That's 450 Million Pennies
Poof. Just like that.
$4.5 million were gone.
Oh sure, the rep had managed to hold on to a hundred thousand dollars or so, but that was a drop in the bucket. There was no way we were going to make our number this year. The hole was simply too big to fill.
Except, it wasn't.
A Question of Perspective
Over the next six months, the rep worked the account, department by department, office by office. When we tallied the numbers at the end of the year, she'd signed a dozen contracts across the account and regained the entire $4.5 million.
To a great extent, her success was due to her point of view. When the cancellation came, all of us focused on the revenue hole. All of us, that is, except the sales rep. She focused on the dollars she'd retained. They represented $100,000 less that she'd need to close in order to get back to the $4.5M. They were the starting point, not the end.
Working the Network
In all fairness, we'd all known that the contract was at risk. It had been over sold for years. Each renewal brought a collective sigh of relief; we were good for another contract term.
Rather than simply riding out the contract for another term though, the rep worked on relationships within the account. She spent a lot of time with the procurement officer, highlighting the value of the services we offered. She spent even more time though with the department heads that participated in the contract. She knew that she would need these relationships when the axe ultimately fell.
A Diversified Portfolio
Enterprise-wide contracts can be very lucrative - and very risky. As long as the contract renews, you're in good shape. But once the cancellation comes in, boy oh boy. And yet, many of us focus solely on renewing the enterprise agreement without a sound plan to address to the potential cancellation.
In shifting from an enterprise-wide agreement to multiple departmental contracts, the sales rep maintained the customer's current spend while reducing the risk to our business. Now, any cancellation would be a small hill to climb, not a canyon to fill. This was part of her strategy all along - letting it ride as long as the large contract renewed, but hedging her bets to mitigate her risk when the ride was over.
A Question of Perspective
Have you every lost a large deal - or faced the risk of losing a large deal - and said, "We can't recover from that hit"?
If you have, you're right - because you're focusing on the loss, not the opportunity.
As I learned from one of the best sales people there is, perspective can make all the difference.