Chapter 16
Reaching a Win-Win Solution
IN THIS CHAPTER
Beginning with the definition and benefits of a win-win
Talking about price during the process
Providing support to secure buy-in
Focusing on the bigger picture
In Chapter 11, I introduce the importance of establishing a win-win as you structure a deal, and in this chapter I provide additional guidance. A win-win is the Holy Grail in sales negotiation, but it shouldn’t be as hard to achieve as the Holy Grail has been to find.
Achieving a win-win solution requires both you and your prospect to have the right mindset as the discussions and deal progress. If you’ve achieved this from the beginning of the sales cycle, then you have a good chance of carrying it through to completion. If you both can keep all cards on the table throughout the sales cycle, you have a good chance of securing a win-win solution. Avoiding an adversarial sales cycle is usually in everyone’s best interest, so if you and your prospect can keep this philosophy in mind, there is almost no limit to the benefits that you can gain.
If one of you is seeking to beat the other, your chances of reaching a win-win are zero; you can’t enter discussions with a selfish mindset, because this creates a negative buying experience for your prospect. In this case, you’re unlikely to win a deal at all, let alone a win-win. Equally, you need to avoid any attempt by your prospect to take you to the cleaners — that is, winning every possible concession from you and leaving you wondering what happened.
Defining a Win-Win Solution and Its Benefits
You achieve a win-win solution when both parties — you and your prospect — consider that all the needs have been met with a little give and take but that neither of you have had to back down on any major points, dealing with any obstacles encountered along the way in a professional, solution-oriented manner. (Flip to Chapter 10 for more about overcoming objections.) You both have a good feeling about the solution and are happy to act as a reference for the other. No feelings of buyer’s remorse exist, and the sales team feels no euphoria for having won a deal and scored some points in the process.
Simply stated, with a win-win solution, both you and your prospect have mutual gain; both of you have achieved your primary objectives without feeling that you had to make unreasonable or unnecessary sacrifices to get it.
The following sections explore the benefits of a win-win from two viewpoints: your company’s and your customer’s.
One way to look at a win-win solution is to consider slices of a cake: If you each have equal portions, then you’ve achieved a win-win. But if one party has more or wants more of the cake, then the solution is out of balance, and a win-win has not been achieved.
From your company’s viewpoint
Your company will benefit significantly if you’re able to get a prospect into a win-win situation, for a number of reasons:
- Happy client: Having a happy client makes life much easier for your finance and administration functions as well as for your colleagues who are tasked with implementing the solution. A spirit of cooperation and ownership of the solution should prevail and make it easier to get implementation-specific decisions made and signed off faster.
- Margins maintained: A win-win solution will have protected your profit margins, so you’ll be a hero with your finance department. (Well, hero may be overstating it a little, but they’ll be quietly pleased and relieved that you haven’t given away the company silver because their view of sales tends to be when margins are under threat.)
- Referenceable: Having a referenceable client is great news for marketing who can get straight to work on case studies and arranging for press coverage as well as having a new reference site for you and your new business sales colleagues to make use of.
Conflict eliminated: Perhaps the biggest gain for your company from a win-win solution is that it eliminates conflict right from the very beginning of a client-supplier relationship, giving the best opportunity for a smooth implementation and making life easier and more pleasant for all your colleagues who come in contact with the new client.
From the buyer’s viewpoint
As far as your prospect is concerned, as long as he’s been open and honest with you through the sales cycle, seeking a win-win solution can only be good news. However, you need to be a little cautious until you’re certain that no game playing is going on first. (Have a look at Chapter 13 for details.)
A win-win solution for your prospect becoming a client delivers some real benefits:
- Needs met: Having his needs met is fairly obvious as a benefit, but getting to that stage as part of a win-win solution sets up the implementation phase to be much easier to cope with as he already knows that you are on his side and will do whatever is needed to make the project successful.
- Comfortable price point: As part of achieving a win-win solution, by definition, the price point at which your prospect bought into your solution is one that sits comfortably with him. He doesn’t feel that he’s been fleeced, and he should generally accept that he’s getting value for his money. (If you encounter issues, though, see the next section.)
- Some concessions gained: Inevitably, the new client will have gained some concessions from you in reaching a win-win solution.
