12/7/2023-Saving Cancelled Business

Develop champions. Develop at least one on every account. You’ll need them to help get the order across the line and to help save a piece of business when it’s about to be canceled.

The first trick to saving canceled business – and business heading south – is to believe you can turn the customer around.

If for one second you determine that the business is not gonna get saved, you’ve talked yourself out of making an effort. (Channeling Wayne Gretzky, who said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.")

Anyone can complete an RFP and get in line at the money buffet, but not everyone can change minds and decisions using guile, strategy, and persistence.

Go ahead, get your hands dirty. What’s the worst that could happen? Ya can’t fall off the floor, right?

Reflect on the difference between sellers and account executives.

Sellers influence decisions, match solutions to needs, proactively address objections, and make stuff happen. Sellers turn "no’s" into "yes’s."

Account executives say, "Do you have any questions?" instead of probing and qualifying. AEs help you with your Verizon bill when you have a problem. AEs stop at the first no.

Today, create your blueprint for how you’ll save a canceled order when it happens. Your chance is coming…and it will require some preparation.

If the first key to saving business is to believe you can turn the customer around, what do you think the second key step is?

Cool, you’ve been paying attention. You’re right: pushing like crazy to find someone to talk to and tell you how you missed out.

Intro stage left: your champion. Your champion is the person on the account who will feed you the insights if the account is dead, and help you save the business if possible.

You’ll respond, "But if I had a champion, I wouldn’t need to use her/him to save the business. The biz would already be won."

Maybe. But as you travel right back to "GO" and collect your $200, understand that it doesn’t always work like that.

Develop champions.

Develop at least one on every account. You’ll need them to help get the order across the line and to help save a piece of business when it’s about to be canceled. You can only do so much from the outside looking in; you need an advocate inside the org who can do some heavy lifting for ya.

Push yourself further…fight for every ounce, and make yourself proud to be called a sales professional.

In this YT short, Frank Underwood reminds the House of Cards viewer about power: "…it’s a lot like real estate," Frank says, "…it’s all about location, location, location."

The same goes with turning around a piece of business before it dies…you won’t be successful unless you’re located close to the seat of power on the buy side.

This is one of the reasons why you work hard to create champions who wield power and authority. There will be a time when you’ll need to try to save a contract, and it’s much easier when you can make a phone call to the one KDM who matters.