Losing is the Key to Winning Part II

Losing is the Key to Winning Part II

I've know Deon Boshoff for many years and Deon has been a member of the Print4Pay Hotel for as long as I can remember.  Deon is the Managing Director at Nashua Paarl & West Coast in Cape Town, South Africa.

Nashua offers print & print solutions, workspace solutions, connectivity and surveillance & access control solutions for their marketplace.

Deon offered up some additions to a recent blog I re-posted on Linkedin last night (Losing is the Key to Winning).  His offerings are in red and I think Deon offers up some great additional information for all of us.

Losing is the Key to Winning Part II

We hate to lose right?  Nothing grinds my gears more, than losing a prospect. The reason why your daily activity must increase to make provision for the losses and declined credit approvals. Your pipeline should be 3x your target i.e. R120 000 pm x 3 = R360 000 pm at all times.

I expect that I should be able to secure an order from all of my prospects. I expect to bat 1.000, however the reality is far from that.  I definitely lose more deals than I win. A healthy pipeline is the only answer together with exceptional activity.

In fact, I lose about 65% of the time. Then your activity should increase by 65%

Is losing 65% of the time a bad thing?  I don't think so, because I know that every lost deal moves me closer to obtaining an order, in addition there is so much to be learned from the deals you don't get. Hopefully you made friends with the business people and obtain the necessary information, now they also know you and they can put the face to the name, you informed them what type of products and services you can offer, your service levels and most probably that you are local?

Just today, I had a prospect contact me to tell me that they were not moving forward with my proposal, and that they are going to stay with their current vendor. Did you offer all your products and services? Your opposition might not have them all?

At first I thought it was awesome that I was contacted right away,  because I  wouldn't have to place countless calls or emails with no answers.  Secondly, I thanked them for their time and asked why we were not able to secure their business.  In a response email, I was told that pricing was similar for both systems, and they were happy with the present dealer and their level of service. Never give up, promote yourself, your products and services. Always be courteous

Hey, that's okay by me, I don't mind losing, because I was able to keep the door open for Managed IT and BDR, which they expressed interest in.  The dealer that I lost to does not offer those services, thus I'll be able to schedule an appointment down the road and an opportunity to "own" the network.  Once I own the network, I'll have a better shot at upgrading the copier sometime down the road. Fill your diary to fill your pipeline to get a deal

The prospect emailed this back to me:

"We were impressed with you and your presentation." Your presentation should be the differentiator.

"As I mentioned, it just came down to who we were familiar with since both your pricing's ran neck-and-neck." The reason for more daily activity.

Here's what I learned from losing today

• The prospect values service and support because price was not the issue, this will be helpful when having a conversation about our IT offerings and all our other products & services
• I was able to keep a high level of margin and was told pricing was neck and neck, thus on future deals against that competitor, I may have a leg up with pricing make notes and remember for future quoting purposes
• The prospect is loyal, because they stayed with the current provider. We're all in need of more loyal accounts. How, by visiting them regularly, the reason for a minimum of 5 appointments per day
• I found a prospect for Managed IT, yes sir,  because I asked additional qualifying questions about their current IT status and initiatives. In today's business environment we cannot ONLY focus on the copier, ask the qualifying questions on the other products and services we offer?
• I found a prospect for Backup Disaster Recovery, could not help to see the dozens of backup tapes when they showed me their current copier system, which lead to, "what happens if there is catastrophic loss and when was the last time you tested your backup" Be the expert and suggest alternatives
• They will be a prospect again for a copier in 30 months or so, and what comes around goes around since they decided for a 36 month lease. Build your pipeline and diarize – stay in contact

All of the above then gets logged into my CRM, along with a call in two weeks to schedule an appointment about Managed IT services. Most important part of your daily sales cycle.

With baseball, not getting a hit in 7 out 10 plate appearances over your career will land you into the Hall of Fame.  In sales that means for every 3.3 opportunities I will have a sale, I'll take it any day of the week! The 10:3:1 ratio works all over the world in the same way.

-=Good Selling=-

Note from Art:  Special Thanx to Deon for his input!