Hi Friends,
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. If this was forwarded to you and you found value, subscribe here for a weekly edition!
This was the last week of the first quarter. Many of you are behind, and some of you are seriously behind. In my coaching conversations this week, I spent time figuring out what is really possible given sales cycles, win rates, deal size, and opportunity generation.
The problem that I encountered while doing this exercise was that much of the CRM data was incomplete. Thus, it made it very hard for the CEOs to give me an accurate picture of the pipeline or their metrics.
Without this information, we are essentially blind and feeling around in the dark. My advice to those companies with sales cycles a month or longer was to do a deep analysis with the reps on all the deals slated to close this year or next quarter.
I told them to use the DRIVE framework to see what information was missing or incomplete and then align their known buying process to the information. Early results for most of my coaching clients are that the situation is worse than they thought.
That is often the reality.
However, having a clear line of sight is a much better position than having false hope. So, what do you do if you are in this situation?
For most organizations, given how they generate opportunities, they need to focus on win rate and deal size. If pricing is deal by deal, you can literally create pricing overnight. Whether your buyers accept it is another thing altogether.
Win rates you can move by focus. What do I mean by that? Well, you can create key opportunity plans, get executive sponsors, intensify the preparation, practice before key meetings, etc., etc. I have seen companies be able to take a cohort of deals and move their win rate from a historical 25% to 45%+ when they put these things into practice.
If you are wondering how you will get your team back on track in 2025, feel free to reach out. I am always happy to chat!
I guess you never really understand until you have one. I know I didn’t.
This Week’s 40/20
Since watching Jerry Maguire, I have been searching for an animal fact that can trump Jonathan Lipnicki if I ever meet him. Well, I found it. Did you know that there is a beetle that...?
Potpourri (shoutout to Jeopardy!) is a category that covers a variety of topics.
I am always amazed by what people create and put out into the world. I am not a creative person, and believe it or not, I am a bit shy (seriously). Even if I thought about making a song with a cat as the lead singer, I am not sure I could bring myself to create it. But this guy did! Enjoy the earworm.
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.” – Richard Bach
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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!
Thanks,