Imagine some genius executive at a fast food chain comes up with brilliant idea. He takes the most popular meal, say a burger, fries,
 |
| yummm..... MacFryCoke |
and soft drink, and combines them all together into one. Yup, puts them all into a blender and lets it rip until the mix is completely pureed.
Voila! Let's call the new offer a MacFryCoke.
See how much sense this makes. The MacFryCoke will:
- Save preparation time
- Save on packaging
- Deliver your favorite flavors all at once
For the customer, it makes perfect sense, too. Order it faster, consume it faster, and save money. Everybody wins!
No matter how logical this might be, I'll bet you find the idea revolting. No company would ever offer a MacFryCoke, and if they did, nobody would buy it. Sometimes it's best to keep your favorite things separated and consume them one at a time.
As silly as this sounds, I see the same thing happening all the time at IT Companies. They'll take a sequential process such as sales, and jumble it all together.
In an effort to save their precious time, somebody will combine all the steps, leading to a soggy mess that the customers find disgusting.
Steps of a Sale
With a medium-sized or large new account opportunity, the sales process will typically have a series of appointments, each with its own objective:
- Initial call to establish rapport, qualify the opportunity, and build credibility
- A discovery call to identify needs and gain buy-in from the influencers
- A follow-up call to review alternatives and pose "what-if" scenarios
- Further follow up meetings that may include a demonstration, customer briefing, etc
Note that each step has a separate purpose and distinct objective. The larger the opportunity, the more steps to the selling process and more work to be done in each step.
Many salespeople try to combine all these steps into one or two mega-meetings. Salespeople "work smart" by acting as Judge, Jury and Executioner all on the first call.
While it's true they are whizzing through the sales process with record speed, they aren't building much rapport or finding differentiating points.
Combining the selling steps does, 
in fact save them precious time. It saves the time-consuming process of writing an order and implementing a sale!
Constructing a Joke
Professional comedians understand that a good joke has three components:
You can't deliver your punchline too soon or neglect to set the joke up. If you do, nobody laughs. Sales is no different. Like a good joke, there's a sequence and a rhythm that makes it work.
If you saw the Ben Stiller movie "Night at the Museum", you'll remember his job instructions: "Here is the playbook. Do it in order, and do it fast"
Don't create a MacFryCoke with your sales efforts. As time-consuming as it may seem, a disciplined step by step approach gives you more sales and predictable results in the long run.
