SADSAAS

Account Executive

Valued Contributor

Losing A Deal - I Can Feel It

Looking for some advice

I have a monster deal that my team and I have worked well and made it to the final two vendors. We are a startup so to make it this far with an enterprise company was a huge accomplishment and testament that our product is moving the right direction.

Anyway, given we are a start up we aren't as buttoned up in some areas that a 15 year company might be. This came to light in our security meeting where the prospect asked for a bunch of written documents that we didn't have - recovery plans, internal data handling, ISO certification (These are all practices that we do internally just haven't written out got certified)

Needless to say the meeting was shaky. The prospect has now pushed our feedback call out by a week (which I am freaking out about). Two questions for y'all:

1) Am I freaking out too much about them pushing he meeting a week? Or am I correct in thinking this is a bad sign?

2) When you've had a deal slipping like this, how have you handled it? Is there anyway to turn the tables back in our favor?

Appreciate the advice - this has been like 12 months of work so it would really hurt to lose now.

☁️ Software Tech

7

9 comments

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Pachacuti

Politicker

4

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Yes, you need to be in panic mode. They are calling you out on things which are "table stakes" in vendor discussions, regardless if you're a start up or a 20 year company. But you don't have 20 years to have written it all out. You have yesterday to have it done.

The good part is they must like you at some level to have let you make it this far, or you have just been competing on price alone and now the real vetting starts.

Security and documentation is vital in IT-oriented sales, so your team should have all this documented already. You will probably need to burn the midnight oil to get it done.

TennisandSales

Politicker

3

Head Of Sales

yes I would be concerned if I was you.

one thing I would do is to try to get your DM or POC on the phone, and just be up front.

"Terry, I left that last meeting feeling like a number of questions were left unanswered. I wanted to see how you are feeling after that?
* they give you their thoughts.*
" Yeah that makes sense, and it is one of the areas our company is always improving on."

Then have a plan to suggest.
you COULD offer a discount because of these issues
you could add language into the agreement that is issues comes up they can get out of the contract, or not have to pay you the FULL contract amount.

SOMETHING that will show you will put skin in the game.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

3

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

If you’re dealing in SaaS, you’re going to need those certifications stat. Your security team should get those underway (if they haven’t already) and your CTO needs to get on a call and talk about progress. Things like SOC 2 and pen test results are going to be critical.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

0

🦊

And it's needs to happen like, yesterday.

Justatitle

Big Shot

2

Account Executive

So the worry factor is completely normal. Here's the thing you can't control your companies data security and privacy practices, if this deal is lost yes it will hurt you however you can very straightforward say we need to button this up so we don't lose a deal like this again. The only way to win this deal right now is to approach your champion and see if there is enough weight they have to throw around to force this to happen. If they don't I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it's likely this is a lost deal. Sorry to have to say this.

SADSAAS

Valued Contributor

1

Account Executive

Had a call with our CEO today and brought this up. They are getting on it ASAP. I guess if the downside of a start-up is figuring this out on the fly, the upside is that we move quickly on this stuff.

Thanks for the advice!

Justatitle

Big Shot

0

Account Executive

The wounds hurt but often the deepest cuts are the best lesson

StringerBell

Politicker

0

Account Executive

A lot of larger companies do require you to be ISO or SOC 2 and it can be a massive blocker. However, I worked for a smaller start up and we had massive customers and we had a lot of our security practices in a single doc plus would answer their questionnaires. I've seen companies not be as hardcore about those documents if the type of data you access if theirs is low level and the price is right.

ZVRK

Politicker

0

Enterprise Account Executive

Yes, security docs and certifications are a show stopper where i come from (enterprise SaaS). That’s why I insist we have these it/infosec meetings early in the process, it’s just something to cross of the list.

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