Brian LaManna says write down the two or three reasons you'll lose the deal before your first call, then attack those risks head-on. One common risk: you're only talking to a manager when you need the VP or CRO. He shares the exact phrasing to loop in higher-level stakeholders if the conversation goes well.
Chapters
Here's something really atypical that I do every single sales cycle and I do it before my very first call. I write out the two or three most likely reasons why I'm going to lose that deal. And you heard it correct why I will lose that deal. Now the reason why I write those out, I'm not being negative, I'm not being pessimistic. I want to be aware of where there's risk at fort from my pre call prep and my research. And then I want to go attack that risk head on before I have that first conversation and I get in front of where a lot of that risk is. I'll give an example of that. Say that my first meeting is with a manager of sales. But I know that typically to close a deal I need to be at the VP of sales level or even the Chief Revenue Officer. As an example, I might write out as one of my reasons I'm not yet at power in this deal, I'm only at the manager level. That's a reason why I might lose the deal if I can't work my way up and get someone like the vice president involved in a conversation as well. Now how I'm going to go attack that in the call is I'm not going to be rude about it or say, oh, you're only the manager level or oh, it's part of our process. We win more deals when we get the VP involved. I'm just going to work it into the upfront contract before the call and say, hey, if this call goes well today, let's set up a greater demo with yourself as well as Karen, your VP of sales, to get her unique perspective in addition to yours. So I'm going to plant that seed up front and then once I crush the call at the very end, I'm going to say, hey, are you open to a recommendation? Yes. Awesome. I would make the recommendation that we set up a greater demo and we loop in yourself as well as Karen to get her unique perspective. How can we work together to get that scheduled? That's what it's all about when you're writing out some of those reasons of why you'll lose the deal. And they could be unique to every deal. They could be unique to every industry you're working, which Persona you're targeting. So just be realistic and don't be afraid to take that risk head on.
