When Deals Go South....

In my first post-college job, I taught high school English to ninth graders. To this day, it's been the most fun I've ever had professionally. The kids taught me so much, were so eager to learn, and made the work incredibly rewarding. They were also pretty funny and quirky. One student, according to his count, had watched Top Gun 238 times. His quotes from the film placed that movie squarely in my long-term memory. After a rough class in which I'd struggled to convey a key idea, had somehow unknowingly embarrassed a student, and then had to send a couple of kids to the principal, this young man waited until everyone else had filed out. He came over to my desk, looked at me and said, "Crash and burn, huh Mav?" quoting the movie. It was perfect.

And I could've used his humor after a sales call earlier this week. I was introduced into an opportunity, had a productive 10 minute call with the president of the company to set up an hour-long meeting, and booked it. He had some issues he shared with me, and wanted to meet. Everything after that went down hill. 

He brought in a manager that saw me as a threat. He left out the partner who would be the hurdle down the road. And for 40 minutes, the two of them were defensive and refused to really open up. The body language, words, tone and questions all told me this was a Gettysburg moment: there would be no real winners from this event. They wouldn't share any real compelling issues, but they were very eager for me to provide a proposal. Of course I declined: they weren't qualified (read: I didn't want to waste my time). By some miracle, I pivoted this to schedule a second meeting with the manager who saw me as a threat to determine if this could go anywhere. I'm competitive and hate to lose, so it was worth the shot. I also knew the president was delegating this, and I had to win this guy over, and I had a better chance of doing so in a one-on-one situation. But the call, for the most part, was a disaster.

• For much of the call, I didn't get their defenses down. 
• Because of that, I didn't get them to open up.
• Because of that, I didn't uncover any compelling issues.
• Because of that, I didn't identify any deeper areas I could discuss to really position us to help them.

So what do you take from this, if you have to sell something? Here are a few thoughts from how I handled this post-mortem.

• I spent the next hour thinking through how I could've pivoted a few key points in the call. 
• I called a mentor of mine who follows the same sales process and methodology and talked through what happened for 20 minutes. He emailed me 2 ways to have handled key moments in the call.
• I called another mentor the next day and talked through the issues with him for 15 minutes to gain key insights. 
• I wrote down 4-5 key moments in the call and planned out how I'd handle those in the future. 

If you sell, you want these crash and burn moments: they provide the best learning, more than even role play because there's more on the line. 

If you manage sellers, you want them to have these moments so they learn. When they are really losing, or money is on the line, people either quit or look for ways to keep it from happening in the future. 

What's more, if you sell or manage sellers, there needs to be a framework to analyze sales calls so people can learn from them. Both of my mentors operate from a similar framework on how a call should be run. They could look at where I went off the rails, and the 1-2 points where we could've corrected it, or abandoned ship. 

Finally, if you sell, you want these losses to get you a little worked up - after the fact. This will force reflection. "What could I have done differently? What was I not prepared for? What was unexpected? Where did it go wrong? How will I handle that in the future?" The frustration from a call going awry should force this level of analysis. If you hire and manage people, it's a good thing if they are a little peeved by losing one - so long as it translates to a determined effort to improve. 

I'm not a golfer, but selling is somewhat similar. There's no perfect day, and a bad one can compel you to quit, or inspire you to buckle down and really work at the craft. 

So what was my key takeaway from dealing with such a resistant and defensive prospect? I should've said, "Guys, I must be having a bad day. Feels like you're pretty defensive, or at least skeptical, and I'm not even trying to sell you anything yet. Should we start over, or end it here?" And then let the chips fall where they will.

Post your thoughts in the comments below. And if you liked this post, you'll dig my book. Check it out!