Fuentes Fridays Season 2 Ep #0007

Here is your end-of-the-week insight into what I see going on in the business world, what I’m thinking about, and what I’m learning about. Forward anything that you feel inspired to share.

What I’m Hearing From Sales Leaders/Professionals

Speed is our ethos! When I started Maestro Group, that was our first mantra. Every year, I write one down. Sometimes they repeat, sometimes they are new. But this is not about mantras in general; this is about SPEED.

As part of many of our engagements, we work with our clients in selecting vendors for various needs. So, we have the benefit of seeing how various sales professionals in the same sales organizations execute their sales process.

Here are the facts. Those that move with urgency are more likely to win deals in a timely manner. DUH! The reality is that very few do, even at organizations that you would think have a great sales process (read: well-known sales technologies).

Since the beginning of the year, we have seen multiple deals get delayed because the salesperson moved too slowly, allowing the prospect (our client) to get distracted or ultimately punt for a few weeks for whatever reason.

This is the other AWESOME thing about what I do. I get to see the decision-making sausage-making of many organizations. In multiple scenarios this year, our clients decided in Q4 2024 that they were going to invest in a new technology.

They reached out to a vendor, booked a discovery call, and moved into the sales funnel. All good. Where the problems began was often at the end of the discovery call. Too few salespeople would book the next meeting. Compounding this mistake, they would wait too long to send a follow-up.

These two mistakes greatly influence two things: 1. Sale cycle, and 2. Ability to reach out urgently at the bottom of the funnel (leads to distrust because behavior changes). While these mistakes are not good, because they are so early, they are not grave. Those come post demo.

Eventually, the salesperson reached out and scheduled a demo call. Often, these demos were very GOOD (remember, they work for well-known organizations with large training budgets). The salesperson would build value, connect to impact, and generally excite our client about moving forward. And then…crickets.

The salesperson would take a long time to send over pricing, or a proposal, or execute the next step. This is when our clients would mentally move on to other things or look for other vendors. Now, knowing that they had a potential solution to their problem, many of them would start to work on something else.

By the time the sales professionals would act, buying the software had been moved down the prioritization list—not off of it, just down. Thus, the deal would take longer to get signed, not just because of the actions of the salesperson, but also because of how the buyer was now feeling (their excitement about solving the problem had dissipated).

The salesperson would now be following up consistently and urgently. A behavior that they had never exhibited before. This annoyed some of our clients. Not because they were urgent, but because they had never been urgent before. Interestingly, several of our clients told us that had the salesperson just sent over what they asked for quickly, they would have signed faster.

I even know of a fellow entrepreneur/friend who landed his largest client based on top-of-funnel speed. His prospect was considering him alongside a better-know, better-pedigreed company. My friend sent his SOW within 24 hours of meeting with the prospect. The prospect replied that he was still waiting on the SOW from the other company. “If this is how quickly they get things done when they’re trying to win your business, imagine how responsive they’ll be once you’re a client,” my friend replied. Deal closed.

For those of you selling, speed matters. For those of you leading, being consistently urgent matters. If you would like to learn more about this, please feel free to reach out.

What Made Me Laugh

Those who know me know that I wake up early. If you want to know what it’s like to live in a household with someone who wakes up as early as I do, watch THIS VIDEO. 100% this is me most mornings.

This Week’s 40/20

For every 40 hours of work, I believe you should spend 20 (additional) hours mastering your craft. This is how I spent some of my 20 hours this week.

I found THIS VIDEO of new technology that helps blind people enjoy live basketball games. I love that the Blazers are finding ways to engage fans with vision impairment! So cool!

Potpourri for 800

Potpourri (shoutout to Jeopardy!) is a category that covers a variety of topics.

One of my favorite rap songs of all time is “Today Was a Good Day” by Ice Cube. I particularly like THE NSFW Remix with the horns. Well, this section is not about the song, but about the day. This guy figured out what exact day Ice Cube was rapping about. The internet is a great place, and seeing examples of how people solve the BIG questions in life is always inspiring. No, seriously, I loved observing how he solved this puzzle!

Quote for My Son

Every day, I leave my son a note with a quote. This was my favorite from this past week:

“If you are not disciplined in the little things, you won’t be disciplined in the big things.”

– Warren Buffet, when asked why he would not take a $10 bet that would pay $10,000 if he hit a hole-in-one during his round of golf.

You can get weekly helpful information for sales professionals by following my company’s Maestro Mastery blog here.

Let me know what you think about this week’s edition of Fuentes Fridays. Which section was your favorite? How can I make this better? Shoot me a message on LinkedIn @willfuentes.

Until next week!