Milestones
There are cornerstones in every buying process. You can manage them by aligning them to your “best practice” events like making a Demo, Proof of Concept or Budget Planning Meeting.
Demo
The Demo is a very important event that shows how SiteMinder can make a difference in the customer’s way of doing things. Your demo should always be tailored to the customer’s need and focus on the benefits not the features.
Tip: Collect the pain points from the different attendees prior to the Demo. Tailor your presentation to the specific needs and refer back to the learnings from the discovery call you had with the attendees.
POC
Budget
Many opportunities stall because there is no Budget available.
Try as early as possible in the sales cycle to understand if there is a route to money!
Do you know who the budget owner is (Business, IT, local, Headquarters…)?
Do you know who decides on this? Have you checked with your Champion?
Approval levels: Depending on the MRR you could have different approvers.
If there is no budget allocated, can you map the requirements to an already approved budget? Focus on the transfer of budget from their existing provider to SiteMinder and reduce the Set Up costs.
There are several approval processes on budgets, and they usually come together regularly on fixed dates. Do you know when the next 2-3 budget board meetings are?
Project Budget Board:
Usually the Budget is applied for before the projects start. It will still have to be finally approved by the management team with a proper ROI plan.
There are several Budget runs the last quarter before customers go into their next Fiscal Year.
Cash Board:
Especially in large companies there are cash boards that make sure the company is safe on cash flow. Many times it is just a rubber stamp exercise. However, when your customers business does not perform well, the cash board has a vital role of prioritising the criticality of new projects.
Resource Allocation
Many deals stall because the group is not willing to allocate the resources to making a change to their hotel tech stack.
Legal
Our contracts are usually lower value than other procurement deals, which means they are more willing to accept our template but that securing legal resource to review in the first place can be a challenge. Usually legal resources are rare and especially at the end of the quarter overloaded with huge contracts they need to negotiate.
So if you want to close a deal with a new medium to large hotel group, you need to reserve 3-6 weeks minimum to have the group review our agreement and sign.
In order to secure your deal check the following:
Have you pre-empted the common challenges?
- Make sure you highlight the Term, auto-renewal and annual price increase
- Clarify minimum commitment of properties and list properties in the agreement
- Be prepared to defend the Termination Fee
- make sure you set expectations on payment terms
Did the customer allocate a legal resource?
- Make sure you get a qualified, business-centric legal person with enough experience in your business area
- Set up meetings to talk them through the agreement and address any questions they may have.
Do you have the EB and Champion to support you?
- Legal people can be very picky and strict on terms of the contract, which are not actually legal but more business-risk related.
- Make sure the EB or Champion or sourcing person supports you to evaluate the business risk and takes responsibility to cover this.
Will we be ready for the signature run?
- Ensure the agreement reflects the final list of properties as well as the future pricing for property additions.
- Ensure the pricing in the agreement matches the opportunities in SFDC.
- Make sure your Champion has secured time from the signatory.