Deal Break Up Calls and What to Do...

We all remember the deals we lost more than the ones we've won. I can still recall the shock from some deals that fizzled out. I thought I did everything right... what the hell happened? And what do I do now?!

Some sellers go for the hard sell.. Dig in and flex that alpha dog inside of you. Let's open up the selling thrusters and start blasting them with value props. Or worse yet, you offer a huge discount in one last desperate attempt to keep the deal alive.

So what do you do? Great question. Here is my first piece of advice…. Stay calm. Deals die. It happens. I once watched my entire sales pipeline disappear overnight when COVID 19 happened. On another occasion I’ve lost two 6 figure deals in the span of 24 hours. My point is we’ve all been there. It’s just part of the process.

Once you get the bad news you want to get as much info as you can. Your primary goal is to understand where this account truly falls. Remember the bucket system? That’s what you are trying to determine. This is going to become a dead opp so where do I label it? Is it an AE targeted Tier 1, 2 or 3 account.

Here are some examples of breakup statements and what to do…

Your competitor does X and you don’t….

OK, missing features or lack of understanding about how you approach that. I want to understand how this feature is important to them and what the value impact is to the organization. I’m also going to confirm who that is MOST important for.

Now I should’ve gotten this earlier in my evaluation but sometimes a buyer will bring it up out of nowhere. Again, not a problem… just understand the gap, why it’s important and to who.

From there I could offer a call with the product team to speak about when this is available. I could get an exec alignment call setup to build confidence around this as well as other solutions our platform offers. The point being is who is my resource to plug that gap and can I get that call setup.

In a pinch, you could commit this lack of feature to a contract or it voids but no one likes this. You can’t recognize the ARR, risk churn as well as throw off the product team’s dev calendar.

Get the info and see if the opp can be saved or if it’s a Tier 2 opp to tackle down the road.

We couldn’t get the spend approved

This one hurts. The reason being is that you should have validated this earlier but you didn’t… the train left the station long ago. Ok, so now what?

We need to clarify the budget cycle and how they have bought software in the past. Once that is done I want to confirm who the executive is that this budget falls under. I’m going to try and connect my contacts with that exec later… but assuming they won’t jump on a call then I want to know which people I’m going to target in follow ups.

In some other scenarios you can get creative with contracts. Billing in the arrear is one example… meaning you send the bill at the end of the contract rather than the start of it. You can also stagger payments for different invoicing amounts if needed.

What I like about this is if you offer it up you can still recognize the ARR, you aren’t discounting unnecessarily and you are testing how good your champion is. If they are willing to go to bat for the deal then you know that you have a fantastic champion.

If you don’t get the deal on this turn then you’ll more than likely get it on the next. Make a friend for life here to get your deal in the future (plus more if they move on). The point is that it could be a simple hurdle of budget availability so you can eliminate that obstacles with some creativity.

You are too expensive and we don’t want to pay that much

Bad to hear but not terrible. The BIGGEST thing in this scenario is that you know 1) you are too low and need to get higher in the org and 2) you need to review your business case to make sure the ROI outweighs the cost.

The best move is to have both of these ready to go when you are getting on a decision call (just in case). If it comes up then you can lean on your ROI and attempt a call higher up.

If you still get a “no” then exec outreach is the move. CEO to CEO emails are incredibly powerful and because they exist in the same “club” you can usually get an answer. Title loves title.

What you are really protecting against here is discounting unnecessarily. That is the potential trap being set. Rather than take the bait you can lean on your business case and get the higher ups talking. If your champion is good with that then there is a high probability the “too expensive” objection is real.

If they don’t want to proceed forward then you can conclude that your contact hasn’t built a good case internally.  Furthermore, they don’t want to risk their credibility internally by going to bat for you.

Or if they were just looking for a discount then you can cut through the BS and have that conversation. If you do GET commitment to sign…. I’ve gone as far as keeping the buyer on the phone while they click through the Docusign. You can twist this objection to your advantage.

At the end of the day we want to be smart about our deals, opportunity management and future opportunities. How you manage each opp is very important. Be prepared, organized and calm on the call. Try to work the problem logically.

If they don’t work and you still lose the deal then re-tier those deals for future followups. Additionally, you’ve joined the club of lost deals. The war stories behind them will be invaluable to you in the future.