Closing Sales Deals

Most AEs lose deals because they can't build urgency. They find pain. They demo features. They quote price. But they never answer the million-dollar question: "What happens if we do nothing?" Here's how to build the cost of inaction (and close more deals): 1. Find a metric that's suffering. Pain without numbers is just complaining. You need something measurable: • Revenue lost per month • Time wasted per week • Customers churning per quarter If they can't give you a number? Ask who can. 2. Reverse-engineer the cost of waiting. I once had a VP of Sales want $10K off a $50K deal. He said: "We'll wait until January when hiring ramps up." So I asked: "How many reps are you hiring in January?" "10 reps." "How long to ramp them?" "4 months." "What's each rep worth when ramped?" "$40K ARR." 3. Do the math out loud. "So if you're one month late on those 10 hires... That's 10 reps × $40K = $400K knocked off your annual plan. You want $10K off. But waiting costs you $400K. Which sounds more expensive?" He signed at full price. 4. Make the invisible visible. Customers aren't thinking about compound costs. Your job? Bring the horse to water and make them drink. Show them what "doing nothing" actually costs. 5. Use this exact question: "What metric is suffering as a result of that problem?" If they can't answer, ask: "Who would know that number?" Now you're opening doors to power. The cost of inaction drives your timeline. Not discounts. Not "budget cycles." The fear of losing $400K while trying to save $10K. 💡 What's the biggest "cost of inaction" you've ever built? P.S. These 7 strategies will help you CLOSE more deals in a GTM crisis: https://lnkd.in/d_DkYTSH

Most reps think hitting pain points is enough. It’s not. Because pain without urgency doesn’t close. Think about it… “Save 2 hours per week on reporting.” That’s nice. But it’s not moving the CFO to sign tomorrow. Now compare it to this: “Your board meeting is tomorrow and you still don’t have clean numbers.” One is “meh.” The other is signed. Same story in pipeline deals: “I want to improve pipeline visibility.” = someday “My biggest customer just went dark and my CRO wants an update at 9 AM.” = today You got the lesson? It’s not about finding pain. It’s about tying that pain to a time-sensitive trigger your buyer can’t ignore. The closer you anchor your message to a deadline, a meeting, or a career risk… The faster the deal moves. Buyers don’t act on abstract problems. They act when the clock is ticking.

In large deals, the real competition is rarely another product. It is inertia. The most effective large deals are often shaped early. When the business user begins exploring a problem, and the right conversations start happening at that stage, the deal gradually evolves into a sole-sourced decision rather than a late-stage RFP comparison. Because once a deal reaches a formal RFP stage, many vendors appear to be at the finish line. In reality, the direction of the deal was usually influenced much earlier. Many deals look healthy for months. The champion is engaged. The demos land well. The value is understood. And then, close to the finish line, the deal slows down… or quietly becomes “No Decision.” More often than not, the issue is not price or product. The deal simply never travelled far enough inside the organisation. Large buying decisions are rarely made by one person. They are shaped by a group. The business user evaluates usability. IT looks at integration. Security looks at risk. Finance looks at cost. Leadership looks at long-term impact. Each of them is solving a different problem. If the conversation is only happening with one or two people, the deal remains fragile. This is where relationship mapping becomes one of the most important disciplines in selling large deals. Not just knowing your champion, but understanding the ecosystem around the deal. Who influences whom? Who signs. Who can block progress quietly? Who needs confidence before the decision moves forward? Building that map takes time. It means asking better questions. • Who else will review this internally?  • Who will be responsible for implementation?  • Who owns the budget?  • Who needs to see this before we move ahead? As more people across the organisation understand the value, the deal becomes stronger. It stops being one person’s initiative and starts becoming a shared decision. And shared decisions move forward with far less resistance. The best sellers know that closing large deals is not just about presenting a solution well. It is about shaping the deal early and building alignment across people, priorities, and perspectives. #LargeDeals #Enterprises #SST

