Deal Review - Update

Thanks to everyone that responded to my initial post on this topic. In order to keep the confidentiality of my customer's name and people involved I scrubbed some of the information, and to make this easier for all interested, instead of posting a huge text stack, I created a file and put it in my wetransfer account.


Also, I haven't included every single step as it would be too long, but I'm more than happy to add info as we go through it


you can get it here: https://we.tl/t-iYgI2qb9eK


With the information on the file, what's your take on why we lost? And again, I know there's information missing so please feel free to ask. I'll share my own vision on what I think happened as we go through it.


THANKS EVERYONE!


๐Ÿ‘‘ Sales Strategy
๐Ÿ“ˆ Closing
15
youKNOW
Politicker
4
Sales Manager
So I just read everything, and tbh...there's no determining factor from why you lost. As in, there's nothing, directly obvious on why you lost.

Some follow up questions:
1) At one point your potential customer mentions that you are "one of two" that they are looking at. What level of qualification did you do about WHO that competitor is?ย 
2) You mention that there was a month where they stopped the process. In my experience, any time that's happened to me (or salespeople that I work with) THIS is the exact time when a competitor, or an incumbent have been able to win the business. How much contact did you have with the customer during that time?
3) You mention there are two influencers and a Champion. What personality types are they? Driver? Amiable?


Some thoughts:
From the detail provided, it definitely seems that you took extremely thorough steps in providing everything the customer needed, PLUS everything you felt was essential. For sure this seems like you and your team put in a lot of hard work and it's to be applauded.ย 

One thing I'm not seeing here, and please don't take this the wrong way...is a high level of qualification. You mention that the Decision Maker isn't open to direct communication. What parameters is he using to decide who to go with? I don't believe in a no-win scenario so I'm curious about the direct communication part. If you can't communicate with him directly, then you are relying on another contact which can be problematic.
alecabral
Arsonist
1
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
@youKNOWย This is fantastic feedback, thank you! I'll go point by point to add more info, as I didn't add everything in the document. I'll take your numbered items first:

1) As we were invited to a bid / RFP, we didn't get information on who our competitors were. I reached out to my champion and he provided some information that was not too accurate. This is in fact one of the big misses. I could blame it on the time we had, as we had to prepare the proposal in less than a week, but I know that if had done some more digging, I would have found out.

2) I had a lot of contact until they went silent. This is an existing customer for us, and I'm the lead there. I've sold the last 2 deals to them, so I have a few channels open. The challenge here was that the team running the RFP is one I haven't worked with, and at one point decided to stop responding, hence we pulled back.

3) Influencers were amiable, and my champion is definitely a driver. Thing is, even with the strong influence he wielded, he was not too close to the RFP.ย 

On your thoughts, I couldn't agree more. This is what I concluded as well. I pride myself of being quite good at qualifying, but I didn't do a great job of being as thorough as I know I could have been here.

The DM was absolutely blocked to us, and I only found out who the person was after asking multiple people within the account. I got someone to introduce us as well, and that was it. Another qualification fail, I agree with you: without clear decision parameters, it's easy to miss. I will also add that as procurement was leading the RFP, they made it clear we were not to backchannel after we submitted the proposal, so I tried to keep a low profile when touching my contacts. No deal is worth killing a relationship.

Quick one for you: given we didn't have much time and that we did have some access to the account, how would you have approached it?

Thanks a lot for the input!
youKNOW
Politicker
1
Sales Manager
No worries! It's tough for me to answer your question, primarily because I don't have that type of relationship with my customers. What I mean by that is because of what I sell, I have a constant ongoing relationship with the people I work with so I'm always interfacing with influencers, DM's, champ's etc.ย 
It's hard when purchasing tells you not to back channel, even though you already have a relationship with the company...since you've already done two other details with them.ย 

My first suggestion is to start trying to create a relationship with that DM so that when the next RFP comes up you have that pathway already cut. In this specific case, it seems as though she's a fairly serious person so you'll have to work to get her guard down.ย 

Second, with ANY of your contacts there, NEVER stop qualifying them. Even if there isn't an RFP or something that you may be working on, you can still pick up what's important to them along the way and use it in the future.

Also, the better the relationship is, the easier it can be to backchannel. I KNOW this is risky, but I don't believe in a no win scenario. I just think that there is always a chance to backchannel when the relationship is good enough; you just have to be careful with it.

