Are personal agendas killing your deals?
Rashid Kotwal
Sales, Strategy & Leadership Consultant for SME Professional Services Firms | Driving Revenue Growth and Profitability | Expert in Building High-Performing Sales Teams | Preparing Businesses for Successful Exits
You’ve had a number of sales conversations.? Everything looks good.? You’re got buy-in on the business case ROI.? Budget appears to have been allocated.? You’re waiting on the final signature.
Then suddenly you get shown the door.? Quite literally.
Happened to a friend who showed the “business” how much more efficient they could be and what the substantial ROI would be.
To his shock, he literally got walked out the door after presenting his proposal.
Happens in some form more often than you think.
Comes down to a misalignment between what’s in the organization’s best interests and the individual decision makers.
In this particular case, the manager concerned would have been shown up as incompetent and would lose out on various overseas junkets visiting tradeshows.? Personal agendas won over organizational efficiency.
Most often people kybosh deals due to risk.? Shows up as “what if this doesn’t work?? Will it affect my job, promotion, bonus, reputation etc.?”
“Could it make more work for me?”? “Could I do this myself – if I implement this will it make me redundant?”
Or a simple, “I don’t like change.? I’m comfortable with the status quo.”
Ultimately, all sales come down to emotional buy-in.? If it’s not good for “me” I’ll kybosh the deal even if it’s the best thing for the organisation.? And the bigger the organisation, the more prevalent this is likely to be.
When coaching clients on deals involving multiple stakeholders, we focus heavily on surfacing personal agendas. We make sure to position the deal as being in everyone’s best interest—because if it’s not, it won’t close.
Rashid.
P.S. We conduct lots of lost deal reviews and it’s (perhaps) not surprising how often perceived risk played a part in the loss.
P.P.S. Access a range of free resources which help you attract, engage and convert new clients. Click Here.
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