Most negotiators lose deals because they divide value wrong.    In every deal, the big question is:    Who gets what?   Most people decide based on:    ❌ Who speaks the loudest  ❌ Who has more power  ❌ Who simply asks for more    But the best negotiators don’t guess.    They use Shapley Value:   A game theory concept that shows exactly how much each person should get based on their real contribution.    Here’s the problem:    Most negotiators assume their value is obvious.    It’s not.     Let’s say three companies form a partnership:    - One brings technology  - One brings customers - One brings funding   Who deserves the biggest share?    Instead of arguing, Shapley Value calculates each partner’s real impact.   ✅ What happens if one partner leaves?  ✅ How much does each person’s role increase the total success?  ✅ What’s their actual contribution in numbers?    This shifts the conversation from opinion to logic.    How to use this in negotiations:   (Step-by-Step)    🔹 Step 1: Identify all contributors   List out everyone involved in the deal:   - partners, - suppliers, - team members - anyone adding value.    🔹 Step 2: Define measurable contributions   Ask:   What does each person bring to the table?   Focus on revenue impact, risk reduction, efficiency, or access to key resources.    🔹 Step 3: Calculate impact if one party is removed   For each contributor, ask:    “If this person/company walked away, how much value would be lost?”   🔹 Step 4: Assign value based on actual impact   If one party is responsible for 40% of the success, they should get a 40% share.   Not just an equal split.    🔹 Step 5: Use this data to justify your position   Instead of saying, “I want 30%,”* say:    “Based on our contribution analysis, our role increases revenue by 30%, reduces risk by 20%, and improves efficiency by 25%. Our fair share should reflect that.”   This eliminates emotional arguments and forces negotiations to focus on real impact.    Bottom line:   Most people negotiate based on feelings.    The best negotiators prove their worth.   If you’re not using game theory in negotiations, you’re leaving money on the table.   P.S. How do you ensure fairness in your deals?    Drop your insights below. I’d love to hear your take.    ---------------------- Hi, I’m Scott Harrison and I help executive and leaders master negotiation & communication in high-pressure, high-stakes situations. - ICF Coach and EQ-i Practitioner - 24 yrs | 19 countries | 150+ clients  - Negotiation | Conflict resolution | Closing deals 📩 DM me or book a discovery call (link in the Featured section)

Here’s a brutal truth about enterprise deals: Most sales reps are hunting for symptoms while missing the disease. I spent years blaming the usual suspects: - "Our pricing is out of their range" - "Competition has better features" - "Budget freezes killed the deal" - "Decision-makers are too busy" But after closing $XK+ in SaaS deals, I've learned this: 1. You're solving a nice-to-have problem When a prospect says "interesting solution," that's code for "not urgent." I now spend 80% of my discovery finding problems that keep executives awake at night. Those are the only ones worth solving. 2. Your solution isn't tied to strategic priorities If your project isn't connected to this year's top 3 company initiatives, you're fighting an uphill battle. Always ask: "How does this align with your key organizational goals?" 3. You don't have a burning platform Without urgency, even the best solutions die in procurement. Help your prospects quantify the cost of inaction. Make the status quo scarier than change. What's the biggest reason you've seen enterprise deals stall? Share below!

The Biggest Threat to Your Deals? It’s not the competition. It’s not the price. It’s how you show up.   How do I know? For the past 20 years, I’ve helped professional speakers, consultants, coaches, and authors craft brands that open doors and sales strategies that turn them into clients. Here’s what’s killing your deals: ❌ Chasing the wrong contact: If they don't have the authority to say yes, they never will. ❌ Random follow-ups: “Just checking in” isn’t a strategy. It’s noise. ❌ Sending unsolicited material: If they didn’t ask, they won’t open it. Don’t spam. ❌ Selling instead of listening: You can’t solve what you don’t understand. ❌ Pitching before you’ve earned trust: Connection before conversion. ❌ Talking features, not outcomes: Nobody buys a tool. They buy what it does for them. ❌ Ignoring silence: No response is a response. Learn from it. ❌ Rushing the close: If you’re more urgent than they are, you’re losing. ❌ Not being relevant: If your offer doesn’t fit their now, it won’t fit their next. ❌ Not building a brand that sells before you do: If they don't know why you matter, you’re just another pitch. Want to close more deals? ✅ Find the decision-maker. ✅ Follow up with value, not reminders. ✅ Show up with insight, not pressure. ✅ Listen so well they’ll say, “You get it.” ✅ Show up, show care. Trust is earned over time, not in a pitch. ✅ Focus on their outcomes, not your offering. ✅ Handle silence with curiosity. ✅ Match their pace, not yours. ✅ Care more about their problem than your solution. ✅ Build a brand that makes your name open doors before your pitch does. People don’t buy from scripts. They buy from people who care and are known for it. #leadership #entrepreneurship #personalbranding

