“End-of-month selling behaviors common to most business-to-business sales organizations have a negative impact on overall sales win rates and deal sizes.” These were the findings from InsideSales.com’s most recent sales study – and they have us thinking hard about how we handles sales at the end of the month.
You’re all too familiar with the frenzy that happens near the end of every month, nevermind the end of every quarter. With sales reps and account execs rushing to close as many deals as possible, they’re giving more and bigger dicounts or simply taking what little deals they can get. The result? They’re losing an average of 47% of the deal that would have been obtained just the day before. Think about how much that adds up to by the end of the year.
While it’d be great if every process in the world were able to flow with our calendar year, that’s just simply not the case. Rather than forcing our sales process into a cookie cutter timeframe that works for us, we should consider taking a more flexible approach to avoid losing out on revenue. Encourage sales reps to let deals flow into the next month. The study recommends, “putting limits on discounting options, offering bonuses for full-price deals and raising prices for future month purchases.”
