Are You the Rabbit?

With respect to any significant pursuit or when managing any major account, It’s important to know when you are the rabbit.?What does that mean?

This old saying in sales comes from the sport of greyhound racing.?In greyhound racing there is an oval track that the dogs' race around chasing a mechanical rabbit or hare, the rabbit is there for the dogs to chase, the rabbit is in the race, but the rabbit cannot win the race.?

The Rabbit is in the Race, But the Rabbit Cannot Win the Race!

Know when you are the rabbit.?Top performing sales executives recognize when they are the rabbit early in the sales process and extricate themselves from the opportunity to focus their attention on accounts and opportunities where they stand a real chance of success.?There is little to no point pursuing opportunities that you cannot or will not win.

There are five signs that you are the rabbit, any of which on their own do not necessarily mean that you are the rabbit but when combined are a strong signal to the salesperson that they might be.?

The timing of RFP's. The first sign that you are the rabbit is that you only ever receive RFP's at the last minute, they are short turnaround RFQ's or RFP's.?Rest assured the chosen or favoured vendor received their RFQ or RFP much earlier in the sales process and was able to put theirs together in their own good time.

Access to Power.?Another great indicator that you are indeed the rabbit is that you don't have access to power, you have been relegated to speak with someone with little influence in the decision.?You can be sure that the chosen or favoured vendor has access to the decision-makers.?Your chances to influence the decision are significantly limited if you don't have direct access to the key stakeholders.?In these cases, your contact is selling internally on your behalf which not only reduces your chances of success but also slows the decision-making process. Remember this quote from Adam Gaiser:

"Access to Power = Speed to Revenue"

Adam Gaiser - AVP Marks Commercial

Specification.?Another indication that you might be the rabbit is that the spec that you have been asked to quote against is written around your competitions products or service offering. This is a strong sign that you are the rabbit in this opportunity.

Never won a deal, always lost on price.?Other top-performing salespeople use historical evidence, where available to make the determination.?If you have quoted and lost many sales with the client, and you receive little or no feedback on why you lost, other than your pricing ‘was too high' then there is a good chance that you are the rabbit.

Internal / External Politics.?Your champion in the account is poorly placed, or they are telling you that you are the rabbit. Alternatively, you identify that you are competing with a relative or close friend of the decision maker. These are both good indicators that you are the rabbit.

What you decide to do with the knowledge you gain here is up to you, there will have been times when some or all of these signs were present, and yet the salesperson persevered and went on to win the opportunity.

We all like to grasp on to those tales of exceptional salesmanship. The reality is that top-performing salespeople are very good at qualifying their chances of success, early in the sales process. They tend to pursue and spend the majority of their time on the opportunities that have the highest chances of a successful outcome, or the ones that they believe that they can overturn because there is time, they can influence the specification and they have access to power.

Are there any other signs that you are the rabbit, please let us know your thoughts on this one.

#sales #stakeholdermapping #accesstopower #thesalesrabbit #opportunitymanagement