Closed Lost

“We’re going in another direction”

I’ve heard one or more variations of this during my sales career, but it still stings. Most times you expect it, something seems off during the first few convos, followed by weeks-to-months of darkness when they refuse to be commit. It’s part of the game and you learn how to prioritize it appropriately.

Qualifying out sooner rather than later helps you both prioritize and manage expectations effectively.

Recently, however, I was thrown for a wicked loop. I had built a relationship with an executive buyer, decision-maker and signatory, with multiple conversations to discuss our multi-variate value prop to try and find a pilot project to prove our value en route to becoming a long-term strategic partner for all things CX.

He came to me with a business challenge, and we discussed some ideas on how he could potentially go about solving it. I went back internally to discuss with my executive team, and built a proposal outlining our approach at a very tactical level.

Fast forward a few weeks. We got his team on board, discussed economics and sent over paperwork expecting quick execution and for us to start work soon after.

But after a week of silence, we finally heard that they were evaluating a few other providers.

They said it was simply a procurement, “check-the-box” exercise, so I was still 85% confident we would win — co-developing an RFP typically means you’re a trusted advisor and you’d have to really screw things up to have the deal go south.

Perhaps we did screw up, because they went with a different firm. A more expensive firm at that, but a firm that a member of his team used to work at…a variable I would have never expected, nor one that I could have even asked about.

It goes to show that you can qualify and get executive buy-in ‘til the cows come home, and can still leave empty-handed. Keep truckin.