The bell rings; it is the end of the month and that long awaited purchase order finally comes in at 4:59 p.m. We have worked every angle to win the big deal. The sales rep, engineer, executive team and vendors have all been out numerous times. Margin isn’t quite what we expected and we are going to have to do some things that we haven’t done before, but the size of it in top line revenue is impressive.
The interesting thing about winning the big deals is the potential negative impact it has on future business. Don’t get me wrong; we are all in it to win it, but there is another side to be aware of. What I have observed is that when a salesperson gets engaged in a big opportunity there is usually a huge amount of time that the salesperson is engaged in managing the sales process. When a salesperson is so engrossed in a big deal, what aren’t they doing?