Just this past week I learned a valuable lesson that I thought I’d share here on The Poised. The lesson is this; when a client is ready to buy, FIND A WAY TO SEAL THE DEAL.
I failed to seal the deal
You see, we had just finished up a one time project for a local business here in town and, because the client was so impressed with our work, they were willing to let us take on additional (on-going) work even though we were 3 times more expensive than their current provider. The problem was, we were currently in a position in which we had to expand our workforce and it would be a few days before we could begin the new work. Well, the decision to delay the sell turned out to be a huge mistake because it provided enough time for this particular client to second guess his original decision and come to the conclusion that the service was not worth the increase in price (even though I showed him, numerically, why the decision was justified). The truth is, by the time I tried to re-convince him, it was too late. There was no salvaging the deal once he had made up his mind. No data, calculations, or customer references could make him change his mind. The potential sale was gone.
The loss from not sealing to deal
And of course, most people would shrug something like this off and say, “oh well, it’s only one client”. The truth is, while it may seem like a small loss, it was actually a very costly mistake not to seal the deal. It’s true, this particular contract would have only generated around $400/month in revenue. However, this particular gentlemen owns 8 additional locations just in the surrounding area, all of which we would have likely eventually landed. (Not too mention, we would have likely gained quite a bit of referral business as well.) If you do the math, that’s $3,600/month or $43,200/year in recurring revenue.
How to seal the deal
There are a lot of gurus out there who will try to give you a 6 step plan to make sales by using psychology and body language. The truth is, as humans many of us tend to naturally do a lot of those “techniques” and we don’t necessarily have to think about it. However, we DO have to think about how to handle situations and take action to make those things happen.
In my case, I thought that the most logical thing would be to explain to the client the situation and, in a couple of days, start the new work. After all, most people would be understanding, right? Well, I was wrong. What I should have done is found another way to provide the service (possibly through subcontractors) until we could make the internal workforce transition and provide the services in-house.
I should have found a way to seal the deal.
Conclusion
So there you have it; that was the lesson I learned this past week. My goal is to not make that mistake again. Feel free to give me your feedback and what you think.
Have you been in a similar situation? If so, what did you do and how did it turn out?