Challenging the Solution Selling stages

By Ed McLean
Double your chances - target senior management
If you attribute any kind of ratings to the probability of your opportunities closing successfully, depending on where they are in the sales cycle, for example, “Pain admitted by sponsor – 25%”, then you have probably wondered whether these ratings actually mean anything or whether they are there to allow your manager to do all sorts of fancy projections for board meetings (come on, you wouldn’t really be so cynical would you?).
I decided to look into this, specifically in relation to Solution Selling’s assertion that an opportunity where the primary contact is with a Power Sponsor (someone with the power to make the decision and sign-off on the purchase) is twice as likely to result in a successful conclusion than an opportunity where the primary contact is with a Sponsor (someone involved in the sales process but without significant influence and sign-off power). Solution Selling rates the former with a 50% chance of a successful close and the latter with a 25% chance of a successful close.
So, I started tinkering around in the CRM system. In the past year’s pipeline, opportunities where the main contact was with Sponsors resulted in a successful close rate of 29%, whereas with Power Sponsors the rate was 60%. After hearty self congratulation for beating the textbook probability rates, I realised that, in this case, Solution Selling was right – contact with Power Sponsors is worth twice that of contact with Sponsors.
In light of this I have been concentrating on finding ways to improve my success rates in getting a Power Sponsor from the start of an opportunity (this includes various sales tools, qualification methods, simply not calling anyone but the Power Sponsor and just plain old fashioned insistence that I only speak to decision-makers).
In cases where access to the Power Sponsor is refused, I now have a set of tools and processes that help me quickly and efficiently deal with these lower-likelihood opportunities, thereby freeing up time to focus on the high likelihood Power Sponsor deals.
And the results? It’s too early to put into reliable figures, but suffice to say it’s looking good. As soon as I have some thing good to tell you, I’ll let you know. In the meantime please comment with your views and experiences.