Few things are as mentally clarifying and personally satisfying as closing the deal that matters.
I’m a marketer by nature and understand that what you don’t say is what makes what you do, memorable.
I’m an expert at this.
Selling though at it’s best is like professional sports to me.
I stand in awe of the best.
It’s a unique activity where strategy and training are the long tail of preparation to be perfectly poised to recognize and capture that nanosecond of opportunity that drives the close. Truly a game of skill and inches.
Truly an expertise where manipulating time and urgency are the core elements of success.
I’m pretty good at this and you can send me in to make the play, but more a seasoned practitioner than a natural Olympiad.
Case in point.
At the end of last month, I woke up painfully early, the last day of an important month for a project.
Aching over coffee to find a reason to connect with key customers. Wanting an excuse to post, a rationale to make a call. An action that didn’t smack of Crazy Eddie.
The motivation was wanting the close. The gap, as it always is, was the reason to connect. And knowing when to fold for now.
That to me is the Zen of selling.
Sales on one side is driven by pure need and want.
Whether you’re company is running on fumes. Whether you are running 2x quota, is of no consequence.
Your need, your want is irrelevant. It clouds actually, not motivates, and the market can somehow smell it.
The truth is that in sales there is a direct relationship between energy in and dollars out. And sales more than any other activity is only about the outcome.
There are better customers. There is the long game of repeat sales. There are deals that close and those that shouldn’t.
But at the end of the month, it is about dollars in. And the very best month’s close makes the next month’s growth more possible.
I do believe that metaphorically at least, sales starts where marketing ends.
In that blurred space between surfacing a market and making someone feel good buying. It is no mystery why sales and marketing costs invariably are on the same expense line in the budget.
I also believe that the patter that you are always networking and always raising funds on the entrepreneurial front is somewhat misguided. If not pacifying.
Those who get the raise closed know that networking is indeed marketing and that those who win, who do the raise, do it with specific and timely sales intent.
When you are sitting with the person with the pen, usually two people at the end of a long conference table, this is the salesperson in the seat and the closer is certainly in the room.
What did I do, end of the month to channel my needs?
I decided that it was not the time for sales at all.
I sat down and sent thank you emails to top contacts and customers. Just checking in, thanking them for their support, and in some cases, for their friendship.
Not a hint of a passive aggressive sales nudge in any way.
Not a deal came of it. This will pay dividends over time big time.
The marketer was in the room.
