We’re halfway through January. It’s likely that our sellers have some zombie opportunities in their funnel that should be put to rest.
Zombie opportunities are those that are still shuffling forward theoretically but are for all intents and purposes – dead. Maybe they can be resurrected in the future, but for now they are clogging up the funnel, eating time and resources from our seller who could use that time and those resources for opportunities that are actually alive.
If we sense that our sellers are keeping zombies in their pipeline, the first test is a look in our CRM to discover if they have a clear next step in their calendar and their buyer’s calendar. Not a task to “call Buyer Name,” but a meeting invite sent to their buyer after some sort of communication between our seller and their buyer to confirm when to reconnect by phone or video.
The second test is asking our seller what the clear next step sounded like when they last spoke to their buyer and if their buyer actually agreed to that next step. A sales leader who will be a guest on the Full Funnel Freedom podcast in March says, “slow down to confirm commitment, not just movement.” Movement happens when our seller attempts to dictate a next step and their buyer responds with something like, “yeah. Sure. Sounds good.” Our seller hears that as commitment, but all the buyer has done is yada-yada-ed away another push seller.
The third test is to ask our seller to attempt to reconnect with their buyer by phone to confirm if their opportunity is actually alive or not. If so, it will pass the first two tests. If not, that opportunity needs to be buried out of their pipeline.
Until next time… go lead.
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