An integrated B2B sales and marketing process - part four of four

In the final part of this series I’ll look at two crucial steps which, if not done effectively, can each lead to very different but equally damaging problems.

Step five: do a SANITY check

After the excitement of finding your prospect and arranging a meeting, it's always good to sit back and reflect on whether the deal stacks up. Even if you have agreed to send them a proposal, you don’t have to.

Ask yourself whether you really want to work for the prospect’s company and whether the deal stacks up. Few companies go out of business by turning away work that in reality would lead to a big drain on their resources for little or no profit (or even a loss), and that could make it difficult to continue satisfying their existing customers. On the other hand, the long term benefits (ie lifetime value) of the new client could make it worth your while to take them on board.

It’s also a sad fact that often you will be asked to submit a proposal for work you never stand a chance of getting, for example when a company or public sector organisation always seeks several tenders, even when it knows which supplier they will choose. If you suspect you are just making up the numbers in a beauty parade like this, think carefully before going to the time and expense of taking part.

Step six: the CLOSING

The closing is of course all about bringing the process to an end with the prospect accepting your proposal. (You may have noticed that I haven’t gone into detail about the proposal itself but I will do in a future blog post.)

Closing is something that is talked about time and again in books about sales and on sales training programmes. There is of course a place for closing techniques, but in my experience you really don’t need them if you have developed a rapport with the prospect, if there is mutual trust, and if your proposal is a genuine attempt to put forward a viable and cost effective solution.

I’ll leave dubious closing techniques for others to write about and instead urge you to maintain integrity and a passion for helping customers to solve problems and resolve issues. That is surely the best and most sustainable approach for any business.