Finding Your Game Changer Sale

Our experience suggests your game changer sales is buried in your funnel. in your CRM system. We know on the surface at first glance it all looks the same. Sure you have a gut feeling for which deals are real and when they’ll come in. You’re a pro and you’ve done the work. The temptation often is to focus on winning the biggest deal in the pipeline. That has to be your game changer sale right? ABSOLUTELY not!

Which one though is a real game changer. Is there one that by going after it with all your skill and talent has the ability to change your results, your status and even your career? Now you can guess or you can use Opportunity Sales Management to approach the top potential ones and get dialed in on all of them. When it comes to sales opportunity management a game changer sale/ marquee win should meet one or more of the criteria below.

• Pick a “Must Win” Opportunity – Whether for you, Your Boss or Your company
• Does it add revenue or margin in a significant way for you?
• If not does winning it open the door to strategic opportunities?
• Is it a Beach Head Opportunity?
• Is it a repeatable income stream you can bank on?

Look at your pipe and prospect list again. Get brutally honest with yourself. Pick something substantial and or strategic to your business. Every sale is nice but this is about winning the most important opportunities. Marquee wins not only put money in your pocket but can establish you as a bankable resource and set up a career of bigger and bigger opportunities.

How to Decide on a “Must Win” Opportunity –

A Game Changer Sales for you, your boss, and your company in most cases look very different. Take the example of a $1.7m sale. Sounds sexy as hell and a rep should be all over it. The challenge is the rep gets paid on gross profit not the revenue and the margin is at 2% where the company get paid on the gross profit but also has incentives from it’s suppliers on hitting revenue objective and can earn another 5 to 10% on the back end that the rep won’t get a cut of.  

To the company and maybe even their boss this is a game changer sale. To the rep it’s winning  bigger deals mostly for the sake of ego. Sales reps know how to read an organization chart and almost always do what’s best for the company but when looking at what is a must win opportunity it has to benefit your income not just your self image,

 

What is the Revenue and Margin Impact

The first thing you need to get crystal clear on is how you get paid. Understand which levers or combination of them make you the most money. In high performance sales roles you often get paid on either revenue attainment or gross margin attainment. When it comes to deciding what your game changer sale the answer is simple should you win the big revenue deal vs the high margin deal ii’s all about how you get paid bot necessarily about making more sales. It’s about making the right sales.

Now with that in hand and top of mind this short video will take you through an approach of looking at your comp plan and you earning objectives in the way that is best for you.

How to Exploit Your Comp Plan. want more check out our How to Maximize Your Sales Compensation Plan Sales Coaching Series.

Key Take Away’s for Game Changer Sales and Your Comp Plan

If paid on Margin…then that should be your sole focus

If paid on revenue…then drive the top line and make the company say not to a deal that is outside their margin requirements.

Does it add revenue or margin in a significant way for you? If so it’s a game changer sale and should be treated as such.  

Are You Making a Strategic Game Changer Sale

Winning opens the door to many more opportunities in the accounts. It opens up an entire vertical to you, it gives you a marquee name as a customer to leverage with other customers and prospects. It will feed you and your income goals with referrals for new projects, and customers

1. There is more to get by winning in this customer?
2. Will you win more business in other customers?
3. Have You Expanded in to New Functional Group with in the Account
4. Will This Win Allow You to Cross Verticals

Is it a Beachhead Win

Often called “land and expand”. Will this first sale be a toe In the water and open the door to future sales. Does this approved Vendor List Etc, get you into new parts of a customer.  Even a small win can be a game changing sale.

Is it a Source of Recurring Revenue

Every company out there is looking for a way to sell recurring revenue. It comes down to prioritization because the money they are making every month helps keep the lights on.

• OPEX vs CapEx Play – Know what the customer’s priority and tolerances are.

• Are your game changer sale already identified as a recurring revenue play? Look at AWS, Google, and Microsoft there is a reason they have moved to this model once they have you it’s much much harder to leave them.  Are your offers the same way?

• Repeatable income stream you can bank on.

Why Game Changer Sales Matter

Looking at my own career and that of the people on my teams I can look back and see that game changer sale that when it hit not only made us all money but changed the trajectory of their careers.

Your game changer deal when it comes to sales opportunity management should meet one or more of the criteria above. It has to be substantial and or strategic to your business. Every sales is nice but this is about winning the most important opportunities. Marquee wins not only put money in your pocket but can establish you as a bankable resource and set up a career of bigger and bigger opportunities.

This is part of our series on Sales Opportunity Management which is an approach to help sales professionals get out of the rut of staring at their funnels and pipelines and hoping they know everything they need to about their “must-win” and “Game Changing” Opportunities. Read the overview and get the links to Each individual Segments.

Looking for more insight? Be sure to check out our Sales Opportunity Management Best Practices for 2020