EN 
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“Your prospect’s Critical Date is not your end of quarter…!”
– Me
What’s in This Article for You?
- An End-of-Quarter Dialog
- Buckets of Money
- Not Your End of Quarter!
- Critical Dates Have Two Components
- Whoa – Back Up There…!
- Want Some Example Critical Dates?
- The Number Three Reason for No Decision Outcomes
- Yesterday?
- A Summary and a Tip
An End-of-Quarter Dialog
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” – Mark Twain
It was December 27, and I was working in my office when the phone rang. I picked it up and said “Good morning…”
The voice on the other end greeted me saying, “Hi, this is ___ with ___. I want to check-in with you regarding your interest in our software. Did you receive our proposal?”
“Yes,” I responded. “It’s a thing of beauty.”
“Great,” he said. “Is there anything else you need?”
I answered, “Well, not that I can think of…”
He tried another tactic, “Have any of the vendors been eliminated?”
“Absolutely,” I replied, “but you’re lookin’ good…!”
“Are you close to a decision?”
“Definitely!” was my response.
He pivoted slightly, “Should I be optimistic?”
“Certainly – as I said, you guys are lookin’ good…!”
He grew more direct, “Can we close this before the end of the quarter?”
I replied, “I don’t see why not…”
Sounding slightly reassured, he asked, “Is there anything you need to move this forward?”
“Well, nothing that I can think of,” I said. “but perhaps you might have some ideas…?”
He hesitated and then the words I’d been waiting for came tumbling out, “Would a discount help?”
I smiled and replied encouragingly, “Yes, I believe so…!”
“How about a five percent discount, then, on the software…?”
I rapped my phone on my desk and then picked it up again, responding, “I’m sorry; must have been a bad connection!”
He got the hint and tried again, “How about ten percent?”
I said, “Deeper, deeper…”
“Twenty percent?” He asked, timidly.
I replied, “Make it a twenty-five percent discount on the software plus free training and you’ve got a deal!”
Relieved, he said, “OK, I’ll send over an updated proposal shortly…”
Buckets of Money
Vendor sales teams, at the end of every quarter and especially at the end of their fiscal years, throw buckets of money at prospects in the form of discounts and other incentives in hopes of closing business by the end of the quarter. How much discounting does your team do?
I asked Google, “What’s a typical end-of-quarter discount for SaaS software sales?” and the AI-generated response seems about right:
“A typical end-of-quarter discount for SaaS software sales can range from 10% to 20% depending on the company, deal size, and customer type, with many companies offering discounts around the 15% mark to close deals and meet their quarterly quotas; however, some may offer larger discounts, especially for enterprise customers or when trying to close a particularly large deal.”
It’s like vendors are bleeding revenue at the end of every quarter! How can we stop this hemorrhaging?
Not Your End of Quarter!
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” – Zig Ziglar
Many sales methodologies emphasize the importance of “creating a sense of urgency.” Unfortunately, that sense of urgency often resides with the salesperson, not the prospect! And it only gets worse at the end of each quarter. So how can we generate that urgency?
One solution is to identify a Critical Date that is meaningful for your prospect: a date by which they need a solution in place, along with the driving force for that date. This provides you with several advantages:
- You close on their timeline, which makes the entire process logical.
- You avoid unnecessary discounting.
- Close dates become more predictable.
When you disconnect the close date from your end of the quarter, the sales and buying processes are more relaxed, deliberate, and aligned. Moreover, you’ll enjoy seeing a more predictable pipeline into future quarters.
Intriguingly, closing based on your prospects’ Critical Dates also offers some downstream advantages. For example, your implementation and customer success teams don’t suffer the “slug” of projects that otherwise overpopulate their calendars right after quarter end. All involved parties can enjoy a calmer holiday season…!
Critical Dates Have Two Components
“If you don’t know where you’re going any road will do.” – Lewis Carroll
I noted above that a Critical Date includes the date itself and the driving force: Both are important to uncover and understand in your discovery conversations!
