Last week I wrote a “what not to do” post about reviewing sales opportunities. Now you know what bad looks like, I wanted to share some of my tips for running efficient and productive assessments of opportunity status and strategy.
This post is focused on how Sales Leaders can optimise the deal review process for their team. (My next post will include tips to help Sellers lead reviews of their own opportunities).
5 Top Tips for Sales Leaders
- Form a deal review habit. Establish a regular review schedule. Define a threshold above which you review all deals as a matter of course. This will firstly normalise deal reviews and reduce the fear factor, and secondly improve review quality through regular practice.
- A strong structure is your friend. Base the review process around your established sales methodology. It gives you a common language and an objective framework when subjectivity is often rampant. Enforce strong disciplines in your review meeting, for example have fixed periods for listening, questioning and making recommendations.
- Make reviews positive and constructive. Create a “we’re all here to help” culture, and name your sessions to reflect that (“Test & Improve” and “Deal Clinic” are names I’ve used). Make uncovering deal weaknesses a positive thing and the priority of the meeting. Explicitly encourage authentic curiosity from reviewers and trust from AE’s. Expect perfect review preparation, but not a perfect deal.
- Involve other sellers. Invite other sellers to participate in reviews. Less experienced sellers will learn. More experienced sellers will contribute. You will demystify the process and build better habits faster.
- Review deals at all stages. Review early, mid and late-stage deals. Early-stage reviews are often foundational to sales strategy and increase win probability. By late stage, the levers you can pull might be limited by what has (or hasn’t) happened in the sales cycle. Nailing tip 1 (above) will help with this one.
