Sandbagging
is when a salesperson holds onto signed orders until the last minute. Then seemingly
out of nowhere, the rep submits the orders all at once, usually at the end of the
month or quarter.
When the salesperson has no orders to hold onto it's something else
all together. It could be that they don't have enough proposals out. Or it could
be that proposals just aren't getting signed and returned.
When proposals are being held-up by buyers, I call it "reverse" sandbagging. Of course,
there are many possible reasons why a proposal isn't getting signed and returned.
One possibility is simply that the prospect is busy, or too distracted by other things.
Or it could be that they're waiting for the sales rep to offer a last minute discount
before finally putting pen to paper and paper to fax.
No matter the reason, reverse
sandbagging is one of the reasons why Q4 is so stressful. Who doesn't remember a
year when they made their number after haranguing a prospect on December 24th?
Reverse
sandbagging is especially common at the end of the year. How do you deal with it?
Financial incentives and personal pleas are two options for changing a buyer's behavior.
But there is a third option which doesn’t involve giving money away or groveling:
an online electronic signature service.
I’ll use Echosign as an example. Echosign has over 1 million users. We selected it as one of the must-have tools in our recent “Smart Inside Sales Tools” ebook and it’s the one I use.
Here are a few examples of how Echosign and other e-signature software services can help change a buyer’s behavior and help your Reps book business quicker.
The Curse of Q4:
Reverse Sandbagging
Get the contract while the prospect is still on the phone. No excuses. If your prospect has agreed to move forward, and they have signature authority, you can simply email the agreement to them and have them sign it electronically while they’re still on the phone.
No more “bait and wait”. When an agreement is sent without Echosign, whether by fax or email, you have no visibility into whether the prospect has seen it; whether it’s been signed and it’s just sitting on their desk waiting to be faxed (don’t you hate that!); or whether the prospect faxed it and it just “didn’t go through”.
Whenever you send an agreement with Echosign, you know where the contract is in the process. If they’ve opened it, you’ll get alerted – no more guessing when you should follow-up.
Automatic visibility for contracts at every stage. If you have a transaction based business the heavy volume of contracts makes it difficult to manage. If you’re managing a team, it’s simply not efficient to ask “where are we with the XYZ contract?” over and over again.
E-signature systems can also track and routes signed copies as PDFs to whoever needs them — the Rep and the customer, the Sales Manager, legal, accounting, HR, your boss, your assistant, anyone. Whether it’s out for signature, if it’s been signed and needs a counter-signature, if it’s booked and filed, you’ll see it all.
Here’s how it works: when you send the document through EchoSign, the recipient opens the email, like they already do, and prints, signs and either emails or faxes the document back — again, just like they do today. Everyone automatically receives a signed copy as a PDF. Contracts get routed and filed automatically.
There just isn’t a reason not to use an electronic signature service like EchoSign. It’s easier for your customer, and you close business faster. Reps shouldn’t sandbag and neither should your prospects. Especially in Q4!
