Three Ways to Bring Sales Opportunities to Closure

There are many ways to bring sales opportunities forward - on to closure, or as a lost deal, or as an abandoned deal. Here are some basics:

I'm making an assumption that you are tracking the deal in the first place - in a software tool or web-based tool (or even a whiteboard at your desk).

First - have a view of what deals (or opportunities) are in need of closer examination. Anything that is older, that you haven't heard much about - or lost track of - needs to be followed up on. Forget that it looks nice in your pipeline - if it IS NOT REAL, it needs to move back in the pipeline or be removed due to a lost or abandoned deal. If you want more ideas about pipeline tools, do a trial with Pipeline Deals - no cost to try it out and learn more - theirs is very simple and easy to put into place.

Second - Have a creative brainstorming session with yourself (I'm not kidding) or with your team, or someone outside of your organization. People always tell me that they've tried EVERYTHING to move an opportunity forward - and then when I ask them what all they have done - well - not everything for sure. Often it can be something very simple that can help bring positive change about. From this session, create several next actions for at least three of your pending opportunities.

Third - Act diligently in this instance - bringing an opportunity to closure, and put in place a plan to keep this process happening on an ongoing basis. The actual "ongoing action" part of this process is typically what is missing - lots of talk but not enough planned, focused action. Work a plan, and if this opportunity doesn't pan out, then review your process, including what you said to the prospective client, what they said, what transpired, and what could have been done differently.

Remember - you can t improve what you don't measure - so benchmarks and review are critical.

Our weekly Monday AM calls focus on topics like these. For more information, visit Score More Sales.