The Pursuit Drill ™: Improve Your Sales Team’s Ability to Close Deals

The Pursuit Drill ™

There are only two reasons why companies do not buy from your organization:

1. Your company got out sold, or
2. your company should not have pursued the deal in the first place.
   But in today's challenging marketplace sales teams pursue any prospect that shows a shred of interest. The downside of this approach is that your close ratios don't improve – and cost of sales increases.

The best sales team always have stuck to the principle that you only go after business that you can win and win all the business you go after. GE has been a long time subscriber to this principle. They have a long-standing policy to exit any market where they cannot be a number 1 or 2 player.

But we are constantly put at odds with this principle. Shareholders and Board members are looking for results and with revenues declining, intense scrutiny has been put on sales organizations.

Wall Street analysts and corporate boards are now very focused on sales pipelines.

How have companies responded? Sales reps are pushed to get as many opportunities into the pipeline as possible – and to try to close anyone who will listen.

When closed deals do not come out the back end, the reasons provided are all things outside of the sales person's control:

• "If it was not for the economy that deal would have closed"
• "They are being driven by other priorities"
• "They decided to stay put until their financial situation improves."
• "No one is buying in this climate."

The real reason the deal did not close was because there was no deal to begin with.

But losing these deals has a greater effect on your company than just lost opportunity. It cost you money. Pursuing deals is a very expensive proposition and with profits tight, cost of sales is a big issue.

So, how do you pick the right battles to fight – and consistently win those battles?

Akina's Pursuit Drill

Akina has developed a tool called the Pursuit Drill ™ that allows our clients to realistically assess where pipeline opportunities stand and what specific actions need to be taken to close the deal. This tool drives an increases deal close ratios while lowering the cost of sales.

A pursuit drill is a facilitated exercise that takes about 45 minutes to complete. Akina has created an easy to follow template. Best results occur when the sales rep, sales manager, and someone else who has no emotional attachment to the opportunity attend the session. The goals of the pursuit drill are:

• Get a realistic, non-emotional status of the deal
• Decide to pursue or to walk
• If pursue, identify all roadblocks that are preventing the deal from closing and develop a pro-active approach (strategies and tactics) to drive closure. This also includes resource allocation.

Company-wide benefits include:

• Develop discipline, maturity and strategic thinking in the sales organization
• Improve the consistency and quality of the pipeline
• Engage your best resources on the best opportunities
• Stop pursuing unqualified opportunities thus lowering cost of sales

Read More: The Pursuit Drill ™ Steps

Other Whitepapers:

• Technology Sales People – The New Success Profile
• Diagnosing Your Revenue Generation Issues
• Building a Client Service - Minded Staff
• High Impact Returns from Strategic Account Management
• How to Steer Your Firm to Greater Revenues when you're not in the Driver's Seat
• Sales Tip – Building credibility through "Discovery" Letters
• Selling to Multiple Decision Stakeholders
• Firm Leadership's Role in Retaining and Growing Clients
• The Pursuit Drill ™: Improve Your Sales Team's Ability to Close Deals

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