I began my professional career as newspaper reporter, so I
have always seen words as powerful tools of influence. The adage, “The pen is
mightier than the sword,” may have more relevance in today’s political
environment than when it was first uttered in 1839, but it has always been true
in developing sales strategies. After all, how many successful business deals
are closed by threat of “the sword” or brute force (other than contracts
negotiated by Vito Corleone and Luca Brasi)? The successful signing of a
long-term deal requires trust and respect as a foundation, not violence.
That’s why I always bristle when a deal team sets up a
central working location and refers to it as the “war room.”
What war? Who are we fighting with? The client? The client
is not our enemy!
Our goal should be to engage with the client, build a
relationship that recognizes the value we will bring, and move through issues
collaboratively to get to a result that maximizes the outcome for both parties.
I always rename that central location, “The Deal Room.”
To some this may seem like a fussy point, but getting this
right sets the foundation in how your people think about selling. Using
references to fighting and winning creates a frame of reference for the deal
team that this will be a “battle” and we have to “beat the client.” We don’t
want to beat the client, we want to help the client.
Framing the opportunity to solve the client’s problems and
help grow its business as an adversarial relationship will cause people to
focus on the challenging aspects of the dialogue with the client. The team will
not be tuned to listen for the clues from the client about what will resolve
the issue, i.e., what’s really driving the client’s ask?
For example, if the client says, “I need you to cut the
price by 20 percent,” the adversarial frame of reference says, “Here we go!
They’re trying to screw us on price!” The collaborative frame of reference
analyzes the request and thinks: “For the last six months, they have talked
about quality and using our best people and have never talked about price. Why
this and why now?” It may turn out, as has often happened to me, that the
client’s budget was cut and they can no longer afford the solution as modeled.
They are asking for a price reduction, but what they are really saying is “I
have an issue! I can’t afford what we have agreed on so we need to change the
solution on the table.”
Once you understand the client’s challenges, you can work on
options that solve for their issues and still meet your interests and needs.
Put together a proposal so creative and insightful that you can make an offer
they can’t refuse. But not in the Vito Corleone sense! It should be that they
can’t refuse the offer because it is so good they’d be foolish to miss the opportunity
to work with you.