If your end-of-quarter pipeline is stuck, focus on two levers you control: buyer self-confidence and legitimate urgency. 1️⃣ Build buyer self-confidence 💡 Clarify “good enough.” Replace vague success criteria with 3–5 measurable outcomes and a simple before/after. 💡 Reduce perceived change risk. Offer a short pilot, phased rollout, or opt-out clause. Name the risks and show how you mitigate each. 💡 Make the path visible. Share a one-page mutual action plan with owners, dates, and dependencies. Progress breeds belief. 💡 Simplify choices. Present two configurations: recommended and minimal. Fewer forks, faster decisions. 💡 Transfer proof, not hype. Use a brief customer clip or metric that mirrors their context (same industry, same system, same constraint). 2️⃣ Create ethical urgency 💡 Quantify the cost of delay. Put hard numbers on what 30/60/90 days of status quo means—missed revenue, wasted hours, compliance exposure. 💡 Anchor to their calendar, not yours. Tie milestones to their launches, renewals, or budget windows. 💡 Time-bound enablement. Offer executive alignment, implementation slots, or data migration support that truly is capacity-limited. 💡 Default the next step. End every call with a scheduled working session, not “we’ll follow up.” 💡 Surface trade-offs transparently. “If we slip past Oct 28, integration pushes into holiday freeze—okay to proceed knowing that?” Bonus: Coach your champion. Give them a “decision kit” (problem, impact now vs. later, options, risk plan, ROI, timeline). You’re not closing them—you’re equipping them to close internally.

An eye-opening observation about strategic SaaS deals: Transformation deals don’t have to take 18 months. Here's how to cut big deal sales cycles by 50%: 1/ Create a distinct point of view for your industry (Discovery) Most sellers fail to articulate a broad vision for the industry they work in and focus on what their company does. That will drastically limit your deal size. Instead, become a “performance curator” using your existing largest customers. Leverage their facts and stories to paint a clear picture of the big vision in their space and generate authentic curiosity. This will help with gathering meaningful data during Discovery and move you faster to the Insights stage. 2/ Actively collaborate with the prospect on how to change (Insights) Most sellers take way too long to get to the Insights stage, if it all. They think closing a deal is solely about teaching and persuading, rather than collaborating and co-designing something together. After gathering and receiving the prospect’s data, now will be the time when you bring together their change drivers and your subject matter experts (SMEs). I found the best way to do this is set up a design session, or what’s known as a “Lighthouse Workshop.” The goal of the session is to suspend limiting beliefs and get out of status-quo thinking. This is where both sides can open up on how to ideally tackle big problems and go after “moonshot” ideas.” 3/ Drive home why the prospect needs to change now (Accelerate) After too much time passes on working a large deal, most sellers get frustrated and deal-fatigued. This is when they get sloppy, succumb to the pressures of their management, and default to discounting to try to accelerate deal closure. That leads to an erosion of trust and quickly devaluing your solution. Instead, after completing a successful design session together where you architected the ideal way to operate, develop a narrative proposal and business case to secure (or create) budget. Make sure both executive sponsors (yours and theirs) sign off on it before it gets positioned inside their org. Both sides should have their hands on the proposal, ensuring it includes their specific terminology, initiatives, and realistic KPIs. This will help you accelerate closing the deal without compromising your reputation or cutting costs unnecessarily. If you're struggling to close large transformation deals within a calendar year, these are 3 great ways to enhance your approach. And remember this mantra at all times: "Less, but better." You already know quality is better than quantity at this level of sales... But are you truly living it? Those at the top are. 🐝

