alecabral

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

Valued Contributor

What's wrong in this picture?

Rep: "This is a 300K deal if we do direct but that's just our part, the total deal is 600K. We're competing against one of our distributors. If they close the deal, it'll be close to 1MM, but our part will be closer to 180K."

Me: "So which way do you want to go?"

Rep: "I say we go direct, it's almost twice the money"

Me: "You're right about the money, yet it leaves our distributor out and they seem to have a more comprehensive offer, or are we adding services and hardware to the mix?"

Rep: "just licenses, but we can get them a discount, can't we?"

Me: "Not for that money, that's why we use distributors, we already sell them at a lower price point."

Rep: "Yeah, but our brand is more powerful and we reached the right people."

Me: "So is your champion stronger than our distri's?"

Rep: "Same guy"

Me: "So what's our angle?"

Rep: "We are the vendor, they are just the distributor."

Me: "Right, but the customer gets the same thing, which is our software license and our support, right?"

Rep: "Yes, but buying directly is a better experience, you know that"

Me: "Is that what our Champion told you?"

Rep: "No, the distributor won't let me get close to the guy"

I'll stop there...and ask you, what's wrong here? what would you tell this rep, and more importante, this was a real case, what do you think happened?

🏰 War Stories

16

32 comments

Sort by:

BmajoR

Arsonist

3

Account Executive

Need a tl;dr please

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

4

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

Monkey have one banana, monkey get distracted by bird, monkey then have no banana.

Tldr - I didn't read it either.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

0

Rolling 20's all day

I also gave up halfway through.

tldr: return to monke (?)

Santipodero

Politicker

0

Sanix

I didnt read it ajaajajjaja

punnirno1

Valued Contributor

0

CEO

LOL that’s the best possible summary ever 😂

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

2

☕️

You let this conversation draw out too far without telling your rep exactly what you thought. That's my takeaway.

alecabral

Arsonist

1

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

That's one way of looking at it. I gave the guy some rope to find out where he was coming from. Still, good feedback, thanks!

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

0

☕️

You gave them more than enough rope to hang themselves with. I find that when I cut to the chase and explain the situation I save both myself and the rep frustration. Just my style, not inferring you need to change yours.

alecabral

Arsonist

0

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

No worries, we all have different styles, as long as it helps reps and they are happy with the outcome, that's fine!

youKNOW

Politicker

2

Sales Manager

Sounds like the salesperson is a little all over the place, and not necessarily thinking long term. I've been there too when I was first getting in to my business, and I didn't understand the value of the disti. Are they always the easiest to deal with? Definitely not. Are they a necessary evil? Absolutely.

alecabral

Arsonist

2

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

You're right there as well. He was all over the place and inexperienced, but ultimately he got it.

youKNOW

Politicker

0

Sales Manager

Eventually they all come around. It's tough know what the right thing to do is if you're new to a business, don't understand the relationships, and are trying to do the best thing for yourself, your company, AND your customer. Lot of scenarios to think about. I've been there.

alecabral

Arsonist

0

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

Well, I'll add one thing: in my time as a rep, even being a big introvert, I had no problem asking my manager when I didn't understand something. Of course, when I thought I did (and I didn't), I would get feedback of some sort and I remember not feeling great about it, but I always paid attention. That being said, one thing I learned as a manager is that everyone learns at a different pace, and you can't teach everyone the same way. This guy was a "verbal processor", he needed to talk it out to understand it and eventually he got it. I was not that fast a rep, I needed things carefully explained to me and I didn't always had a good (or patient) manager!

LordBusiness

Politicker

0

Chief Revenue Officer

I wish more reps would just ask a simple why, vs being combative and passive aggressive. Most of the time it’s the simply them not seeing the long game.

braintank

Politicker

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Conversations like this are why I moved away from channel first organizations...

Santipodero

Politicker

1

Sanix

You have to get straight to the point and you can't let a conversation expand so much

GDO

Politicker

1

BDM

They guy is short term focussed. I think you need to explain him the long term gains of selling a complete package through a distri.

alecabral

Arsonist

0

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

Yep, that's what I did and we worked on that for some time actually until he got it!

Prunetracey

Fire Starter

1

VP Growth

I just want to point out that from a coaching standpoint, you handled this really well.

punnirno1

Valued Contributor

1

CEO

Absolutely, the simple things are the ones that take a greater effort to explain and it takes Yoda-level patience for someone to stick to it.

alecabral

Arsonist

1

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

That Yoda dude knew what it took....I do wish I had that kind of patience!

alecabral

Arsonist

0

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

Thank you, I really appreciate that :)

Rupert_Pupkin

Contributor

1

Account Executive

First thing is that the rep doesn’t have a champion if he/she can’t even get to him because of the distributor. Hopefully the rep either just agreed and went the supplier route, or you ended up stepping in to make sure it happened.

alecabral

Arsonist

1

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

we did end up closing the deal...through the partner. The rep understood, he just needed to figure out what was best other than just trying to get top dollar. But it could have gone wrong in so many ways!

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

1

MDR

Sounds like the salesperson is a little all over the place, and not necessarily thinking long term.

Clashingsoulsspell

Politicker

1

ISR

Sounds like the salesperson is a little all over the place, and not necessarily thinking long term.

CaneWolf

Politicker

0

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

This seems like a situation in which you need to explain ethics to your rep.

alecabral

Arsonist

0

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

That occurred to me as well, but we ended up having a good conversation on business #101, as in "why it's simply not a good idea to screw over your distri, nor your customer just to hit your quota"

CaneWolf

Politicker

1

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

That works too. We get asked to walk ethical lines a lot in this job so I'm glad you were proactive on this.

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

0

ISR

You let this conversation draw out too far without telling your rep exactly what you thought. That's my takeaway.

Mr.Floaty

Politicker

0

BDR

Please do, if you lead many will follow!

Cyberjarre

Politicker

0

BDR

I agree, nothing fits all. This looks solid Thanks for sharing I will try it out! New approaches are always welcome!

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

© 2024 Bravado Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy Legal and Privacy Center Sales Jobs

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.