“CloserQ, I work at a fortune 1000 company and three months ago we lost an outsourcing deal to a smaller competitor. We finished at the top for the RFP response, on-site presentations, and references. The reason we lost is because the decision maker had a bad experience with another division at my company and overrode the decision and went with our competitor. My contacts are telling me they made the wrong decision and the project is going horrible. What do you recommend I do to get back in the deal?” Frank R.
Frank, good question and shows how hard it is to win a new deal. You won their selection criteria and still lost the deal. I hope you knew prior to their selection that the decision maker was not a fan of your company, so you at least had a chance to address his/her objections in the sales process. Now onto recommendations:
First, how long of an agreement did your prospect sign with your competitor? My recommendations will vary greatly if they signed a short term deal vs. a long term deal. I have been involved with 10 year IT outsourcing deals, with significant penalties for the client ending the agreement early.
Let’s do the easier option first, a short term deal. You have lots option because the prospect has lots of options with a short term deal. I would get with your contacts who are pro your solution to understand at a detailed level why your competitor is failing. Very often they could be failing (ex. culture resisting outsourcing) in the same areas you would be failing. If they are failing in one of the areas you are strong, I would put together a very aggressive proposal to address those issues. Next, I would get the details on why the ‘Decision Maker’ had a negative interaction with your company. Then I would set up a meeting with the ‘Decision Maker’ to address his/her concerns and pitch your low risk proposal to address the issues with your competitor. If your company does at-risk deals you may want to put togehter one to win this client. In February, I did a post on at-risk deals.
Now for the much harder option, a long term deal. If your prospect is experiencing buyer’s remorse or the traditional challenges with a complex outsourcing project, and they have signed a long term deal, you are going to have a very hard time switching them out. You will need to do all of your homework above and the client will have to have one of their attorney’s review the contract to understand their out clauses / options. An outsourcing project get off to rocky start is not traditionally a ‘material breach’. Your prospect will have to be in a significant pain to go through the additional pain of getting out of the contract. Plus, if this is a large deal for your competitor, I would expect their senior management to work very hard to retain the business, meaning more pain for your prospect to make the switch and you have the added negative of the prospect ‘Decision Maker’ having a poor experience with your company. If the client is in major pain go for it, if not I recommend putting them back in suspects catagory. Sorry for the bad news, often as a sales person you need to take your lumps, learn your sales lessons, and move on to the next deal.
Good Selling and getting back into the deal. Let us know your how your reselling goes! Reader Feedback, please click the comments below to give ‘Frank’ additional information on 'Competitive Selling’ and I want your feedback on my response. Shaun Priest aka CloserQ.
Frank, good question and shows how hard it is to win a new deal. You won their selection criteria and still lost the deal. I hope you knew prior to their selection that the decision maker was not a fan of your company, so you at least had a chance to address his/her objections in the sales process. Now onto recommendations:
First, how long of an agreement did your prospect sign with your competitor? My recommendations will vary greatly if they signed a short term deal vs. a long term deal. I have been involved with 10 year IT outsourcing deals, with significant penalties for the client ending the agreement early.
Let’s do the easier option first, a short term deal. You have lots option because the prospect has lots of options with a short term deal. I would get with your contacts who are pro your solution to understand at a detailed level why your competitor is failing. Very often they could be failing (ex. culture resisting outsourcing) in the same areas you would be failing. If they are failing in one of the areas you are strong, I would put together a very aggressive proposal to address those issues. Next, I would get the details on why the ‘Decision Maker’ had a negative interaction with your company. Then I would set up a meeting with the ‘Decision Maker’ to address his/her concerns and pitch your low risk proposal to address the issues with your competitor. If your company does at-risk deals you may want to put togehter one to win this client. In February, I did a post on at-risk deals.
Now for the much harder option, a long term deal. If your prospect is experiencing buyer’s remorse or the traditional challenges with a complex outsourcing project, and they have signed a long term deal, you are going to have a very hard time switching them out. You will need to do all of your homework above and the client will have to have one of their attorney’s review the contract to understand their out clauses / options. An outsourcing project get off to rocky start is not traditionally a ‘material breach’. Your prospect will have to be in a significant pain to go through the additional pain of getting out of the contract. Plus, if this is a large deal for your competitor, I would expect their senior management to work very hard to retain the business, meaning more pain for your prospect to make the switch and you have the added negative of the prospect ‘Decision Maker’ having a poor experience with your company. If the client is in major pain go for it, if not I recommend putting them back in suspects catagory. Sorry for the bad news, often as a sales person you need to take your lumps, learn your sales lessons, and move on to the next deal.
Good Selling and getting back into the deal. Let us know your how your reselling goes! Reader Feedback, please click the comments below to give ‘Frank’ additional information on 'Competitive Selling’ and I want your feedback on my response. Shaun Priest aka CloserQ.
Comments