The BEST question to ask your sales team

(If you want to jump ahead, the BEST question is highlighted below. But why don’t you stick with me for a couple of paragraphs first?)
How often have you heard an AE say “I’m feeling really confident about this deal”. And then it drifts out of the quarter or even dies altogether. Or “trust me, we’re going to get this done”, and then we don’t. Perhaps slightly more convincing but also worrying is “our champion has told me this is a slam-dunk we will have it this quarter”.
This statements are a reflection of one person’s feeling. They do not contain any facts which can give confidence. So, how do you determine whether a deal is real, and that is going to close in the current quarter (or month or year)?
The first step is to have a clear language for discussing deals. A consistent set of terms you always use against which you judge all deals, and with which you discuss all deals. This could be MEDDICC, maybe you prefer SPICED, there are other options and you can create your own. But we must always understand the same data points: the pain, the willingness to fix it, the decision process, the competition, the decision-maker, …
In this context, we can start to get closer to a real answer. Instead of “I’m feeling really confident about this deal”, you want to be hearing: “They have a clear pain of XX and have tried to solve it twice. The COO has personally told us this is a top priority and we have recently heard that the competitive solution is struggling with a key function in the pilot. The procurement team have briefed us on the process, which will take 4-6 weeks for this size deal.” With this information we understand the pain, the decision-maker, competition, buying process etc. This shows that we are on top of the situation and gives reason to believe in the deal.
So what is the BEST question to ask? For any AE who says they will get this deal done in the current period, they must be able the answer “WHAT IS THE DETAILED PROCESS FROM HERE TO CLOSURE?” If the answer is “my champion gets it signed off by his boss”, you should be doubtful. How long will this take? Who is involved in this process? If there are only a couple of weeks before the end of the quarter, and the prospect is any substantial size, then it’s probably too late. A much better answer is “Our champion presents to the buying committee on Friday. We have spoken with several of them who have indicated this is a priority. Two have told us that the competitive solution cannot work for them. Once the buying committee signs off, procurement will engage. It normally takes four weeks for vendor onboarding, but they will do the legal review in parallel. Once this is complete, the signature process takes two weeks through their systems.”
With this information you can have some reasonable confidence that the deal will happen as the AE believes. And if you don’t have this level of detail, it’s time for the AE to go back and get clarity.