Have you ever thought about focusing on getting to “no” instead of getting to “yes” with the deals in your sales pipeline? That’s right, not getting to yes, but getting to NO. Think I grabbed the decaf by accident this morning? I didn’t.

Sure, you always want to get to yes in the deals you’re pursuing, but a much smaller number of the deals in your pipeline will get to yes vs. the number of deals that get to no (which is probably 80% of them), and I bet a bunch of them that just need to get to no are clogging up your pipeline.

Those “no’s” just fester. You’re distracted by the “no’s” and wasting cycles. It gives you a sense that your pipeline is strong, when in reality you need to be cleaning out old opportunities and prospecting for new ones. Many have been a no for a while they just haven’t told you!

Look at your average sales cycle time it takes you to flip a stage to “WON”. Now look at the average time it takes you to flip to “LOST”. Huge difference, right? Why should the “no’s” be so much longer than the “yes’s”?

If you’re not sure how to get those deals to no, ask your contacts direct questions about the value they see from your solution, and find out what’s preventing them from moving forward. If they don’t see the value, show them. If they provide reasons why they won’t / can’t move forward, you now have your objections to overcome. If you can’t overcome them, you’ve gotten to “no” and that’s a better place than leaving it in the “hope” category.