You’ll never move the sales process forward as quickly or as effectively as you’d like if you aren’t setting commitment objectives. A commitment objective is an agreement or commitment the salesperson aims to get from the prospect — a guarantee of some kind that will propel the sales process to the next stage. 

Having one in place helps you avoid the common sales pitfall of assuming you had a successful pitch without guidelines in place to determine what success actually means.

After all, if you don’t have clear goals set, how can you ever be sure you’ve met them?

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Why should I care about setting commitment objectives?

Our principal mission as salespeople is to gain commitment. That’s what we get paid to do. That’s the only reason we have jobs. If we’re not planning for the customer to commit to something, we’re not planning to do our job. 

Commitment objectives take that mission and turn it into achievable, definable goals you can drive toward. They help a sales team:

  • Ensure Progress. A commitment objective is the driver of progress in the sales process. It sets a clear goal that, once achieved, moves the interaction to the next stage.
  • Accelerate the Sales Cycle. Defining milestones and setting commitment objectives can shave off 25% of the sales cycle time, providing multiple extra months of selling time annually.
  • Keep Professional Focus. Having a clear commitment objective keeps the salesperson focused on the primary goal, preventing wasted efforts on non-essential aspects of any sales call.

What makes a commitment objective different from other sales objectives?

What distinguishes a commitment objective from the salesperson’s other objectives is a commitment from the customer. A sales rep may have multiple meeting or business objectives  for a client call, many of them excellent and even vital: 

  • To learn about the customer’s business
  • To discover who the competitors are
  • To figure out who makes the real buying decisions for the customer’s organization
  • To learn if funds are available for the purchase
  • and so forth

But none of those goals can be the primary reason for making a sales call because they do not require a commitment from the customer that will move the process forward.

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What are examples of effective commitment objectives?

We’re not just going to tell you why commitment objectives are important — we’ll give examples, too. 

It’s important to note that your industry will have unique objectives that lie outside this list. For example, if you work in SaaS for healthcare, an appropriate goal could be facilitating an integration discussion with your prospect’s CTO.

Less niche and more commonly chosen commitment objectives include:

  • Scheduling a Discovery Meeting. Gain agreement from the prospect to schedule a meeting to understand their business needs and challenges.
  • Securing a Product Demo. Obtain commitment for a demonstration of your product or service to showcase its features.
  • Arranging a Site Visit. Convince the customer to allow a visit to their location for a firsthand look at how your solution can be implemented.
  • Gaining Agreement for a Proposal Presentation. Secure commitment for a detailed proposal presentation to outline the advantages of your offering and associated investment.
  • Obtaining Approval for a Trial Period. Convince the customer to commit to a trial period to test the effectiveness of your product or service.
  • Getting Agreement for a Budget Discussion. Secure commitment to discuss the budget, ensuring alignment between your solution and the customer’s financial landscape.
  • Scheduling a Meeting with Key Decision-Makers. Gain agreement to meet with all key decision-makers involved in the buying process.
  • Securing a Contract Review. Obtain agreement for a thorough review of the contract terms and conditions before finalizing the deal.

Ready to learn more about the time and effort Action Selling can save you? Talk to our team today.

With 90% of senior executives failing to reach strategic goals due to poor execution, the advantage of better techniques through strategic training is undeniable.

Stay tuned to learn more about the other Acts of selling — and see how they all fit together to create a successful training program.