There are more of these potential “no” sayers now than ever before. And like the U.N. Security Council Members, it only takes one veto to kill an entire deal. Because of the proliferation of stakeholders needed to approve a deal to get it off the ground, a sure thing can become dead in the water long after the sales cycle seems over.
As the book The Challenger Customer puts it, “The thing we find most troubling isn’t the rise in number of people who have to ‘buy in,’ but the equally dramatic increase in the number of people who have to ‘sign off.’” According to their math, stakeholder customers considering your solution have to report to an average of 5.4 different people. That means someone could say “yes,” only to have their approval shot down by any of the 4.4 other people involved.
Modern sales representatives need to recognize this challenge and prepare for it. You can do this by creating easily shared assets that a customer lead can use to help you get more “yes” answers higher up the chain of approval. Our reps use our 2Win! Bridge’s video sales demo hosting and automation platform which provides the toolset they need to spread your compelling sales message and get those who buy in the wiggle room they need for others to sign off on their decision.
If a sales prospect who wants to say “yes” to your solution gets a single “no” from within their organization, this is often a deal killer. Chances are that they will not have the capability — nor the willpower — to communicate the value of your solution to the holdout and get them to change their mind.
Referring again to The Challenger Customer: “It’s nearly impossible today to get a deal done without accounting for a seemingly vast array of budget owners, influencers, end users, third-party consultants — you name it!”
Highly successful sellers therefore don’t just focus on the key point of contact but on how that contact point can share compelling responses to common objections. If these reps do their job well enough, the person they are selling to can help sell a “yes” decision within their organization. But, most sales associates are unable to get the sign-offs they need. "[In a survey], the number one thing senior decision makers care about in a company's deal isn’t the supplier company’s solution, it’s their own company’s buy in,” says The Challenger Customer. “Without the right partner inside the customer organization, [the sales rep will] likely fail to build a bridge from ‘me’ to ‘we’ able to sustain anything more than the most watered down of deals.”
Because of these challenges we are facing, we designed every feature of our 2Win! Bridge software solution to facilitate the sales process both between sales rep and prospect and between prospect and internal objectors.
Sales reps often don’t have access to the prospect’s inner circle, so we created a platform where one sales/pre-sales person can easily send multiple product demo videos to a buying team, which makes the process of demo delivery feasible for multiple stakeholders to come to a buying decision faster and more efficient than ever before. Each stakeholder can educate themselves at their own pace and send the video to further influencers for their input. You can monitor these shares to track the mobility of your video demo within the company and tailor your sales approach to edge closer to a close/win.
With 2Win! Bridge, your team can quickly build and share a personalized "Demo Video Playlist" with your contact, which client organizations often refer to as the "mobilizer" needed to jumpstart a decision. Through this capability and other rich features, 2Win! Bridge helps both the pre-sales/sales team and your client’s decision-making team share and access the critical information needed to drive the sale forward.