Sales and closing

Purpose

Phase 7 turns qualified sales opportunities (SQL) into binding closed deals through structured sales leadership, with a clear decision logic, a clean forecast and turnover that can be answered for.

Key message

Qualified sales opportunities are led to a binding close. The focus is on decision, negotiation and forecast. The result is turnover or a clean no-decision. The phase is strongly shaped by decisions and negotiations. What counts is the probability of closing, not reach.

When the phase begins

When phase 6 is complete and an SQL with documented qualification has been handed over. Without documented qualification no active sales process begins.

Who drives this phase

Phase 7 is driven by Sales. Overall responsibility lies with sales management. Product, Delivery and, where needed, executive management are involved, and Marketing and Business Development are informed. Exactly one person is responsible for each closed deal.

Sales leads the decision and negotiation processes, clarifies budget, scope, risks and timing, carries responsibility for forecast and turnover, and decides between a close and a no-decision. Finding the market or the problem in the first place, qualifying leads or shaping the offer is not part of this.

Realistic in this phase are closed deals, negotiations and a reliable forecast, not Sales having to find the market first.

Key questions

Phase 7 is only successful once these questions have been answered clearly:

Is there a clear decision-making structure on the customer side?
Have budget, scope and timing been clarified bindingly?
Is the added value unambiguous for the decision-maker?
Have risks, objections and dependencies been addressed?
Can the close be planned realistically?

What actually happens

The basis is the SQLs from phase 6, offer and pricing documents, and the history of decisions and objections so far. Sales analyses need and decision in greater depth, negotiates scope, price and conditions, and coordinates special cases with Delivery and product. At the end there is a close or a cleanly managed no-decision. Every sales opportunity is managed traceably as an opportunity. Forecast and pipeline are based on this information.

Expected results

Phase 7 is complete when one of these results is in place:

a close (won) with a clear contractual basis
no close (lost or no decision) with a documented reason

How you can tell that the phase holds up

A traceable share of the SQLs is won. Order size and length of the sales cycle are known and stable. And the forecast deviates little from the actual closed deals, because it is based on qualified sales opportunities.

Phase principle

“A forecast is not a target. A forecast is the result of sound preparatory work.”

What deliberately does not happen here

No forecast without a qualified opportunity, no discounts without a clear basis for decision, no selling on hope. The quality of the sales opportunities counts more than their number.

Typical failure patterns

Selling starts without genuine qualification.
The forecast is based on gut feeling.
Delivery is involved too late.
Turnover pressure replaces clean leadership of the decision.

Terms

Opportunity. An opportunity is a qualified sales opportunity that Sales actively manages. It is based on an SQL and is in the structured process of decision and negotiation. It is not yet turnover, but a possible decision.

Won (closed won). Won refers to a sales opportunity for which a binding contract has been concluded and the turnover can be realised. Won marks the transition from Sales (phase 7) to Delivery and Customer Success (phase 8).

Won means: the customer has decided, not the sales team.

Lost / no decision. An opportunity that was not closed, either through a decision against the offer or because no decision was made. These cases are not a failure but a central source of learning for phase 9.

A non-close without an insight is a system error.

Transition to phase 8

Phase 8 begins with the concluded contract or order and a clear basis of services and expectations from phase 7. Customer Success does not begin after the close, but with it.