Best Practices for Disqualifying Deals?

Ben Fleishman

Does anyone have any best practices around disqualifying deals? I'm guilty of holding onto deals to long.

I'm trying to get better, but sometimes it's difficult when things are tight.

Diana Sheley

Hi Ben. This is always tough because it is easy to get wrapped too tightly around a deal and then it becomes a challenge to take a step back and see the deal for what/where it truly is. The first thing I do is clear my head of what I think I know and don't know, and take that critical step back to go back to the basics. What's the Identified Pain - enough pain expressed by the Economic Buyer as quantifiable impact and to get them off "go". No pain - no impact - no deal.
Run or re-run the deal through MEDDPICC to see where there are strengths and gaps to give you an accurate assessment. I also have the hard conversation with the customer to understand where the customer is or isn't. This conversation creates an environment to get to the truth. Sometimes we see the writing on the wall but haven't had the actual conversation to confirm. Now we can qualify in or qualify out because our time is valuable. Accurate assessment allows us to focus on deals that are the right fit for us (our company) and will solve both big business and technical challenges for the customer.

Ralston McCracken

Hi Ben - the MEDDPICC qualification methodology was mentioned by Diana and it is both a reliable and thorough method to use to analyze deals, to establish where we are in good shape and, more importantly, where we have weaknesses. We need to protect the areas where we are in good shape and assess the extent of the weaknesses and then determine if we are able to address those areas and if it is worth the time and investment to do so. If we can apply fixes to the weaknesses and there is enough time remaining in the customer's buying cycle, then we should do so. If not, then we should make the tough decision to walk away and instead, invest our resources on another deal where our chances of winning are higher.

Here are some critical aspects for any deal on which I like to focus:

• does the customer recognize that they have a problem and one that needs to be fixed?
• does the customer acknowledge that we have a valid solution?
• to what extent does the customer value our superior differentiation (against alternative solutions)?
• is funding/budget allocated for a solution?
• are we engaged with the decision makers and do we have a (good) relationship with the person who both controls funds and is the ultimate decision maker (the Economic Buyer)?

I learned early on in my sales career (at IBM) from a very wise manager: "There are only two reasons for losing a deal - either you were outsold by someone who the customer assessed as being more valuable, or you were never going to win in the first place and you never knew it, due to a lack of adequate qualification."

Ben Fleishman

@Diana Sheley and @Ralston McCracken thank you so much!

Really helpful stuff. I just get caught in my own head, sometimes. Good reminders! Thanks again!