You know that deal in your pipeline that’s been dragging on and on… It’s time to be honest: Is this prospect worth it? This video breaks down how to spot when it’s time to move on—and protect your time and revenue.
Don’t forget to check out last week’s top tip: Use Your Summertime Profitably!
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If you prefer to read – here is the transcript:
So there’s always deals in your pipeline that we need to get rid of.
How do you know when you should disqualify or dump or kick out or break up with a prospect and just get it out of your pipeline? Well, here’s a couple of things that I’ve noticed over the last few years.
One lack of engagement.
If your prospect doesn’t call you back or prospects don’t call you back, don’t return your emails.
If the engagement has slid like they used to call you back and now they don’t, then that’s a bad sign.
And you might want to think about disqualifying it.
If there’s moving goalposts.
So in other words, the goalposts could be something as simple as we’ll have a deal or a decision by the end of the month.
Oh, it’s the next month, the next month, the next month…
Or even worse, it could be that you’ve got a set of parameters on a joint test agreement, or some kind of trial or proof of value, and you hit that, but then they change their mind.
Oh, it’s not quite good enough.
Yes, we passed, but we didn’t pass by enough.
That’s another bad sign.
Budget issues.
Right? I mean, we ought to be honest here, if budgets change, which they often do, if money is reallocated, as it often is, then that could be a sign again that your deal is not going to close.
Organizational changes, huge red flag.
And you might need to start over.
Organizational changes signal that there might be different priorities inside the organization.
And so we might need to regroup.
Or you know what we might need to end the deal completely.
You have to trust your gut.
Now, none of those four signals that I mentioned before should indicate the deal is done completely on its own.
But if there is, you know, two of them, then we increase the chances.
Three of them…probably the deal is going South.
Four of them? Well, yeah, it’s definitely time to get rid of the deal.
But more than anything, you have to trust your gut.
Buyers are much better at this than sellers.
Buyers will back away as soon as they feel something untoward or sneaky or uncomfortable is happening.
Sellers need to do the same.
You know when a deal is not going your way.
And it’s much better for you to make the decision to cut bait with it right away and move on and backfill your pipeline than it is to waste your time with a deal that’s never going to close.
