Understanding Your Prospect

Focus on listening and learning and you will make the right decisions to adjust or customize your sales strategy accordingly.

Years ago, I was involved with one of my clients bidding on a large annual contract from a relatively new customer. We lost. It was a contract we fully expected to land. This customer had enormous potential for us. They annually outsource corporate wide ten times our total sales volume. We had landed a nice size initial order from this customer and now we were given an opportunity to compete for a sale five times the value of our first order. We were competing with one of their top vendors.

Interpret Their Decision
After we had lost, we spent time with the buyers understanding their decision. They had explained to us this process before the competition so now we wanted to develop a deeper understanding of how they followed the process. We spoke to the buyer and engineer in the plant as well as to the commodity manager at Corp. We clarified certain terms. The reason we lost we learned was because the customer had as a part of their process that the incumbent vendor got the last look. This information was never communicated to us.

In these follow up discussions, we were not petty or passive aggressive. We were professional and in turn developed a deeper understanding of how these particular buyers and managers made this decision. The customer appreciated our interest and respected our due diligence. Our relationship became stronger.

Because of this follow up and the actual experience of the competition, we now had a better understanding of their organization.

In this particular transaction we lost. However, our customer saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a nice win for them. Because of this I knew that we would be back quoting more of their business.

Knowledge is Power
Understanding an organization and the people in it, is an incredible competitive advantage. Developing trust between the seller and the buyer lays the foundation for massive growth. We have gone on to win subsequent deals, and broaden our business to multiple corporate entities. Today our business with this customer is $12M+, 20 fold what it was when we lost that opportunity! You see, understanding their decision-making process helped us understand their organization. Understanding an organization informs how you compete.