Cover All Bases!
It was a fight for Prestige. The volume of business was decent, not large, and the recurring revenues would be above average rather than fantastic.
Over a decade ago my team was in pitched battle with our only competitor, to strike a major deal with the State Government. At stake was the honor to provide mobile phone connections to the Chief Minister, his team of Ministers and the top Government Secretaries – it was just 25 connections in total. But with the contract would come crowing rights – the winner could proudly announce that they are the “Official Mobile Service Provider of the State!”
No quarter given, it was a dour struggle.
Mid–way through the campaign we were feeling pretty smug – both parties had submitted the initial proposals, then been called for negotiations, and it was learnt, based on information gathered after the two rounds of discussions and review by the Purchase Committee, that our offer was not just lower on price, but it also matched almost all the parameters listed in the RFP.
It was just a matter of time before the order was signed, sealed and delivered to us … or so we thought!
A few days before the formal letter was to be collected we heard from a source that the Review Committee had done an about turn and was now favoring our rival. Based on some new information received, the Committee decided to have another sitting because the users were high-profile and needed uninterrupted service – they weren’t taking any chances.
The reason for the review: It was “found” that we were suspect on After-Sales Service!
We were shattered – everyone, from the State Business Head down to me, scrambled to get in touch with our contacts in the Procurement Department and the Purchase Committee. We zeroed in on the “trouble-maker”. A member of the Technical committee, who even in the negotiations stage had made a strong bid to favour our competitor (he was using their service already), had been fed information that a major client had cancelled the connections taken from us and had moved over to their side. Our detractor used the news to queer the pitch for us.
We had built our case carefully at every level, but had not done anything to neutralise the threat posed by this person and that lapse had returned to haunt us. We thought he wouldn’t be able to sway the committee away from us.
While we did have a case of a Service lapse which cost us a valuable customer there were numerous instances of major organisations coming over to us from competition – but we had not used it against them during the bid and negotiations process. Our rival obviously did not believe in such niceties.
After working hard to stall the finalization of the order we submitted proof to substantiate the strength of our after-sales service – this time we did not hold anything back and a detailed presentation was made on how we were superior on every count. Service Quality Assurance was also given.
The Government Purchase committee saw merit in our pitch and finalized the entire order in our favor – to this day I treasure the photograph of me handing over the mobile phone to the Chief Minister and showing him how to use it.
We almost lost the order due to complacence. The message is that at no time during the campaign should you lower your guard and take things for granted.
Only when you have covered the bases you are ready to make the play!
Good one…very important for all Sales professionals to understand this
Hi Vijay, good to hear from you again!
Yes, this is vital … lapses can have major implication because in Major Accounts we are dealing with big ticket items!!
I guess it’s not an issue of complacence but more an issue of detailing during pitch preparation. This is one of the most common reasons why pitches are won or lost. This is also one of the most common differentiator between the one who leads and one who follows – notwithstanding any 2nd successful effort.
Shantanu, thank you for that insight.
My suggestion is that we had dropped our guard thinking enough has been done already – even when we got resistance from one official it was ignored in our state of over-confidence. Had it been tackled immediately a lot of fire-fighting could have been avoided.
But I agree with your suggestion that pitch preparation has to take into account possible areas of resistance and the counter-measures for them. There has to be a strategy do deal with people who can stymie our success.
Very nice Jayadev!!
Thank you, Paul! Your support keeps me going.
That was the 100th comment.
Real good one J, you know recently I came know about a concept of ‘Deal champ’ a person who is officially called as a deal champ in IBM. One of my friend who shared this info that IBM has many such champs who have lost very few deals in their association with IBM (In presales). Sales heads from companies like Wipro, TechMahindra, Accenture really threatens by them. From last few days I’m supporting presales work by preparing RFP responses/presentation and I really feel that we are working in real urgent basis and we real lack a plan and approach to handle the deal. May be it’s little early for me to comment but so far this is what I can see….
Kailash, brilliant assessment – it’s always sensible to get worried or feel threatened earlier rather than later; that’s when you are still in control. After the situation has reached unmanageable size you can only sit and stare in utter hopelessly or pray for a miracle.
I think IBM is onto something smart by having a pre-sale ‘Deal Champ” (it will be great to find out more) but to me it sounds like an advance party, a team that sizes up the account they are dealing with and maps the territory so that the team that follows them into the zone has few or no unknowns.
It will be a good idea for you to replicate something like that in your team or at least study the account well to avoid surprises and last minute hiccups.