It happened again.
You were teed up for an early planning session with the agency team responsible for a prized account. Or perhaps you were at the final stages of a foundational deal or partnership. The operative word in both sentences is were.
Change happens quickly and then rolls downhill even faster. The key client contact leaves the company. The account goes into review and soon pivots to a new agency. Or it could be that the agency team that’s come to know and love you so well simply pivots off the business. Brakes are pumped, delays are announced, and priorities and budgets are reset. Even upfront agreements and spending guarantees are easily suspended, especially in this age of the Endeavor. So, what to do when (not if) this happens to you?
Ounce of Prevention. It sounds like second-guessing to ask what kind of contingency plan you’ve got in place. You may not have one on the business that’s flipping, but it’s perfect time to set one up for the other deals you’ve got in the pipeline. Find one senior exec on each pipeline account – call them your truth-teller – and ask if you can call on them for guidance should there be any unforeseen account transitions. This may not sound like much, but it will mean the world to have this understanding in place when the time comes.
Gather Evidence. The new client contact came from somewhere. Her work history and self-description on LinkedIn (Storyteller? Results-driven marketer?) will let you know a lot about her orientation and – possibly – her expectations. That new agency that won the business? What do they say about themselves on their website? What does their past record of buying or creative behavior tell you?
What’s Essential in the Transition? The client business still needs to function and customers still need to be reached. Don’t just ask questions about timing of new budgets and plans: everybody’s asking and there are no good answers. Instead, proactively outline your own hierarchy of account needs and create a bridge plan for the customer. What you’re essentially saying is: We know that current plans have been disrupted and we want to be a source of help and continuity during this transition. Here’s how…”
Be Specific with Your Bridge Plan: It’s not about recouping your full deal. You’re offering service to build trust and connection with the customer at a challenging time. You’re staying productively and proactively engaged at a time when your competitors are mostly just asking when the money’s going to start flowing again. So don’t settle for We’re here if you need us. Instead go for We took the liberty of creating this interim program to keep your business healthy during this transition. If you have the flexibility to offer some relief on rates or relaxation on policies, all the better. The client will remember that you were the ones who showed up to work when times were tough.
Will you end up seeing any interim revenue? Will these steps rescue your original buy? Can’t say. But the choice between proactive service and worried helplessness ought to be an easy call. Treat this current disruption as just one chapter in the relationship – as an opportunity to serve – and you’ll be making its foundation stronger. And how can that be a bad idea?
Original illustration by Eric Sands.
You are shooting yourself in the foot and it’s clouding your vision, mucking up your forecasts and making your sales cycle longer and more unstable. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are three self-inflicted wounds that can be fatal to your win-rate, but that are also easily corrected.
This afternoon in San Francisco a man named John Durham died after many years of serious health problems. Those are the facts, but not the story. To those of us who knew and loved him so much, he was THE DURHAM: a life force, a gentle soul, a fantastic dresser and a terrible speller. In short, he was THE DURHAM. To his friends, no explanation is necessary. To those who were never touched by him, no explanation is possible.
I wrote this post about the value of attention a few years ago, pre-pandemic and pre-Zoom. Lightly-edited, it seems even more relevant now. Making others feel fully-attended earns us their attention in return. Read on.
Last week I used this space to share several of the leading themes from Write this Down: Memes and Metaphors for a Better Life in Sales, a book that I've begun working on. This week, a few more, including some challenging advice for both managers, individual contributors and their fellow humans from many walks of life.
I've been outlining a book that will be called Write this Down: Memes and Metaphors for a Better Life in Sales. Since fleshing out the book will take a while longer, I've decided to share many of the aforementioned Memes and Metaphors across the next few posts of The Drift. Read on, comment, share, push back and apply them to your own life in sales.
Five years ago, P&G CMO Marc Pritchard called bullshit on the digital supply chain and challenged us to get our house in order. I’ll make it even simpler. Tell the truth. Sell real stuff. Clean up after yourself. Leave the place a little better than how you found it. Create confidence. Now Google and Apple have done us all a favor. They not only locked the door to the digital funhouse; they pretty much burned the place down. What we build now is up to us. I hope we build back better.
While erstwhile sellers may never actually come out and say "Please don't buy anything from me today," these anti-selling clichés may be the next best -- or worst -- thing.
For teams conditioned to their managers spitting out answers and directives, this approach is going to feel strange at first. The VIP manager is forcing strategic thinking and deeper context into decision making that’s too often situational, transactional and unscalable. VIP management will slow down the moments while simultaneously speeding up the growth of your team.
For exactly a year now, each day, without leaving home, we look into the faces of dozens of industry execs: we share meaningful phone calls with managers working to better lead and care for their teams. On a dime, and on a shoestring, we’ve pivoted into the fourth complete reinvention of our company. And we’ve spent this year on earth making a difference for good people. Who's luckier than we are?
The truth is, we’re still mostly interviewing the way we did in 2015 – and 2005 and 1995 – and it has nothing to do with the pandemic or Zoom. Our perspective on talent is compromised not because we are now hiring within the frame of a Zoom screen. It’s because we’ve always used a flawed lens to frame candidates.
The person you’re speaking to right now… the work in front of you… today… the next hour. These are the only reality we can truly impact. Look past them and you’ll lose the only resource that can never be replaced: The moment.
Without a disruptive strategy to get the January conversation, you’re just another player hanging around the rim waiting for a rebound. You deserve better. So grab the ball and take your shots.