If you have spent any time in or around sales, you know this is true. You have probably heard it before.
If you have not, then it is hard to internalize exactly how true this is.
Time Kills all Deals, so get out of your own way.
If you need convincing that time kills all deals, consider reading the rest of this post.
Regardless, I implore you to get out of your own way. If anything under your control is slowing one of your deals down, do not accept it. Do not permit anything under your control to delay the closing of a deal.
No, I’m not talking about pressure tactics to influence the buyer to make a purchase. I’m talking about the phase that occurs after the buyer has decided to make the purchase. The long set of “homework” tasks that both parties have to complete to finalize the deal.
Do not mistake me, deal velocity always matters. I am specifically asking you to take control over what you can control, and remove yourself as the limiter of how quickly a deal progresses.
Present circumstances matter.
If I want to buy a car, I either: do not have a car, but need one; or I want to switch my current car for a new one. In either of those cases, there is a set of initial conditions, or present circumstances, that determine my desire for change. Something is driving me to need a car. Maybe I have a new commute to work, but have no way of getting there. Maybe I need to haul large equipment around the city, so I need a pickup truck. Maybe the price of gas has increased, and I want to improve the miles-per-gallon from my current vehicle to a more affordable one.
People buy things when they want change.
You will notice in the above example of buying a car, the car purchase required some change from the present circumstances to desired circumstances.
This is relevant to how Time Kills all Deals, because if the set of present circumstances change, then the motivation for making the purchase might change. Let’s take the care of upgrading my car to a more affordable vehicle with better fuel efficiency – if the price of fuel drops significantly during my negotiation with the car dealership, I may change my mind and decide to keep my current car, instead of dealing with the hassle of switching vehicles. There is always a switching cost, and at any moment during your closing a deal, the person making the purchase may decide it’s just not worth it.
The momentum of your deal can be killed by anything.
Anything can happen to kill a deal. Adding time to a sales cycle exclusively introduces risk.
In car sales, maybe the person figures out an alternative solution to their longer commute. Maybe the price of fuel drops significantly. Maybe their relative passes away and leaves them their vehicle. Maybe they lose the job they needed the pickup truck for. Maybe their partner goes over the budget and decides they do not want to increase their fixed costs.
The longer you take to close the deal, the more likely any of these things are to happen.
In enterprise software sales, anything can happen. Your main point of contact might get offered their dream job and decide to quit. A new CIO might be hired and decide to pause all long-term decisions until they get their bearings. Another team might purchase a very similar set of software, unbeknownst to your working team, and you might not find out until the very end of the sales cycle. Budgets might be slashed across the company. A hiring freeze might affect your project rollout plan, causing your buyer to rethink the decision. Your potential customer’s company might be acquired. There are countless things that can kill your deal, and they are all waiting to happen. Every day.
So get out of your own way.
Anything you do that impedes your deal velocity is a 1% decrease in that deal happening. Every time you take more than 24 hours to respond to an email. Every day you burn arguing internally about billing terms. Every time you spend more than 24 hours reviewing redlines on a contract. Every hour you waste negotiating with an internal team before going back to your customer with updated terms. Every time you delay starting a project.
Anything can upset the initial conditions that incentivized your buyer to buy in the first place. Every single one of those things will kill your deal, if given enough time.
Do not let them.