As a senior sales leader, a key aspect of your role is to discover the blindspots of your sales teams.

What are the untapped opportunities hidden in plain sight?

What are the blindspots that are holding my team back? 

Are they cutting corners or just being complacent? 

Here are 7 questions from our proprietary 3VQ™ Deal Review framework. 

Let’s dive in, 

Q1. Has your customer calculated the monetised value of their investment with you?

When your customer does the calculation, they own the outcome. 

In your next meeting with a customer, ask them this question, “How does this project that we are discussing show up on your balanced scorecard?” and when they reply, deepen the conversation with, “Which of your CEOs KPIs move from X to Y through this project, and what is the dollar impact of that move?”. 

Always remember, when we say it, it is sold, when the customer says it, it is gold.

Q2. Do we know how the customer decides whether we are a good investment or a bad investment?

When you do not know your customers’ decision criteria, you are unable to influence them. 

The right question to ask your customer is, “How will your CFO decide whether this project is a good or bad investment?”. 

If your customer is unable to answer, then you need to evaluate the organizational altitude for the stakeholder you are working with – the more senior the stakeholder, the greater is their awareness and perspectives on the criterias that truly matter.

Q3. Has your customer achieved CxO consensus on the business case, business value and risk assessment of your solution?

If there is no customer consensus, it shows up as a stall in your pipeline – the opportunity is qualified but it’s going nowhere. 

A good question to ask your customer is, “when you and I say yes to this proposal, who are all the people who can say no?”. 

That tells you the other stakeholders that you need to cover to build greater consensus.

Q4. Has your customer calculated that their cost of the same is >> than their cost of change?

The easiest thing for your customer to do, is to do nothing. 

You need to get your customer to calculate their cost of doing nothing – their personal cost, their operational cost and their opportunity cost. 

If they are unable to calculate this, then they are not motivated to move forward.

Q5. Do we know all the customers’ projects that have a greater precedence over our investments?

Ask your customer, “Think about your top 10 priorities, where does ours fit in?”. 

Let’s say, the customer says you are number 7. 

Your natural instinct is to ask, “How can our project become priority 1?” but what you should be asking is, “What is your priority 1, 2 and 3 that we can align to?” – don’t push your product, align to their priorities.

Q6. Have we identified and engaged the person who mobilizes consensus within the decision committee?

When a group of people come together, there are 2 easy decisions.

1. Do nothing. 

2. Lowest price. 

You should know that there are stakeholders who believe that these 2 decisions are sub-optimal for your customer and they seek to drive a higher consensus. 

These are the people whom you should meet to influence the progress of your opportunity.

Q7. Has your customer monetised the value of your uniqueness and differentiation?

If your customer says that you’re unique and differentiated but asks you for a 80% discount = that means you are not distinct or differentiated. 

Ask your customer, “How are you differentiating us from other providers who are speaking with you?” 

If your customer is struggling through their responses, it indicates that you need to work on your differentiation. 

If by chance they do respond to your uniqueness and differentiation, ask them “How much more are you willing to pay us, for how we are different?”

Such questions bring out the depth, the nuances under the hood, positioning you as a coach and catalyst for your sales teams. 

My best wishes for your continued progress and success!!. 

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