For example, you might hear your prospect say, “We need to have the new system in place by September 15.” That’s great, but now you need to ask, “Why September 15? What’s the driving force behind that date?”
Your prospect replies, “Oh! We are retiring the old system and need to avoid paying another year of license fees. We need to decommission it by September 15 to achieve this.”
There you go: That’s both the date and its driving force!
Whoa – Back Up There…!
“The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
Here’s a question for you, dear reader: Is implementing your software instantaneous, or does it take some time? A couple of days? A few weeks? Several months? The answer to this question enables you to build a timeline backward to identify the target close date.
Using the example above (September 15 to avoid another year of license fees), let’s say it takes three months for your solution to be implemented, tested, and user training completed. In order for your prospect to achieve their September 15 Critical Date, you need to begin implementation by June 15. You also know that it takes a couple of weeks to schedule your implementation team and start the process, so that means the close date needs to be June 1st.
There you go!
You’ve disconnected the close date from your end of quarter and mapped the timeline to ensure your prospect can achieve their objectives. Plus, you learned that June 1 is a comfortable close date for all involved parties.
An additional observation is that many organizations want to run the old and new systems in parallel before making the final switch. You can add this period to your timeline as well.
Want Some Example Critical Dates?
Here’s a starter list of Critical Dates candidates:
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I’d suggest you collect a list of the most common Critical Dates that your prospects encounter.
Now, what happens if your prospect doesn’t have a Critical Date? The answer is, “nothing!”
The Number Three Reason for No Decision Outcomes
Here’s a real-life dialog I remember from discussions with a prospect several years ago:
“Are you ready to go ahead and complete your purchase?” I asked.
“Well,” answered the prospect, “I should, and I want to, but…”
“I’m hearing some uncertainty,” I offered. “Isn’t this an important project for you?”
“Yes, it’s very important…!” was their reply.
“And you know you’re losing thousands of dollars every week with your current operation…”
“I know – and it kills me to know this…” the prospect admitted.
“Well, is there any reason why you aren’t able to complete this?” I asked.
“No… But I just can’t seem to make the decision, and I don’t know why!” was their frustrated response.
People will live with the hell that they know forever unless three criteria are satisfied:
- They have a Critical Business Issue.
- They see sufficient value in making the change.
- They have a Critical Date that must be met!
These are three main reasons that sales opportunities end as No Decision outcomes. A prospect’s lack of a Critical Date is a leading indicator of a No Decision in progress!
Yesterday?
Occasionally, you’ll hear a prospect say, “We need it yesterday…!” Be cautious: If they really needed it yesterday why haven’t they already implemented a solution?
“Yesterday” is often a way of saying, “Yes, we need this, but we can continue with our existing situation for now…” and for the foreseeable future, perhaps, as well!
Probe and ask, “Well, why haven’t you implemented a solution?” The answer often reveals the lack of a real Critical Date.
A Summary and a Tip
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” – Author Douglas Adams
When you were back in college or university, I’m sure you were assigned papers to write, and the assignment always included a due date. Here’s an intriguing question: Would you have written those papers if they didn’t have a due date? (For many of us the answer is, “probably not!”)
The absence of a Critical date is a key indicator that this sales opportunity may not close this quarter, or the next, or the next… And attempting to close the business without your prospect having a Critical Date often results in unforced discounting.
Critical Dates are easy to uncover, you just need to ask! “Is there a date by when you need to have solution in place?” And, if your prospect doesn’t offer the driving force, ask for it. “What’s causing the requirement to __ by __?”
Here’s a final tip. In some cases, you can suggest and precipitate a Critical Date when your prospect initially doesn’t identify one. In my Great Demo! training business, I would ask if my prospect had an upcoming sales kickoff, QBR, or similar event. If so, I would suggest, “You can tie the training to that event. The team will all be together, much of the T&E will already have been invested; you’ll just need to add a night or two to the plan to accommodate the Workshop.”
This strategy has worked well, with many prospects responding, “Oh yeah, that’s a great idea…!” They’d often identify more advantages to the plan and timing. It was a mutually generated Critical Date!
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