SCOTSMAN: Because time is money (in sales)!

My Dear Sellers: 

We sales people hate loosing! It's even worse when we come in second... there is NO silver medal in our job! The winner takes it ALL.. But what hurts me the most is my personal time lost.. I want to know my chances of winning quickly and either stick around or look for other places for business.. Over the years, I've learned a technique that maximizes my chances of winning.. that I'd like to share with you.

Priority needs to be given to the business opportunities we can and would want to win. Chasing all deals is unproductive and may result in us overlooking the hot ones, by wasting time on the low value sales. Our time, the most precious commodity of all, is as important as that of the boss of our largest customer - we have an absolute right to decide where we invest our time. So is there a systemic way we can objectively qualify which opportunities we spend time on?

With some help early in my career, I researched a solution (Thanks George Yen!) and it has worked wonders for me! You have perhaps have heard of this sales methodology before. But with this read, I'll give you an actual modeling tool (linked below) to assist you with using the methodology... give the thinking a clear form factor! 

It all comes down to SCOTSMAN:
Solution - can we technically / physically meet the need?
Competition - Who is our real competition? Is it internal politics or an incumbent? does my competition have an unfair advantage against me?
Only Me - what does the client perceive is unique about us?
Timescales - is it too near or far for us to be involved now? Why will they buy from us now? What's the compelling reason to act?
Size - to small or to large to be viable for us? Can we handle this alone? Should we partner, or go alone? 
Money - do they have sufficient real, spendable budget? When is the last time they spent money on something like you are selling to them? 
Authority - what is the decision making process? Who is the influencer and who is the nay sayer? Who's opinion matters? Who does the main budget holder like? 
Need - What are they looking to achieve? What is the cost of NOT doing anything?

Score each of the above...  Use the model spreadsheet below.. a score of less than 34 out of 42 should raise alerts.. the deal might not close... Through the process we'll learn of certain areas where we are weaker than others; this is where we focus our energy to improve that score.

SCOTSMAN is a simple common language that can be understood across the organisation - now the technical folk for example, can quiz you on the qualification of a deal before they invest their time to help you.

If you like to build out a model and go deeper, I have a spreadsheet that goes into more details on the topic. It has more detailed questions and allows for a deal model and progression with it. 

Contact me at harpalkochar@gmail.com if you need more details and I'd be happy to walk you through the model...

-Harpal