It finally happened, my first 6-figure deal closed. Today I want to tell you the story behind it, especially regarding the sales process.
It actually started with a cold call about 7-8 months ago when I called a director. The timing seemed right and there were early indications that our solution could solve their pain.
Having already qualified well in the cold call, and knowing that I was talking to the right person and that it was a reputable company, I took a technical specialist straight into the first formal call. It was a combination of qualification call and a product demo. Everything seemed to fit perfectly and we agreed on the next steps.
Despite clear next steps, the prospect went underground. Completely ghosted, submerged like a submarine. Numerous phone calls (and mails) went unanswered.
Just as my prospect suddenly went dark, he resurfaced two months later. With a clear plan, knowing exactly what the solution would be and how we would proceed.
Since the solution I am selling needs professional services to be tested/set up, we developed a scope for a proof of concept together. At the same time, I was at an important trade show for my company where a technical director from the same company was present (my contact was from the business unit, the company has a matrix structure) and said in conversation that it was out of the question that the topic we wanted to implement together in the proof of concept would be given out of the company’s hands. Of course, I didn’t tell them about my previous engagements, but after this statement, I had my doubts. Our engineering department, especially our VP of Product, had even more doubts than I did. There was a great fear that internal knowledge could be tapped as part of a “cheap” POC.
When my boss, the VP of Sales, also started to have second thoughts, it looked like the deal would be lost. After some difficult, honest, conversations with my prospect and the team, we better understood why they wanted to work with us instead of building internally. A short time later, however, we received the devastating news that the problem we were trying to solve was actually being addressed by the internal engineering team… Was this the death of the project?
No, or I wouldn’t be writing this post. I sat down with my prospect, with whom I had developed a very good relationship, and considered whether our solution could solve another problem. In fact, we found an alternative use case that was completely new territory for my company and would require significant customization.
The next hurdle was not on the customer side, but internally. My boss and the VP of Product refused to give me approval for the POC because of the high technical risk and the fear that the POC would be used to copy our solution. Ironically, I got informed about this on Christmas.
However, because I had developed such a good relationship with my prospect and he had told me at least three times why he wanted to work with us on this, and because I could see the incredible potential in the account, I went to our CEO on my holiday to present the case. He allowed me to re-evaluate the case with the wider group and I was given the go-ahead on the condition that we speak to the economic buyer (=CxO) before the POC starts, to get to know her decision criteria better and have a common understanding of price after the POC. This was possible thanks to the good relationship with my champion.
The rest was relatively straightforward on the sales side, but more complicated on the engineering side. In the end, however, we completed the POC with maximum success and clearly measurable results, which made the decision easy. The price we offered was exceptionally fair for both parties, which made the process very smooth.
All in all, an incredible success for me and a deal I really fought for. In reality, the deal was much more complicated in many places, which I have left out for the sake of simplicity (my contact person changed, the fact that I bypassed my boss and our VP of Product led to lasting problems during and after the deal, etc.).
At this point, I would also like to add that during the POV we gained a completely new understanding of our USPs as a company and realised why our solution cannot simply be replicated.
What was your best deal so far?