Deal Slippage

We have one week left in the quarter, and all around the world, Sales Reps, aka Account Executives, are sweating it. It is the first quarter of the year. Will you be starting the year off ahead, or already will have some catching up to do in Q1?

Undoubtedly, there will be a large amount of deal slippage this week. What was forecasted to come in, what was committed to your manager, to the board, will, for some reason, slip. Some circumstances can't be predicted; here are some real examples I have experienced throughout my career that cause a deal to slip, and no amount of MEDDIC could prepare us for it.

Key Decision Maker Going Missing - This was probably the most sensational story to be behind why a deal slipped, and if I didn't experience it for myself, I would hardly believe it. We had one of the Key Decision makers go missing. No, I don't mean they ghosted us. They became a missing persons case.

Death of a CFO - The CFO is on a deal, had a massive hard attack, and passed away. Unfortunately, these kinds of things happen and can affect deals.

While the two examples were very unfortunate for our deal, they were just worse for the true life circumstances in those people's lives. At the end of the day, they are good proof of what I always like to tell my sellers:

TIME KILLS ALL DEALS!

Time is not on my side, your side, or anyone's side. Given enough time, your deal will die. So outside of these insane examples, why do so many deals slip?

1. Lack of understanding of the Decision Process - The decision process is crucial to know if you can commit to the deal by the end of the quarter. You must know who has to do what to whom to get this deal done. How long does it typically take for the organization to complete the procurement process? One week? Two weeks? More? If it takes them a month to go through the procurement process and they finally made a decision to move forward with your solution less then a month prior to the end of the quarter, there is a high likelihood your deal will push.
   

2. Lack of a strong Metric - A metric is a dollar value bound by time, specifically the dollar value bound by time that they can expect to get as a return. This can also be turned around to state that not making a decision, it will cost the company the metric in terms of opportunity cost. Say your solution will help them generate an additional $500,000 a month; putting off the deal a month will cost them an extra $500,000 in opportunity cost. If we don't have a big enough metric, and the cost of waiting one more month, the cost of indecision is negligible.
   

Of all the MEDDIC attributes, the lack of understanding of the Decision Process and the Lack of a strong Metric is undoubtedly the biggest contributors to deal slippage.

Prevent slippage and dig into MEDDIC.