.

I have already given the customer a ballpark pricing range for our solution based on their requirements, which the customer confirmed they are happy with. I have a meeting next week to discuss the buyout's value and how we can work that into our commercial offering.

Question:

How would you run this meeting? I want to anchor them at a price point within the range we agreed on earlier in the engagement before agreeing to any buyouts. Still, I have not been in this scenario before, so I want to ensure I am not leaving any necessary $$$ on the table.

Any advice on a talk track or approach for this meeting would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Asking Tough Questions

Rachel Clapp Miller — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 13:02:03 +0000

We talk about asking tough questions in discovery with Brian Walsh today in this video. Curious what you think about his tips? How do you prep your own "points-of-view"? I like the question example he offers at 3:15 in the video.

https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/Explore?post=asking-tough-questions-in-your-sales-conversations&referrer=773744af-7e67-4fd0-9616-647df1ebe453

Selling to Hesitant Customers

Rachel Clapp Miller — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:43:25 +0000

Posted a podcast today in the content feed on tips to move your opportunities forward, when customers are hesitant. What are you hearing from your customers? How are you dealing with additional scrutiny? Would love to hear what's working or what questions you have.

https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/Explore?post=selling-to-hesitant-customers

Deal Desk [August 10, 2022]

Joe Huber — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 20:01:06 +0000

Welcome to the deal desk.

Have a question that you want to ask anonymously? No worries! Go ahead and message Joe Huber with your question and he'll post it on your behalf.

Let's close some deals!

Deal Desk [August 3, 2022]

Joe Huber — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 16:03:14 +0000

Welcome to the deal desk.

Have a question that you want to ask anonymously? No worries! Go ahead and message Joe Huber with your question and he'll post it on your behalf.

Let's close some deals!