The Raiders of the Lost Deal – the selling starts when the deal is lost (Part 2)
When the deal is lost, then the real selling starts after you have investigated in order to find out the real, the good or the bad reasons why you have lost the deal.
Now you can decide to:
- Forget about the deal
or
- Counterattack as a Raider of the Lost Deal.
The altered proposition
The only way to turn this around is to make a better or more suited proposition based upon the information received or collected from several sources n the company?
This proposition can be:
- A lower pricing
- Different pricing model: renting or leasing instead of buying
- More services for the same price (not a good idea)
- Higher service level
- Better product or solution
- Lesser quality product or solution
- Limiting the number of function or features (if possible)
- Extending the contract duration
- Shortening the contract duration
- Larger quantity over a longer time span
- Older model or type of product
Anything or any conversation or any threat, that can help to get the sales in order to generate revenue, recoup the investment of the sales process, and keep the competitor from scoring is good enough.
This is the real selling requiring your sales skills.
The 5 advantages after losing the deal
As you have lost the deal and know the reasons, you have four advantages:
1. You have nothing to loose as the deal is lost already.
2. The winning competitor is not expecting new challenges: thus you might take him by surprise.
3. Decision makers may have overlooked important facts and benefits that have been revealed by your source.
4. After the closing the deal, some negative facts previously not known can be revealed by the salesman or vendor.
5. Although the decision has been taken, nobody is completely satisfied.
Thus time to start selling in your best manner.
Even if you make only a small profit, you don’t have the loss of the sales process costs, which represents a big difference in operating income.
Are you a Raider of the Lost Deals?
