Episode 350: The Rule Of Three

Our financial year ended in August and we were up over 20% on the previous year’s revenue results. I should have been ebullient, chipper, sanguine, fired up for the new year, but I wasn’t. Was it because we were back to zero again, as we all faced the prospect of the new financial year? That sinking feeling of , “last year was hard and here we go again, but this time with an even higher target”. Maybe that was it, but it was hard to tell. There were three other things which were gnawing away at me, regarding incidents which happened the previous week. Sales is an emotional roller coaster, we all know that. Well knowing that and being able to deal with the emotional downers is another thing altogether. I am a positive, upbeat person, for whom the glass is always half full. My glass got severely drained and it is still bugging me.

I had a pitch for a client’s business to help their sale’s effort. Actually they said they wanted a “transformation programme”. I had met the CEO previously and had understood what he was after. I came back to him with a comprehensive proposal. In the interim, a new HR person was recruited and I was informed were now going to have a five entrant beauty parade.
They had various needs. They wanted transformation for their senior leaders, middle level sales managers and also wanted an internal trainer-the-trainer functionality, because the size of their sale force. That cost would preclude an externally delivered vendor solution.

I gave them that transformation formula. I even brought all of the training materials to the pitch, so they could see the professionalism we offer. I went through in detail what each group would need if they wanted to transform the business. That week the HR guy wrote to me and said we didn’t get the business.

I had no idea why, but I did know I wouldn’t find out the real reason by talking to the HR guy. All I would get would be vagary. I needed to seek out the CEO directly and get some feedback. We rarely ever lose pitches, so I was a bit perplexed. To be honest, my ego was bruised, hurting and I found this news depressing. The point here is that although I know intellectually, that sales is an emotional rollercoaster, it doesn’t make much difference in the moment when you don’t get the deal.

The second piece of bad news was a delay in commencing a project. I had done a similar project for their company and they asked me to come back and do another one. That last project was a real nightmare. I was dealing with a young staff member who proved to be very demanding and sucked up a lot more of my time than was expected. Frequent changes were de rigueur and often without much actual requirement, except for whim.

Frankly, I was a bit gun shy to go again. However, it was a different member of staff this time, again quite young, but I agreed. Deja vu. Very demanding, very picky, but despite recurring nightmares about last time, I decided I wouldn’t throw in the towel and would tough it out. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger type of thing.
Then I got the email telling me to put the project on hold. I am guessing they were shopping the project around and were putting me on ice. I was wondering what was the issue? Was this a generational thing? Both individuals were quite young in business. You have to have some degree of experience, to have perspective and to know how to judge what you are looking at. Is this why there is a gap between what we were both looking at?

Another deeper thought occurred to me. Am I secretly blowing it up, because I actually I don’t want to do it? I know how much time it required last time and it looked like we were going down the exact same path again? I was wondering, what was my psychology here? Was I trying to get out of doing it? Or was I too old and inflexible to deal with these demanding young whippersnapper pups? That was a depressing prospect.

The third one was a case of sports negotiating. This is an ego trip for buyers, who like to see who is the sheik of the souk, the biggest wheeler and dealer, the cleverest negotiator, the bargain hunter extraordinaire. They like to play a little game of “beat down the supplier” to show how tough they are. Okay, you do run into that from time to time, but on this occasion it came from an unexpected source.

You meet people in business who are attractive, charismatic, your type of person. This buyer was like that. We have a lot in common and I like the cut of his jib. He asked for some training previously and I sent him my proposal. He came back with a counter offer that was at a steep discount. I like the guy and reluctantly agreed, because it was the first business with his company. I thought , “well once he experiences our quality, he will pay the right price”. My big mistake right there.

So I delivered the training and then found out that the next round will be done by someone I knew who used to work with us as a contract trainer. This guy has a full time job in HR and does some training on the side. That was another red flag. There is no comparison in the quality of what is being delivered here, but I started to see where the client’s negotiation pricing benchmark was coming from.

So he subsequently asked me for some one-on-one coaching for presentations. I sent him my proposal and he came back with what he thought the price should be. The language he used in the email was the same as the last email and so another red flag appeared. I asked myself, why is this guy nickel and diming me? The quality of the training he got from me last time was at the top of the tree. So I felt his haggling was insulting and saying our quality wasn’t appreciated. I also thought we had a better relationship that that. This time, I stood my ground, defended my quality, our brand. I answered him that if he wanted the best, then this is the number. As far as I am concerned, this time, there will be no discounting of even one yen. Subsequent silence on his part.

So what do we take away from all of this.

Despite the many years we have all been in sales we need to prepare for cyclical depression. I should have known that there is going to be an inevitable downer associated with the start of the new year. I have to remind myself that my team will be feeling the same way, so I needed to work on boosting all of our emotions to move to positive ground. Just kicking off “as usual” in the new financial year won’t cut it. I needed to make an intervention.

I told my team, “no” isn’t “no”. It is just “no” to this offer in this format, in this budget cycle, in this economic situation. I needed to tell myself that too. I need to separate my ego from the non-acceptance of our offers. There may be a number of reasons why the pitches failed and I needed to find out what was the mismatch between what I thought they needed and what they actually chose.

I discovered my new found buddy was actually no buddy. Where possible, I like to make my clients my friends. I thought he would be in that category. By the way, in his industry, his firm’s fees are very stiff and they don’t discount them at all. What I realised was his value system substantially differed from mine. He wants to “win” the negotiation. I am focused on building partnerships that concentrate on the re-order, not the one off discounted deal. We have a strong brand to defend and the way to do that is to draw a line in the sand on what you believe your value is worth. So he was moved into the acquaintance basket. Not long after, he up and quit as President and suddenly moved to Saudi Arabia, so he eventually disappeared altogether. I still feel unhappy, but I do feel better about standing my ground.