Winning Clients - Opportunity Management

The Sales Cycle


Assess


Assessing or qualifying an opportunity sets the tone for the entire relationship with a potential client. An assessment done correctly will not only uncover the depth and breadth of opportunities available, it also initiates rapport with the key players and establishes our objectives for entering into relationship with the prospect.

There are three key questions we want to answer at the end of this stage:
  • Can we compete?
  • Can we win?
  • Is it worth competing to win?

The time invested in this stage will help us quickly determine if we want to go to the next step. Remember, if we are going to decide not to move forward on an opportunity, we want to determine that as soon as possible so that we don't waste precious time or resources on a dead end deal.

Hopefully, it is obvious that it is not always worth competing to win even if we can compete and we can win. It could be that the relationship we would have with the prospect would not be a good fit for us. Some clients bring baggage we don't want. Conversely, even if all three answers are 'yes,' there might be strategic reasons to try anyway. Maybe we need experience competing for this type of deal or maybe competing in the deal will give us exposure to key people that could be beneficial in other ways. These are strategic decisions.

Regardless of the number of deals we have made, let us never assume they will always be the same. We may think we know what the value proposition is for this prospect but remember that a value proposition is defined by the client, not us. So we enter in the assessment stage with a value hypothesis, a theory, that we want to begin confirming and quantifying.

Fleshing out the value hypothesis is accomplished with the workflow analysis. Becoming skilled in the workflow analysis is a key differentiator among sales professionals. The workflow analysis addresses three things:
  1. What critical success factors do we affect in the prospect's business?
  2. If we are successful, will we enhance revenue or market share for the prospect, will we reduce costs or is there another strategic benefit to the prospect?
  3. How will the prospect measure the proposed results?