- Avoiding buyer’s remorse: Buyer’s remorse is a widely accepted cognitive reaction after making an expensive purchase and is associated with fear of having made the wrong choice and a suspicion over having been unduly influenced by the salesperson. Helping your new client achieve a win-win solution will dramatically cut down and may completely eliminate this reaction.
Addressing Price as You Seek a Win-Win
Any number of factors will ultimately make up the components of a win-win solution, and price, although just one of them, is generally seen as the big stumbling block. The reality here is that if the price point that either you or your prospect needs to hit is really nonnegotiable and if price is a real issue, then the chances of achieving a win-win are next to nonexistent.
You can avoid getting into this position in the first place by addressing price and affordability as part of the qualifying process early in the sales cycle (see Chapters 9 and 19 for more details). If you do, you’ll know whether price is an issue and should be able to position the deal around that sticking point or be prepared to walk away (as explained in Chapters 10 and 20), knowing that the deal can’t happen.
If you still get into a situation where price is a sticking point as you seek to put the deal in place, then the only option you have left is compromise (see Chapter 11 for guidance). At this point, you need a degree of transparency on both sides. If neither party feels manipulated into a deal, then you can resolve the situation, and a win-win is still possible; otherwise, it will only lead to resentment. And although a deal may be done, the relationship has been damaged, which will lead to further issues as time progresses.
As a new business salesperson, your focus shouldn’t be on getting a deal at any cost, which I address in Chapter 11. Even the most novice of prospects can spot a desperate new business salesperson, and if you’re willing to give up anything to achieve a sale, expect to be taken to the cleaners. In this case, the chances of a win-win are nonexistent, and the chances of a deal actually happening are also remote. You always have the option of walking away. If the need is real and your solution really is the best, then the chances are high that your prospect will return to the table and find a way past his issues. If not, then your qualification was faulty.
This reminds me of a situation I faced a few years ago when a key prospect was giving all the correct buying signals, and I had qualified need, affordability, decision-making authority, demographics — in fact, all the qualification was fine — and a deal looked likely, until the prospect decided to ask for another opinion from a “business friend” who worked in a different sector and knew nothing about my solution. I wasn’t even able to speak to him and only ever knew his first name. The friend, no doubt trying to be helpful, insisted on some key changes to our contract, specifically payment terms, if the deal was to go ahead. This change became of paramount importance to my prospect and got in the way not only of a win-win but of the entire deal. I walked away, half expecting him to ditch the friend’s advice and come back, but he didn’t, and no deal was ever reached. I tell this story to illustrate that things don’t always go according to plan, but as affordability had become an issue, this prospect failed the qualification anyway, and I wouldn’t have signed a contract under those circumstances.
As you can see, a win-win solution isn’t always possible, and you need to recognize that fact. This doesn’t mean that no deal is possible, however. The nature of your solution may exclude any chance of a win-win if it’s a must-have solution, for example, or on occasion when dealing with professional buyers who have their own agenda. I cover this in Chapter 13 in more detail.
To achieve a win-win, both you and your prospect must want to do so, and if you’re selling to a business where the prospect is just going through the buying motions with no real engagement in the solution, then you’re likely wasting your time even trying to get a win-win, so just close the deal on the best terms that you can.
Securing and Extending Your Client’s Buy-in with Support
You’ve presented your solution and demonstrated how it meets the stated needs that your prospect defined, you’ve dealt with any objections and qualified all the way through the sales cycle, and you’re now ready to get the order. Sometimes your prospect may surprise you by saying he’s ready to sign the order, but most of the time you’ll need to assertively and politely ask for it (I provide pointers on how to do so in Chapter 13).
The first step to asking for the order is to understand where your prospect is in terms of his company hierarchy and understand the pressures that he’s under to deliver a working solution to the problem. Your job is to be on his team and to act as a resource in helping him address any issues, physical or political, that stand between you and a win-win solution. Your new client will be much more motivated to help you achieve a win-win if you’re there for him to provide support and guidance and to troubleshoot where necessary.
Your prospect has a big investment in your solution if he’s recommended it internally and can’t afford to be seen to have any doubts and certainly not to fail to deliver. Although you’ll likely hand over day-to-day control at the implementation phase to a colleague, you need to retain ownership of the solution and be available to your new client as the project progresses for two distinct reasons:
- To act as a member of his support team, always being available to discuss any issues and to provide support to him: In building the relationship with your prospect, you’re not looking to become best buddies with him, but you are seeking to build a solid, trusting, and professional relationship where you can assist each other both now and in the future.
