Late to the Dance

Timing is everything in a complex sale.

Almost all success you have when there’s an evaluation committee happens because you got in there early – in one of their early meetings or ideally before the committee is formed.

If your entry is after they’ve already narrowed down their options about whom they’re going to select, your probability of winning goes down greatly.

Even if you have a superior product or service.

That’s because no one on the committee wants to open it up to another vendor. 3 reasons for this:

(1.) People like options. But they hate too many options. They like simplicity. And, adding you adds complexity. Decision-making is easier for them once they’ve narrowed down their options.

(2.) They’d have to take more time away from their regular job. The work keeps piling up as they add more hours evaluating you. Who wants more stress?

(3.) The person who was the impetus for this evaluation, the person who most feels the pain and wants the problem solved yesterday, doesn’t want relief delayed any longer. They’re likely to put up a fight inside the committee room and/or behind the scenes.

So, the prospect will come up with any number of reasons to politely say no. Or, if they do give you a shot it’ll be limited. Only a subset of the committee will go to your presentation. The time they give you will be short. They’ll ask you for quick turnaround on a proposal. You’ll feel obligated to make an impact with aggressive pricing. And, they’ll most likely use it to negotiate a better deal with one of the preferred vendors.

Being column fodder is never fun.

There are two exceptions to the arriving-late-to-the-party scenario, two situations when you actually do have a legitimate shot at the business.

1. The options they’ve looked at are weak. If their wish list is big and the other vendors fall short, you have a shot. If many on the committee are disappointed in what they’ve seen so far from the other vendors, they might let you in. You can come in as the white knight if you can quickly explain how you can fill in the holes in your competitor’s offerings. Once that happens, the stakeholders who most want the solution yesterday usually become great allies for you. And those on the fence will often jump on the bandwagon.

2. You come up with something they forgot. People make mistakes and accidentally omit things. Or they’re not experts so they miss things an expert might see. Your expertise in pointing out something they missed, and doing it in a way that allows them to save face does two important things at once. It saves them from later embarrassment from top management and positions you as an expert and the other vendors as amateurs since none of them caught the omission. You can’t have better positioning.

In summary, most of the time when you arrive late to an evaluation, you’re better off moving on to a higher-probability opportunity. However, it’s worth asking a few questions to see if they’re in either of the two situations above. And if that’s the case, go for it!

I hope this helps you. And if you liked it, forward this on to other colleagues you think could benefit from it as well. They can sign up here: www.labarberagroupuniversity.com/free-newsletter.

Until next week…

This week’s announcements

(1.) There are still a few days left to enroll in the “Building Multiple Coaches at Multiple Levels” mini-course. Go here to learn more and enroll: https://www.labarberagroupuniversity.com/building-multiple-coaches-atmultiple-levels

(2.) I’m testing out the idea of an all-access portal of difficult sales situations (like the one in today’s newsletter) with what-to-do-next advice. You can learn more here: https://www.labarberagroupuniversity.com/what-to-do-next If this is something you’re interested in, let me know [email protected]