We are coming into the final months of the calendar year. Some companies wrap up their fiscal year this month, some next month, some at the end of December. Everyone will be trying to get sales to close which can lay the infrastructure for misunderstandings and mistakes. Here are two common scenarios that can haunt you for a long time after the sale.

Most sales professionals know when they have the right fit for a customer. They take the time to listen to the needs, understand the requirements, and work hard to match what they have to offer to meet those needs. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, there isn’t a fit and it’s time to step back and regroup.

That is easier to do at the beginning of the sales quarter or sales year than it is when the end point is fast approaching. That can lead to trying to force a solution. You might be successful, especially if you have a good relationship with the customer. But, down the road, forcing the square peg into the round hole has consequences that can disrupt a long-term relationship.

Does this really happen? Yes. It happens too often. In our industry, it happens with high-speed production presses, fleets of office printers, and every type of software.

Sadly, this isn’t likely to stop. Quotas will always be a part of sales. It would be great if part of the win-loss meetings included a risk assessment for the sale. What are the odds that the sale will stick vs. the odds that the sale will be reversed because it is the wrong product?

Instead of selling the wrong product just to meet a deadline, consider building incremental solutions buckets that can be sold at the end of a cycle in ways that permit partial revenue recognition for the best solution for the customer. If you have gotten to the point where the deal is just about ready, selling the wrong product just to finalize a deal will tend to cause more problems as time passes.

Everyone loves a discount, but they set up an expectation that can impact future sales. Especially in our industry, both hardware and software sales are usually long-tail sales. You may negotiate for weeks or months to get to the final agreement, but then calendar panic may set in. The pressure to meet a quota and the permission to offer deeper discounts to get that sale in under the wire takes hold, and bad habits are established for both sides of the transaction.

Buyers have learned to expect discounts based on an on-going relationships and volumes. They know about quotas, and they know about sales cycles, so they know when to push for deeper discounts. Once they get that deep discount, they know they can push at every negotiation point into the future.