With the holiday season quickly approaching, it might be a good time to round up your sales team and take one last look at the sales pipeline, because guess what - nothing new (at least at an enterprise level) is going to close this year. Get off Hope Island and report your numbers. It's "the holidays" - people are traveling, too busy, closing out their year, don't have it left in the budget, don't HAVE a budget, nothing is "broken" so we aren't going to fix it until next year".... these are all excuses that every "S4" (in SF.com opportunity stage terms) is going to give. It's reality.
Bluebirds are great and that's all you have left. Instead of dreaming about that big deal that was promised to close this year - why don't you chase down the business that is moving locations. You have a better chance of closing that then anything because they actually NEED your service. There are only 3 ways account will close in the next 6-7 weeks (assuming you don't fold and discount your services):
1. They NEED what you have to continue running their business. Meaning their phone system died, blew up or was stolen - OR, they are moving and don't have phone service arranged.
2. They must spend their budget or they lose it. These are going to be very tough deals to find because typically those scenarios only happen in larger organizations and at that level, there is no way they are going to make a decision on an enterprise hosted PBX solution in a month. Just not happening.
3. A deal that has been in the pipeline, is in negotiations and had executive level approval with contract dates approaching. (closely related to #1).
If your sales people think their deals are "going to close" you need to ask more questions! Then it's time to start looking at the Q1 funnel....not trying to be negative Nancy here, just Realistic Rita.
Happy Holiday Selling!
