Why pursue the opportunity. Because it is there?

When asked why he would want to climb Mount Everest, mountaineer George Mallory replied: “because it is there”.

Is that a good reason for any venture, fraud with risk? Not in Business Development one would think.

And yet, many Sales teams engage in the pursuit of an opportunity without sound, documented reasons and much less without mapping out the risks.

Or simplified: without proper assessment.  And related to my previous story about the costs preceding the revenues: we engage substantial costs, pursuit budgets, without solid opportunity assessments. Can you imagine how much budget is wasted because we engage in pursuits with price tags having written figures of hundreds of thousands euros on them? And having a statiscal chance of let’s say 1 in 10 of being converted into viable business?

Yet this is exactly what I observed during more than 25 years of experience in business development.

I would hate to call it lack of discipline – although it is in some cases – but let’s at least admit that there is a lack of process in many cases, fostered by the desire of many a salesperson to keep a pipeline in the air with as many “live” opportunities as possible. Pipeline snow is what I call this. Nobody distinguishes the exact state and shape of any individual snowflake, but hey, altogether it makes for a beautiful white landscape, right?

It does not need to be that way. A lot of wasted budget can be saved, with conversion rates increased substantially, if every opportunity goes through a decent qualification process.

This is why we created the first pillar of the SET! Method. We looked at the determining factors for a good decision to pursue or not to pursue. And not just once, at the beginning, but multiple times during the entire process from early engagement to contract.

And developed ways to unearth all elements that make a deal worthwhile to pursue.

First of all, there is the honest look in the mirror, asking: what are our chances of actually winning this deal? How do we stack up against our competitors fort his deal? Can we meet the clients’ expectations and will we solve his real challenge? Is our solution financially viable? How does this client or prospect perceive us and our product/service?

And then there is the reverse question, not how attractive are we for this prospect in this deal, but how attractive is this prospect, this deal for us? Is it financially attractive? Does it fit our operational model? Does it fit our development strategy? Is the deal an attractive size or is it maybe too small, or too large for us to handle?

And then, as with any climb, the road may be paved with risks. Are they manageable for us, what are the risks financially? What are the operational risks? What does a deal like this do for our reputation in the market or with the analysts? In fact, what is the likelihood of the deal really happening, is there a breakout risk during the process?

Once we have assessed all of the above, we can decide whether or not to pursue a deal.

Or at least prioritise deals in our pipeline. And we can proudly defend our opportunity. With documented reasons.

Not just “because it is there”.