White Horse Feeling

White Horse Feeling

I was in my late 20’s and had the opportunity to land one of my biggest orders in my career.

Marriott International with their head office in Bethesda Maryland, was going to market and we had the right software solution for them. After a thorough selection process it was down to two solutions and we were one of them.

Like with every big demo, I configured the Planon software to meet Marriott’s needs and had every script they requested in the RFP completely covered.

My manager and I flew into Dulles International Airport two days before the demo.

The day before the proof of concept demonstration, we met up with our US representative to do the dry run.

We all agreed that the preparation was properly executed and we were ready.

The next day we arrived at the headquarters of the largest hotel chain in the world, and we met with the project team. In a small room in the basement it was up to me to convince them to buy our software.

I got this.

Well prepared, I started pounding scenario after scenario, not leaving room for any interruptions, but solely focusing on the script EXACTLY as they indicated.

After a solid 6 hours of presenting the scenarios, we were DONE!

I had nailed every scenario!

Courteously, they thanked us for the presentation as we walked out.

I was over the moon.

After a short taxi ride we were at Dulles, and we had a couple of hours before our flight to Amsterdam.

We sat down and got ourselves a beer.

Then my manager asked: “So what did you think of it?”

Still extremely happy with my performance, I answered: “We’ve won this!!”

He said: “No, ………………………I’m afraid we have lost this”

I felt like being stabbed by 500 knives simultaneously.

But….. How is this possible...?

I mumbled....

You were presenting like a sales robot. And people hate sales robots.

And did the “White Horse* ” die?

I completely missed the warm and cozy feeling you have when you are at the company bar. You lectured them instead of treated them like human beings that you want to talk to.

It was an honest, but terrible review.

Needless to say, we lost the deal, and I was publicly ashamed in the company for having lost the biggest deal in Planon's history.

Only a few days later we were in the White Horse, and I vowed never to lose like this again.

Never to forget about the White Horse Feeling, and to use this extremely humbling lesson as fuel for growth.

It is until this day one of the best lessons I have ever learned.

?* The White Horse was our company bar of which I was chair, to make matters worse...

Salami Tactic

If you focus on getting the sliced parts, before you know it you will have the whole sausage.

If you, on the other hand, focus on the whole sausage you might get nothing.

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On team sizes

I recently came across the work of Justin Welsh (yeah I’m late to the party ??), and I love his writing as the The Diversified Solopreneur.

His posts on LinkedIn are always very insightful and thought-provoking. In Justin’s post of today he states that Solopreneurship is the future of business.

Although I like the point of view, I personally try to run Brookline | Home of Funsports like teams of Navy Seals (typically 8 -12 persons) where the team is large enough to provide a diverse set of skills and abilities, but small enough to maintain flexibility and agility in the field.

I wish you all a wonderful Easter weekend in advance.

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Yours sincerely,

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Bas