Last...go out and kill it! Keep your pipeline full with RFPs and use this lost deal as motivation to perfect what you do and increase your win rate moving forward.
alecabral
Arsonist
1
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
Awesome tips, all of them and I couldn't agree more. Thanks a ton for all your input @youKNOWย !
CCP
Opinionated
2
VP, Business Development
I think this deal was wired before the RFP came out. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that pre-engagement was not that strong. I think another firm wrote (or influenced) the RFP making your response irrelevant.ย 


When you submit any bid, if you don't know that you've won, it's because you've lost.ย 
CCP
Opinionated
2
VP, Business Development
PS - I could tell you dozens of stories where this happened to me. It's an uncomfortable part of the learning curve.ย 
alecabral
Arsonist
0
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
You know what @CCPย , I'd love to hear some. That's something we should figure out a way to do at the WR so it's easy to go through. I have a few of my own too!

Now, on the deal, I think this is a possibility. I have my experience with RFPs on both sides, and I know most of the times one of these comes out like this one (we were invited too close to the last available date to present proposals), then there's already a winner.

I didn't feel this was the case though, I think they just didn't like the proposals they had and waited to maybe invite at least another agency in that month of total silence, but to be honest I don't know yet. You have a very valid point here.

I'll find out and when I do I'll share it.

Thanks for the input!
CCP
Opinionated
0
VP, Business Development
Oh man, where to start. In Canada there's a system for all federal bids called MERX. Early in my career, I thought I could just respond to RFP's that came out and would win a few. I didn't. I also was asked to submit a bid on a $60M deal midway through my career. I did around $1M per year with the customer so I thought I had a good chance even though what was being asked was way outside of my company's normal service offerings. I spent a huge amount of time making sure we could do it, meeting the client, writing the RFP, only to find out there was a company specialized in exactly what the client needed who had already won the deal.ย 

Now, I would never respond to an RFP I wasn't in front of unless its purely for brand recognition and I accept losing it to be better positioned for when the next time the RFP comes out with that customer.ย 

If you're able to get a postmortem, I'd love to hear what actually happened. Its super clichรฉ but true that in sales we either win or we learn. Sending good vibes that you win the next one, friend!ย ย 
alecabral
Arsonist
0
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
Ha! You reminded of my days scanning government portals for RFPs! I never really liked selling in the public sector, but that was my book of business for some time.ย 

Now private bids? Loved them. You have the chance of getting there before anyone else and making that RFP work for you. As you can see, I didn't here, which is another good explanation to why I didn't win it!

Waiting for my champion to respond, once he does I'll be more than happy to share!
CCP
Opinionated
1
VP, Business Development
Same here, I HATE the public sector. Too rigid and process heavy for no good reason. Plus I'm not okay with bid rigging which is the only way I've ever seen salespeople be successful. I think it enrages me as a tax payer and I want no part of it.ย 

I try and avoid RFP's altogether when possible even in the private sector. If I can't, I at least want to be in a winning position when it comes out.ย 

Keep us all posted on the debrief with your main POC!
TechSalesQueen
Executive
2
Sr. Enterprise Account Executive
Iโ€™ve been part of the process to rig an RFP. 100% always a serious possibility if not guaranteed likelihood for all bidding situations!
alecabral
Arsonist
0
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
Agreed!
Kinonez
Celebrated Contributor
1
War Room Enthusiast
Thanks for sharing this deal. I don't see any obvious answer to why the deal fell. Was there any particular reason why the decision maker was not open to communication?ย 

These come up to mind.

Perhaps the decision maker preferred the competition for x or y reason and the champions were not able to change his/her mind. Maybe someone from the other company new the decision maker personally, we tend to trust our gut and go with a familiar face over qualified strangers.ย 

Perhaps the competition offered a better value for price.ย 

Something could have changed on that month that tipped the decision to the competition.
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
One thing I'm not seeing here, and please don't take this the wrong way...is a high level of qualification.
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
1
ISR
My first suggestion is to start trying to create a relationship with that DM so that when the next RFP comes up you have that pathway already cut. In this specific case, it seems as though she's a fairly serious person so you'll have to work to get her guard down.ย 
FlintIronstag
Notorious Answer
0
Chief Marketing Officer
Hi @alecabral,

1 - Groupthink: The company is the fastest growing company in the sector and they have no sales enablement at the moment. So you're fighting entrenched thinking out the gate. IE - We're doing this without it, why should we add it?
2 - In interaction 5, what/how did the DM react? Did you get any info on him/her that you could utilize to personalize an ABM campaign towards his/her decision making points?
alecabral
Arsonist
1
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
Hi @FlintIronstagย , thanks for sharing your thoughts! Here's my answers:

1 - You are correct, but this is a deal that someone else won. What I mean is they will not create an enablement team but will outsource this particular initiative, just not with us.
2 - Great question. Not a lot of reaction, and only a couple of questions. I couldn't read her face. She was paying attention and seemed to be taking down notes, but when I engaged with her she would give me short and right to the point answers.

