Sometimes, Timing is Everything

Have you ever been on one of those Sales Calls where you were just "In the Zone"? Nothing could go wrong, no objection was to difficult, the right people were present, your presentation was perfect and the deal just kept getting bigger?

I was "In the Zone"! The room was full and there were more on the conference line from around the globe. We all shook hands and agreed to the follow up actions items (most of them were mine). I thought we had just landed one of the largest accounts in the Mountain States.

I went back to the (home) office and proceeded to make calls and bang out emails attaching reference customer contact info and setting up a test plan that just could not fail. I sent out White Papers and Case Studies. After all that work I put in a follow up call and sent a thank you card.

Days and then weeks went by with almost no response from this key account. When I finally made contact I got the cold-shoulder treatment and was told that they were just too busy with other projects right now and would not be able to take a look at my product until next year. :(

What a let down! A complete Crash and Burn! I had been sidelined, benched and then asked to leave the stadium.

I occasionally shot a note over and called the prospect, but never got more than a one sentence reply that he still did not have time to take another look.

Last week...the next year mark, I began the full-court press again, calling on key partners and contacts to get me back in to that key account. Success! We had a meeting. The partner however, kept warning me that the reception was going to be luke-warm at best and perhaps even frigid. I expected the worst.

When we arrived, we were escorted to a medium sized conference room and told to sit tight. There were 2-3 people already in the room. As we got settled, a few more showed up, then more and finally we ran out of chairs. We were asked to recap what we had discussed last time and give a basic overview of our solution for the new people. As soon as we got in to the meat of the presentation, more people filed in and we had standing room only. Questions were flying and we were challenged on a few statements asking for more information. The pace was fast and furious with people from all relevant areas of the company present. Along the way we figured out that the customer's pain had reached critical mass and timing was much better than last time. It had suddenly moved up the priority list of things to address.

I have since followed up as I always do with a definite plan and plan on making the call today to make sure we are still on track. More to follow........