Kevin had been bidding on a large enterprise account’s business for years. He believed the annual investment of time, resources and thousands of dollars was worthwhile because a win would be worth millions to his company. But he had yet to gain a sliver of the very large pie.
Turns out Kevin’s bid never succeeded because one key decision influencer felt that his company lacked the capabilities to execute such a high profile initiative. How do I know this? Because I was one of Kevin’s competitors and I discovered this in a candid conversation with the buyer after the bid process.
While Kevin, with his team, prepared meticulously to compete against four other vendors each year, he failed to ready himself for his fiercest competitor. The customer’s perception.
In competitive sales situations we can be so focused on the opportunity, and beating the traditional competition, that we fail to prepare for our most formidable competitors. There are five of them.
1. Stakeholder perspective.
Kevin is one of many talented and capable sellers who never had a chance because, year after year, he failed to explore the customer’s perception of his company’s capabilities. Something he might easily have corrected had he been aware. The customer viewed Kevin’s value as nothing more than a necessary fifth quote.
2. The status quo.
We’ve all lost to this frustrating opponent. Studies suggest almost one quarter of all sales opportunities land here. As experts in our field we see all the indications that the customer has an important need. But if the client doesn’t feel, or is unable to articulate, a compelling reason for change you can almost guarantee she won’t.
[ctt tweet=”If clients don’t feel or articulate a compelling reason for change you can guarantee they won’t.” coverup=”KdzeV”]
3. The client’s internal resources.
We pack an arsenal of arguments for why it makes sense to engage the support of our outside expertise… alleviate workload, accelerate execution, free up internal resources to focus on bigger priorities. But none of this matters if your client believes he has his own capable resources to deliver on this initiative. Yes, he will be attentive to your advice and graciously accept your free consulting, but he will not pay for your services.
4. Competing priorities.
A colleague recently “sold” a sales training initiative to a small hotel chain, only to have it pulled before the financial commitment was made. The executive team decided that leadership development was a bigger strategic priority than sales training and reallocated what remained of the annual training budget.
5. The underlying motive.
One of my most important wins should never have happened. The client had verbally awarded his business to a competitor. When I met with this client for unrelated reasons he spoke about his immediate business priorities and why he had selected this vendor. The deeper we dug into the driving motives behind his strategy, the more he started to question his decision. His realization? He had purchased a Band-Aid for a symptom. When I suggested an alternative resolution that addressed the root cause of his issue he bought it. The other company lost to a powerful competitor … the solution to the underlying motive.
[ctt tweet=”The probable presence of one or more of these daunting competitors means you need to prepare ahead.” coverup=”tNMY9″]
The probable presence of one or more of these daunting competitors means you need to prepare ahead. Understand your customer’s situation beyond the stated opportunity. Do not be so blinkered by the potential sale that you miss the bigger picture, the opportunity in context of the business. Do not be so deafened by the trumpet of an impending win that you discount a key stakeholder’s perspective, or dismiss the people, processes and resources already available to execute. Never flounder forward only to be blindsided to defeat by one of the fierce five.
Good selling.
