How difficult is it to close a deal?

It's very easy, according to our experts. These are the same bunch of idiots that have documented sales cycles for different sectors and verticals, have laid out explicit processes to help you formalise the cycle and bombard you with tips on "how to sell faster". Obviously, they’ve never been to our beloved resplendent isle.

Case in point: A small-medium sized Services engagement at a large insurance company, very well known for innovation in their trade. I celebrate tomorrow, along with another poor, long suffering schmuck from a Business Partner whom I'll call "Rifle Boy" for reasons that are not obvious, the first anniversary of said opportunity.

For people who are not familiar with a sales cycle comprising of (1) identifying (2) qualifying (3) validating (4) proposal with conditional agreement and (5) closing, the time factors are kinda like this:

- Commodities such as PCs and Printers take about 2 weeks in total to close out
- Servers, and other configurable products a bit higher in value take about 2-3 months
- Solution Sales, which are designed based on customer requirements and are almost always unique take about 3-5 months
- Government tenders, the most bureaucratic system of all, take about 6-10 months at most

Following up on a deal for one whole year in an Enterprise sector account is a fucking eternity. I hate this economy and I hate the morons who run it.

What was the point of this post? I'm griping, alright? A healthy "up yours" to all concerned a long time ago would have spared me much aggravation. But what can I say? I'm a whore to my job. It screws me all the time, sometimes in kinky ways...but on a whole it’s rather like sodomy.

Also, it seems that Soylent Green is apparently People:


mmmm, soylent pizza