{"id":455,"date":"2006-06-26T01:00:55","date_gmt":"2006-06-26T09:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=455"},"modified":"2006-05-21T14:40:25","modified_gmt":"2006-05-21T22:40:25","slug":"when-to-walk-away-from-a-sale-the-vendor-side-of-vendor-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"When to Walk Away from a Sale: The Vendor Side of Vendor Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Donald Glade<\/a> has been tackling vendor management, an article in “the CEO Refresher<\/a>”\u00a0 ((McLaughlin, Michael W.\u00a0 “When to Walk Away From a Sale:\u00a0 Nine Pivotal Questions.”\u00a0 Retrieved from www.refresher.com on May 21, 2006.)) caught my eye when I noticed some pointers on when a vendor should disengage with a prospect.\u00a0 Check out the article link above to see the original author’s point of view.<\/p>\n

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  1. Can the client clearly articulate the objectives and anticipated benefits of the project?<\/strong>\u00a0 As I’ve mentioned when talking about implementations<\/a>, the success of the project is often not determined by the vendor.\u00a0 If the client really has not developed and articulated a detailed vision of what they want, chances are that they don’t really have a detailed vision.\u00a0 Without this, the project should be delayed – smart vendors will see and do this.<\/li>\n
  2. Is the project funded?<\/strong>\u00a0 Sounds like a silly question?\u00a0 Sometimes you’re dealing with slush funds – if a VP has an extra $50K to spend on a benefits project, go for it.\u00a0 However, if you’re looking at implementing SAP HR, aks to see of the budget has been approved first.<\/li>\n
  3. What consultant-selection process is in place?<\/strong>\u00a0 Is there anything worse for a vendor than to invest many hours in a project they have no chance of winning?\u00a0 Often incumbants with established relationships are either brought in to bid, but have such a poor reputation they have no chance, or non-incumbants are bidding and can’t unseat an incumbant who has excellent service.\u00a0 Many purchasing departments will drive multi-vendor searches even though the selection has unofficially already taken place.\u00a0 If you are a vendor, have a discussion with the prospect – often they will be up-front, and if you (as a vendor) can show partnership early in the bid process, you might walk away with the door open just a crack.<\/li>\n
  4. Who is really calling the shots?<\/strong>\u00a0 This is actually a multi-layered question.\u00a0 First and foremost, are you as a vendor talking to the right person?\u00a0 Has a VP requested a search, and you’re stuck talking to the project manager or director left in charge?\u00a0 If so, getting to the real buyer to understand the strategic rationale for the change is critical.\u00a0 You’ll want to sell to their desires, not the perceived desires of the director or project manager left in charge.<\/li>\n
  5. Is an incumbent consultant bidding on the project?<\/strong>\u00a0 As an addition to #4, often the incumbant or one of your competitors is not only biding on the project, but they actually wrote the RFP.\u00a0 If they were smart, they wrote it so they would look great and you would look like an amateur.\u00a0 It’s also possible that they as incumbants have done more due diligence about the project than you have, giving them an unfair advantage.<\/li>\n
  6. Can your firm really deliver the benefits?<\/strong>\u00a0 This seems obvious, but the art of walking away to maintain future opportunities, or walking away having uncovered a different opportunity you can deliver on is important to learn.\u00a0 If your service or product is “crap” they’ll never use you again.\u00a0 Oftentimes, this first project is just to test the waters before spending the real money.\u00a0 Keep the door open for the real money, even if it means walking away temporarily.<\/li>\n
  7. What are the opportunity costs?<\/strong>\u00a0 Sometimes you just don’t have time – either to bid, or to eventually do the work.\u00a0 If you could be spending your time on a highly probably deal worth ten times more, weigh your decisions and spend the time where it has the probablility of greatest returns.\u00a0 Also, if you have a paying client now, don’t sacrifice the quality of that work to bid on something you may not get.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The art of walking away from a deal is often incredibly difficult.\u00a0 As salespeople, we often want to see every oportunity optomistically.\u00a0 Tactically, this is efficient and may be unproductive.\u00a0 While sales is more of an art than a science, evaluating probabilities of sales is also a qualitative art.\u00a0 Listenting to the buyers and understanding the signals thet tell you if you are a real contender, or just a bidder they need at the table will keep you from wasting time in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since Donald Glade has been tackling vendor management, an article in “the CEO Refresher”\u00a0 ((McLaughlin, Michael W.\u00a0 “When to Walk Away From a Sale:\u00a0 Nine Pivotal Questions.”\u00a0 Retrieved from www.refresher.com on May 21, 2006.)) caught my eye when I noticed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vendor-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}