When was the last time you killed a deal?
The ‘lizard brain’ is the main source of resistance, rooted in our survival instincts. We shy away from killing things we believe in and seek comfort in numbers; the pipeline is no exception.
The belief that you are busy and doing everything you can to grow your top-line leads to excuses:
- The market is not ready
- I can’t get in front of the right stakeholders
- Our tech isn’t good enough
Input does not equate to output.
The average SaaS conversion rate is 7%. If you want to close 10 deals, this means you need to meet 142 companies. With ~7 steps to close a deal, that’s at least 994 hours per deal.
If you increase the target and the hours spent prospecting, your bottom line erodes and your conversion rate dips.
There is an alternative. You could take a ‘quality over quantity’ approach to meetings. You could focus on adding value to your clients, which would increase retention and conversion to build predictable and scalable revenue streams.
How should you put this into action?
- Map out your closed deals; determine the size, sector and type of the most successful deals. Who have you delighted most with your product?
- Map out your own sales meetings, and those of the team, for the next month. How do they compare? How much time are you spending on people who have not historically contributed to your revenue?
- Be brutal – it is not too late. If you have already invested the time, don’t let the ‘lizard brain’ stop you from saying no. Don’t panic about the lost opportunity; the next deal will be around the corner.
