We walk through ten of the most common mistakes made by sales reps when managing a complex sale. No one is immune from mistakes as deals cycles are long, solutions are more complex, buying processes are convoluted, and the number of people involved in a deal has expanded. If you avoid these common mistakes though, you can shift the competitive advantage and increase the likelihood of closing the deal.

1. THE 10 SINS
OF
ENTERPRISE
SALES
1ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

2. Introduction
• This presentation walks through ten of the most
common mistakes made by sales reps when
managing a complex sale
• It is common to see the same mistakes occur
across enterprise sales deals and sales teams
• With increasing time, number of people, greater
competitive challenges, and deeper solution
complexity, deals become harder to manage
• Even the most experienced sales reps are prone
to making these same errors
• Inspired by the excellent book “Hope Is Not a
Strategy” by Rick Page
2ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

3. Top Ten Enterprise Sales Sins
1. Focus on product, not solution
2. Selling to unqualified prospects
3. Not targeting buyer need
4. Doing the demo dash
5. Lack of executive engagement
6. Mismanaging your “champion”
7. Negative competitive selling
8. Talking price too early
9. No team sales strategy
10. Believing in assumptions
3ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

4. Focus on product, not solution
• Talking product reduces your offering to
features and functions
• Need to speak to results and value
4
PRACTICAL TIP
Create narrative (stories) about your customers’
pain that your solution addressed and the results
that were achieved.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

5. Selling to unqualified prospects
5
• Have clearly established qualifying criteria
• Qualify poor fits out of pipeline as soon as
possible
• BANT (budget, authority, need, timing) is
useful, but often not the best criteria
PRACTICAL TIP
Make sure every prospecting call incorporates
qualifying questions, even during the deal stage as
you want to stay ahead of any “surprises”.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

6. 6
Not targeting buyer need
• Different people have different agendas
and different needs
• Need to frame your solution’s value to
what matters most for your audience
PRACTICAL TIP
Link your solution to operational, cultural, financial,
political, and strategic benefits so you are prepared
when meeting various parts of the organization.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

7. 7
• Do a needs analysis BEFORE the demo
• ONLY focus on product capabilities that
link to confirmed needs
• Short & sweet is the key to maintaining
attention
Doing the demo dash
PRACTICAL TIP
Reduce your pitch to 20 minutes. Why? Research
shows that attention drops precipitously after that
(and kills your deal).
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

8. 8
Lack of executive engagement
• Selling high is a necessity to create
“energy” for your deal
• Executives have higher order needs and
higher value ($$$) pain to solve
PRACTICAL TIP
Call low first to get lay of the land, then you have
some “facts” to reframe your message and make a
more relevant pitch to an executive.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

9. 9
Mismanaging your “champion”
• Map the political field of your account,
where does your “champion” sit?
• Titles often do not map to power or
authority or influence
PRACTICAL TIP
Do not rely on one champion! Build relationships
across an account to insulate your deal from
political sabotage.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

10. 10
Negative competitive selling
• Do set subtle landmines for your
competition that they cannot easily
overcome
• DO NOT ever bad mouth competition
PRACTICAL TIP
Just as you would align your features to prospect
needs, do the same with competitive traps to
highlight deficiencies with competing offerings.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

11. 11
Talking price too early
• Price is never important in the early
stage of deal
• Real price negotiations happen after you
become the preferred provider
PRACTICAL TIP
Never mention discounting upfront, it puts you in
“vendor” mode and shifts discussion from value to
price.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

12. 12
No team sales strategy
• Sales is a team sport so get the team on
board and prepared for the deal
• The account executive is responsible for
communicating deal strategy
PRACTICAL TIP
Create a template with the key questions and
qualifiers during a deal and use this as an ongoing
checklist for the team to refer to and modify.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

13. 13
Believing in assumptions
• Easy to put on the “Happy Ears” and
sweep away bad news
• Use critical thinking and hard questions
to confirm & adjust strategy during deal
PRACTICAL TIP
Have regular “deal review” sessions with sales
team to discuss and drill into deals with the goal of
actionable output to follow up on.
ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

14. Let’s Talk
• Follow me and send a tweet
@marksbirch
• Connect over LinkedIn and mention this
presentation
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksbirch
• If you sell to enterprises, join us for the
Enterprise Sales Meetup
http://enterprisesalesmeetup.com/
• If you are focused on prospecting, join us for
the Sales Development Meetup
http://www.meetup.com/Sales-Development-
Meetup/
14ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

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THANK YOU!