Founder-Led Sales Bootcamp #8: Closing With a Mutual Action Plan Most deals die in the grey area between “This sounds great” and “We’re ready to sign.” Why? Because no one’s driving. You think you’ve got a verbal yes. You think procurement is next. But behind the scenes, your champion is overwhelmed, distracted, or unsure how to push it through internally. Enter: the Mutual Action Plan (MAP). It’s not just a tracker, it’s proof that both sides are serious. And when you build it together, your buyer isn’t just committing to you, they’re committing to the process. What a good MAP does? 1️⃣ Gives your champion a playbook - Most buyers don’t buy software often. A MAP makes them look organised and in control. 2️⃣ Surfaces hidden blockers early - “Oh, we’ll need legal involved” or “Our CFO signs off on anything over £10k.” Great, let’s get that on the plan now. 3️⃣ Prevents ghosting - there’s a world of difference between “We’ll get back to you” and “Legal review scheduled for next Wednesday.” 4️⃣ Builds trust - A mutual plan shows you’re not just trying to close fast but you’re trying to make the process smooth for them. Action plan: 💡Build a simple MAP template with stages like: demo, internal review, legal, security, sign-off. (Yes trumpet 🎺has a MAP included) 💡Co-create it live at the end of your demo or discovery call. Ask, “What steps do you normally follow from here?” 💡Assign owners and dates together - never assume. 💡 End every conversation with: “Does anything on the plan need changing?” You don’t need to be pushy to close. You need to be organised and collaborative.

I'm watching salespeople leave money on the table every day. The data doesn't lie. B2B deals require 6.8 stakeholders to reach consensus. Yet most reps focus on ONE relationship. This single threading approach is why deals: = Go dark without warning = Disappear when priorities shift = Get cut first when budgets tighten = Take 2X longer to close than necessary After coaching 500+ AEs who've collectively closed $750M+ in revenue, I've found the solution hiding in plain sight. It's Account Mapping in LinkedIn Sales Navigator. But not just basic mapping. Strategic multi-threading. Here’s the play: 1. Pull up your target account in Sales Navigator 2. Click "View Account Map" (shockingly, most reps don't know this exists) 3. Identify key players in the buying committee 4. Assign roles: Decision-Maker, Champion, Influencer, User, etc. 5. Develop personalized outreach for EACH stakeholder When you deploy this strategy, something magical happens: One stakeholder goes dark? You have 5 other active relationships Technical objection arises? Your champion in Engineering addresses it internally Budget concerns surface? Your Finance contact provides insider perspective Decision-maker changes? You're already connected to their peer group Here’s a real world example: Last month, my client was working a $500K deal that seemed solid. Their single point of contact suddenly stopped responding for 3 weeks. Dead deal? Not quite. We implemented the multi-threading approach, mapped the account, and connected with 4 additional stakeholders. Turns out, their champion was on medical leave but the team was still evaluating solutions. Deal closed 40% faster than their average cycle. By the way… my favorite question to get me multi-threading from the get go? During discovery calls, I teach reps to ask: "Besides yourself, who else will be involved in evaluating this solution?" Then follow up with: "And who else might influence this decision, even indirectly?" “Who else?” Map these names immediately in Sales Navigator. Look for connections between them. Identify potential champions at EACH level of the organization. While your competition waits for ghosted emails, you're having productive conversations with multiple stakeholders. All moving toward consensus. The biggest deals CANNOT be won through a single relationship. Stop leaving commissions on the table. Start multi-threading today. Check out my Sales Navigator deep dive video (and how to use AI with it). : https://lnkd.in/gtE-FWax