Four Stages of the Close

There are four distinct stages of the close that must happen in sequential/linear order:

1. Technical/Product Yes
2. Commercial yes
3. Contracting/Legal Review
4. Closed/Won: Invoicing & Payment

Important

Never try to

• parallelize these stages

  OR

• allow the prospect to take control and move to a different stage.

These must be performed in linear sequence. An experienced buyer will try to force you into the Commercial conversation first. They know this gives them the most leverage as there hasn’t been any product validation yet for the problem and their team isn’t excited yet. This enables them to position your product as a commodity (ie low value), which means you haven’t had an opportunity yet to teach the prospect why your solution is different and valued much higher than any competitive solutions. If you are positioned as a commodity, then the buyer will just beat you down on price regardless of the value you deliver and they will be in complete control.

Technical/Product yes

What is it

• They assess whether the solution solves their immediate pain.
  • Once they are comfortable that these baseline “must have” requirements are met, then they reach a state referred to as “Technical Yes” or “Product Yes.” This conclusion is irrespective of the cost of the solution. It simply answers the question, “Does the product solve my pain?” with a Yes or No.
  • It is NOT a laundry list of features that they want, which can become a slippery slope to making the “Technical/Product yes” a moving target that is just out of reach. (”Scope creep”)
  • Once you have a team at “Technical/Product Yes”, there are very few instances where a commercial deal can’t be struck. This is always the longest part of the sales cycle.

Important question

<aside> 💡 “What is the minimum set of criteria or use cases that the product must solve in order for your team to feel confident that we are your long-term solution partner?”

</aside>

• There may be “must have” requirements that are uncovered during the scoping phase and that is ok. But don’t blindly accept these requirements and make sure you clarify (and understand) why this requirement is a “must have” to start working together.
• Until you define the minimum set of “Product/Technical Yes” requirements then this process will go on forever, resulting in a deal that will never close and suck up significant amounts of time.
• By keeping the prospect focused on the minimum key functional requirements, you can delay the commercial conversation, which is what you want.

Don’t mention price here