That second one is one of the big fails I think I had. I didn't really get to the DM and couldn't qualify this further. I didn't get to become a trusted advisor for them either and to be honest, I don't think the DM thought that much of us so I clearly missed the mark.

Thanks for adding the questions to the feed!
UrAssIsSaaS
Arsonist
0
SaaS Eater
First off I love this stuff. Thanks for putting together and sharing.ย 

My take. RFP's like this are so challenging to win, especially when you can gain direct contact with the DM. In this case it seems like you were able to confirm the pain points of the champion (dir of sales), but not those of the final DM. I think this is where you lost the deal, the Dir of Sales and Head of marketing arent always going to have the same priorities and without confirmation from the DM (at least from the info provided) we dont know that the head or marketing actually cares about this to the same extent that the Dir of Sales does.ย 

The second piece is the month of downtime, did you lose the deal to a competitor or did they decide they could handle in house based on group think likeย @FlintIronstagย mentioned? I could see them saying "fuck it, we got to this point and dont need a platform"


alecabral
Arsonist
1
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
@UrAssIsSaaSย thanks for adding to the mix! Here's my take.

I agree, RFPs like this one are hard to get, and I did not get enough exposure to the DM. That's on me, no matter how little I had I am convinced I could have done a better job if I had approached this another way.ย 

To your second piece, they went with someone else and I think that downtime might have been because they invited more contenders. The answer I got as why we weren't picked (what I actually asked was what was missing in our proposal, should they be open to share a thought on that) was because they went with someone that had a bigger portfolio on enterprise training. That's a good answer and true as well, but corporate training vendors here way more expensive than their budget allows (i.e.: a program that size would be close to 1.5MM if you chose ValueSelling or Sandler).

My take is they found a better offer that solved more things our proposal did, and if they did go after a corporate training firm that's telling me the DM was of a specific type and I didn't do a good job of qualifying that person and her agenda / interests.ย 


Thanks for your input, loved it!
gaurav
Valued Contributor
0
Director Digital Experience
My two cents, from what I can gather.ย 

I agree with other comments, you probably lost the deal in the period when they stopped responding or stopped the process!

Most likely the deal went to either an incumbent vendor or a familiar vendor (if you checked all their boxes).ย 

For me the biggest red flag would be your champion not knowing what's going on. That means that he was not the part of decision process at all, which usually means very less.

Lastly, maybe the answer would be to go back and look at the messaging, content of the pitch. A lot of times, we subconsciously mould the pitch as per the champion (in this case sales manager) instead of the decision maker (marketing leader). Usually because the champion interacts with us, answer our questions etc.

Hope this helps!
alecabral
Arsonist
0
Director - Digital Sales Transformation
Hi @gauravย , thanks for your input! I agree this kind of brings up a red flag with my champion, so I actually have a meeting with him mid next week. Curious thing, he wasn't just my champion on this, but he's the DM on another project I closed with them (around 20K) some months ago. In total, I've sold a bit over 80K to this guy so far since we met a couple of years ago, which is why I'm a bit surprised at his pull, which was not great in this case.

I missed the mark with the DM, and my champion couldn't help there, which I also put on my shoulders given that I should have challenged him a bit more, tested his pull as I'm used to do.

There'll be a next time for sure on this one, and I know better now.

Thanks man!
MR.StretchISR
Politicker
0
ISR
I think this deal was wired before the RFP came out. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that pre-engagement was not that strong. I think another firm wrote (or influenced) the RFP making your response irrelevant.
Mr.Floaty
Politicker
0
BDR
Let's hear the situation. Btw...sucks you lost the deal. There will be more big deals to be had, so don't dwell on it too much.
Cyberjarre
Politicker
0
BDR
I might not be as experienced as most here, but this sounds really interesting! I'm here if you want to share more!
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