To always be on the lookout for additional sales opportunities, both from your new client and from his professional network: Your new client is the most important contact you have at the moment a sale concludes, and you need to take the necessary time to build him up in his own eyes and his colleagues’ eyes. Time invested wisely after the deal closes will return dividends in the form of additional business and referrals, almost without exception. Your client is your internal champion and can be the gatekeeper to additional sales opportunities both within his company and within his wider network.
You don’t need to be, nor should you be, subservient, and the relationship you’ve built doesn’t change; it just moves to a new level of mutual support. Your client is never wrong but may occasionally be misguided, and your role is to keep him on track and on message.
Enjoying Longer-Term Success
The essence of reaching a win-win solution is much more than getting a deal over the line, booking the revenue against target, and collecting a nice commission check. Achieving a win-win solution with your new client is the starting point to a longer-term relationship both with you and with your company. Your initial job is to bring in the business in terms of a sale on the optimal terms and to ensure that your company is well positioned to take advantage of other opportunities, but as you find out in the following sections, you need to build on that professional relationship to ensure longer-term success in sales for yourself. In addition, retaining a client is significantly less expensive for your company than winning a new one, and that responsibility is one you share with colleagues in other functions.
The new business sales role is not just about securing a single deal. In this book, I discuss the need to always be qualifying and on the lookout for new business opportunities. The biggest cost in sales is in winning a new client. So if you can secure a win-win solution, then you’re part of the way to getting a payback on that initial investment, safe in the knowledge that as long as you and your colleagues deliver the solution, then additional business should follow.
Focusing on the bigger picture
In your focus on the bigger picture, you obviously need to consider the size and market position of your prospect: Is he in a position now, or could he be in the future, to need more of your services over time? The answer is always yes because you don’t know what may happen further down the line in terms of mergers, acquisitions, or organic growth.
One of the first new business deals I concluded was with a small business with a turnover of less than $500,000 and a staff of around six to eight people, including some part-time staff. Over 15 years, it grew organically to become a sector leader with a turnover of approaching $10 million and a head count of more than 100 people. My original solution worked well for this company, and I was quickly seen as an integral part of its business and the first port of call when anything new was needed. An initial contract worth around $500 grew over the years into a million-dollar account.
Did I know that would happen? No. If I hadn’t built a solid relationship and ensured a successful implementation, would I have been able to win a massive amount of business from this company over a 15-year period? No. Does this happen all the time? Sadly no, but you never know when it may, so keep an eye on the bigger picture.
You need to consider not only the revenue and profit from the deal you’re working on but also the cost of client acquisition and the lifetime value of a client.
Losing the battle but winning the war
In the dark days of the Second World War, General De Gaulle, future president of the French Republic, was quoted on propaganda posters that appeared around the country as saying, “La France a perdu une bataille! Mais la France n’a pas perdu la guerre!” which is literally translated as “France has lost a battle! But France has not lost the war!” New business sales isn’t in the same league by any stretch of the imagination, but the sentiment is important to take on board.
You can’t expect to win every deal that you chase, and you can’t expect to win every objection or every negotiation within a sales cycle. There’s another party to consider — your prospect, whom you’re building a relationship with — so you do need to let some things go if they’re not significant enough to impact the overall deal or compromise the solution. Stick to your principles on major points, and don’t concede on these, but on issues that don’t have a great impact on your solution or getting the deal done, you can concede without fear of compromising the end result. (Have a look at Chapters 3, 7, 10, and 11 for more information.)
Just as a war is made up of many battles, a sales cycle is made up of many head-to-head issues, and you may need to concede a few to secure the end result of winning the deal. Nobody likes a smart aleck who insists on being right all the time, so eat a bit of humble pie occasionally and let your prospect enjoy his victory.
You don’t want to be seen as someone who steamrolls his prospects and gains a Pyrrhic victory — a victory that inflicts such a heavy toll that it’s tantamount to defeat for you in that you never win anything else from him or his network of contacts as the price of dealing with you is too heavy. Do this even once, and you’re finished in new business sales.