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Don't Call Your Boss Too Early: How to Manage Big Sales Deals Alone
Description
Stop reaching for the Oga card too early in your sales deals. I see it all the time with Nigerian salespeople: you land a meeting for a big deal and your first instinct is to call Madame Sylvia or Alhaji Bashir to sit in so they can help you close the deal.
While having an executive with more gravitas can help, doing it prematurely is a recipe for disaster.
Your bosses hired you specifically to take things off their plates. They are looking at the big-big deals—the ones that move the needle for the entire firm—and if you drag them into a meeting just to toast a client who isn't even ready to buy, they are going to "rake" on you. Serious raking!
Before you escalate a deal to your manager, you must satisfy these three golden criteria:
1. High Value: Ask your boss what a big deal looks like to them; don't assume your 5 million Naira deal is high value if they only care about 50 million and above.
2. Confirmed Need: Ensure the client actually has a problem you can solve. Don't bring the boss in when you're still just exploring if there's a fit.
3. Urgency and Timeline: If the client isn't planning to move for another 18 months, your boss's time is being wasted today.
Take the case of Chinedu (my fictional case study), who is trying to sell a 250 million Naira solar cooling solution to "Build It Africa" (also a fictional entitiy).
Instead of dragging his boss, Dr. Hanatu, to the very first meeting with the COO, he should go alone first to pressure test the budget and the timeline. He should act as the subject matter expert, not an order taker or a "boy-boy" .
Remember, sales is conversational. Use social listening on LinkedIn to find leads, and when you're in the room, don't be afraid to ask the hard questions about board approvals and budgets. If a client tries to "dress you down", just empathize, apologize, and refocus the conversation on their needs.
Escalate strategically, not desperately. When you finally do bring the boss in for that technical validation meeting, they’ll see you’ve done the legwork, and you’ll keep your authority and theirs intact.