I was working with a service sector client yesterday in the digital agency space.<\/p>\n
We were running a workshop around why sales were taking so long to close and what could be done about it.<\/p>\n
The scenario went like this.<\/p>\n
There were lots of leads coming through and lots of good conversations happening, but for some reason the sales weren’t progressing through the sales pipeline as we would’ve expected.<\/p>\n
You can imagine the frustration that we had given all the effort there was going in and the failure for the all-important sales to land.<\/p>\n
As we dug deeper, we played out the running order of a call and discussed some of the dialogue that was going on.<\/p>\n
It soon became clear that we were falling into the trap of being a deferential service company<\/strong>. \u00a0What that means is acting as though we have little power in the conversation and over-extending our goodwill.<\/p>\n In short, acting as though our role is only to service and expect little in return.<\/p>\n We were spending time, money and expertise in creating more and more proposals for prospects, and yet, in spite of all the effort, sales were being pushed even further away on the timeline.<\/p>\n And here’s where confidence has a big part to play. As service leaders there is a temptation to serve and asked for little in return.<\/p>\n But this is the road to ruin, because without the confidence to ask for a commitment from a prospect before putting in time and expertise into proposals, the commitment is completely one-sided.<\/p>\n So if you’re not closing sales, check on your confidence level, as having the confidence to ask for a commitment may well make all the difference.<\/p>\n Happy selling.<\/p>\n image: ACTCURIOUS<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was working with a service sector client yesterday in the digital agency space. We were running a workshop around why sales were taking so long to close and what could be done about it. The scenario went like this. There were lots of leads coming through and lots of good conversations happening, but for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winning-business"],"yoast_head":"\n