Closing big deals for Communications & Media

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i see a lot of sales trading and a lot of videos on tactics on how to close deals and how to prospect how to negotiate but what i don't see a lot of out there which i think is one of the most important skills and the important factors of closing deals especially larger deals is the importance of having a connection with your prospect or customer when you have a connection the definition of connection from merriam-webster dictionary is the state of being connected such as a person with another especially by marriage kinship or common interest now in sales common interest is the most important thing so if your interests are not their interest and their interest or not your interest then you are not connected you are combative right there is tension connection is that you are both working towards the same goal so connection in sales means that they want to buy your product or service they want to do business with you they know and they've agreed that this is going to benefit them if you're pushing them if there's like you're forcing something you'll know it because if you're connected and they want your product or service then you're going to be collaborating better going to be working together the second piece of common interest is not just that they want your product but that they want the outcomes that your product or service delivers if you're in sales and you're just trying to sell your product and then you move on you're not going to be around to stick stick around and make sure they get the results so if you're selling a software like mine which helps people sell more market more efficiently it's salesforce i want to make sure that they're getting the results that they're signing up for i want to make sure that i'm working closely with my success team to make sure that whatever they bought from me is realizing the value that they sign up for or else they're not going to continue to buy and grow so having that common interest is so important how does this play into a deal when you are connected here are signs and telltales that you have a strong connection first and foremost is collaboration you are working together to figure out what you need to provide to win the deal and you're also collaborating on what they need to do to socialize and sell internally the second component when you know you're connected is transparency transparency means that you can speak freely to your customer and tell them here's what i can do here's what i can't do we had a negotiation last week and the customer asked to push out the date to march which would have meant it would have been outside our fiscal year and i said we can't do that however we can make an investment up front to uh help you with this project by putting more resources to drive success on the ground in the form of people professional services so that was something that i told him is going to be a lot more valuable than just delaying a payment and so um having that connection to freely give and take give something that is going to help them but also tell them what you can't do and why you can't do it that is a true connection with the client because you're working with them no i i'm gonna hold this back or hold that or you know i just don't work that way when you're connected when you care you can truly negotiate and be straightforward with them so you know you're connected when they're collaborating you can text them and say i need to talk and they'll call you back even if it's six or seven at night or first thing in the morning that's when you know you're in a customer negotiation or a deal that they're really interested is when you talk two three times a day you're working back and forth and there's that ongoing collaboration the final thing i'll say is um you just need to be honest with your clients you need to tell them i made a huge ass to get a deal signed friday and i had to go to bat with senior executives to get something approved i went back to that client and said look i went about i put essentially my my neck on the line to get this thing approved in the in the in the hopes of getting signatures on you know this day if and they said they couldn't sign and i said well i just need to understand why you can't sign because i have to go back to my leadership and explain what happened now obviously i would have loved to get the deal signed but the reality is they physically could not sign when i talk to them i talk to their cfo and and one of their vps got the details i needed so that i could explain that and make sure that we honored and held whatever it is that we um put on the table um go as hard as you can if they truly can't sign make sure that you understand why you understand what it is that will get them to sign that you get all the details and you get their commitment to move forward as soon as they physically can in this case there was a board approval that needed to get done that that um that that the meeting wasn't wasn't scheduled and i didn't think it had to go to the board um but it turns out it does so anyway i hope that helps connections everything in terms of just working through deals and working through the tough things if you don't have that connection it's going to be very hard you're going to get the silent treatment you're going to get a lot of um just blank um you know basically deals are going to go go silent for a while and that's a sign that you better work on your your connections and get to get to the truth of the matter hope this helps you guys have a wonderful week happy thanksgiving bye