The quid pro quo in Sales

Darkness

Evaluating options

Thus, it was time to send another email to the client and the response was "we are still evaluating our options".  Okay, so the typical response should be?  I used "I understand the need for options, can you tell me what your other option(s) are?  A few minutes passed and the response was what I thought it would be, they are looking at another device from a another vendor.

Ah Ha Moment

It was a few minutes until it clicked and thus I knew exactly what was going on.....the new IT Director brought in a competitor for a price check.  I'm thinking from his previous gig since he was the new IT Director.  I can't blame him for that and this can happen whenever we encounter a new Decision Maker. It's common that they will want to make a splash and raise the flag to show the owner/director that they saved them money by moving to a new vendor/manufacturer.

Buyers Can Be Liars

I'm too old to get upset when something like this happens, heck I've been on the other end of this when my DM moves to another account and brings me in.  However what I'm not a fan the deceit that he perpetuated with the comment that they wanted to see if we could give them a month to month on the maintenance agreement that was due to renew.

quid pro quo

I was able to flush him out with a series of covenants that I added to giving in to his request for the month to month maintenance agreement.  Meaning he gives me a copy of the current proposal and or allows me to match the price. In addition if I match the price that he will move forward with our proposal.  Seems he did not like this and replied that he is no longer interest in the month to month for the maintenance agreement from us (email response)  Yes, he never told that he ordered from the other vendor (I believe he did).  Something like this should always raise a red flag to all of us when a new DM comes in and asks for something that is out of the norm.

The IT Director knew exactly what he was doing.  He needed to buy some time because  he couldn't get the replacement copiers for some time, thus the reason for asked for the month to month.

Just thought this might help others when something like this comes up. Curious to hear from others if you've had something like this happen also.

-=Good Selling=-