Sales people love to recount stories of their amazing sales prowess.

My favorites involve the theme of uncovering true needs that were not on the prospect’s radar prior to the conversation. Anyone has a fair shot at providing a solution for a known problem. Solving a problem that is unknown to the prospect, but provides real value can be exponentially harder.

Harder still is finding a sales person willing to honestly acknowledge the times when they came up short.

Since I am of the opinion that keeping a stumble to myself prevents others from learning from it, I’ll share a recent experience of the less than flattering kind.

I met a gentleman at a conference and had a very brief discussion about his product. It was late on the  final day of the conference and I suspect we both acknowledged feeling a bit of mental overload. We agreed to follow up in a week or two and see if the services that my company offers would be of benefit.

So far, so good.

The next week we exchanged an email or two and set up a time to meet in person. I spent some time getting to know his product and felt pretty good as I entered prospect’s office for our scheduled meeting.

Sadly, that feeling of ignorant bliss stayed with me for the next 25 minutes, or so, as I was given a tour of the facility and detailed overview of the prospect’s products and promotional methods. I likely missed the repeated and obvious clues that I was not meeting the prospect’s expectations because I was truly perplexed. Identifying a clear opportunity for the service that my firm provides to be of benefit to the prospect usually comes easily to me. In this case, I unwittingly found myself stalling as I tried desperately to work out a viable solution to present to the prospect. Not only was I struggling to define a value-added solution, I was also unable to build a case to disqualify this prospect.

Simply put, what this prospect needs is not a perfect match for our standard offerings, but it clearly overlaps with some of our core competencies and key strengths. It would not surprise me if the ideal solution does not currently exists in the market, as this prospect is dealing with cutting edge products and requires an innovative solution.

What brought me to my senses was a very direct, and incredibly appreciated, statement from the prospect that went something like this: “Either tell me about your company and what you can do for me, or this is going to be a very short meeting.”
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that this is most sales people’s nightmare scenario. Overwhelmed, feeling underprepared, caught off guard by a blunt acknowledgement that failure is directly in your path.
My moment of extreme adversity had arrived.
 
I thanked the prospect, acknowledged that I was unable to provide the recommendation that I had hoped would become obvious to me as he revealed his business situation, and offered that we adjust the expectation for this meeting. Instead of the original goal of determining if my firm would be able to help promote the prospect’s product, the new goal would be for me to gather all the info needed for the leadership team at my firm to brainstorm potential solutions to the prospects innovative problems. Clearly, this is not what either of us had hoped for, but what options were there?

•    Conceded defeat and leave with my tail between my legs? An unattractive option since there may be an opportunity to help this prospect.

•    Shoehorn this prospect’s business into the standard offerings that my firm provides? I am certain that this would have resulted in an even quicker and unsatisfactory end to the conversation.

Curious how this story ends?
Me too!

I expect to work through the potential solutions with my firm’s leadership team soon, and go back to the prospect with either a proposal that is viable and will provide real value, or an acknowledgement that we are not well suited to help, accompanied by my sincere thanks for the opportunity.

What did I learn?
1)    It pays to be receptive to the cues and clues that prospects present, and ready to adjust my goals when presented with a puzzle that I can’t solve on the spot.
2)    Sometimes feedback that might sound harsh is the most valuable feedback one can receive.

What sales lessons have you learned the hard way?