Creating the Compelling Event in sales

As most people know in Sales 101, in order to be successful in closing the deal, there are a number of factors that the sales person must find out about and focus on in order to close the deal. Some include what is the decision making process, who are the decision makers themselves, etc... But one aspect of a sales cycle sticks out like anything (especially now) and the need to get it right is the factor between closing the deal or delaying the inevitable.

It is all about the Compelling Event!!!

You MUST either have a compelling event created by the situation or client (ex. mandated compliance by a certain date, go live date across new Internet site to support a new product launch, etc...), however if the sales cycle doesn't have one created by the client you will probably struggle to close the deal.

So if the client doesn't have one you can either forget the deal, or the other option is to create the compelling event yourself.

The best sales people out there have an incredible and uncanny ability to create these events. I believe that while some clients can get excited about the strategy and business outcome, ultimately purchasing decisions are tactical.

Now the sales person doesn't have many options around the creation of the compelling event if the customer doesn't have one, but I have a couple of suggestions (they are obvious and tactical in nature) that may be useful.

They are:

• Specific dates around key resources internally at your company that are available only within a time window and if the client really wants to use them they need to move quickly otherwise delay the project
• Provide a specific discount if the project is approved and started within a certain time frame - say 10 days
• Work with a partner to jointly "invest" in the project but again this is around a time window for the entire project
• Invest another way to create it

Others that can be strategic are more around industry standards or business cases, but again not necessarily date driven.

Compelling events have never been so important as now - especially in this current market where lots of organisations are sitting on their hands and not doing anything, awaiting to see what happens around the world given these uncertain times.

I think it will be the difference between success and failure given the current times, so its the creative ones around deals that will win.