It’s All Part of the Dance

“Legal has some issues with your contract.”

“Your price is too high, and you need to sharpen your pencil or we can’t give you the business.”

“We have some concerns about your solution, the implementation, and the transition.”

You worked hard to build an opportunity. You have done the work to deserve to win the business. Now, in the eleventh hour, your dream client has issues or concerns. You are now confronted with something that seriously threatens your deal.

It’s stressful. Your imagination runs wild. You are certain that your deal is slipping from your grasp. You imagine all the ways that your deal might be lost, and you can already feel the pain that accompanies that loss.

Stop. Don’t Panic. It’s all part of the dance.

Issues Equal Deals

How many deals have you won that didn’t come with issues or challenges? My hallucination is that the answer is “not many.”

The issues and challenges usually spring up late in the buying cycle because that is when your dream client is working to resolve their concerns. While these issues are stressful to you because they indicate risk, they also indicate that you are getting closer to winning your deal.

The Music Starts. You Dance.

If you don’t have issues, you aren’t working deals. Your opportunities come with challenges and obstacles. Part of what we do to create value for our clients and for our companies is to help them navigate these issues. We are resourceful and we find a way through these obstacles.

They take a step left. You take a step right. And soon, you’re dancing.

There are always going to be legal issues. There are always going to be pricing issues. There are always going to be problems, challenges, and concerns around your solution and your execution. Your dream clients are going to throw these kinds of challenges your way, and there are always going to be obstacles. Your company is even going to sometimes find a way to create its own obstacles to a deal.

All of these challenges and issues, as stressful as they are, are part of the dance. You have to take all of these issues seriously, but you must also remember that you’re just dancing. You have to be resourceful and overcome the issues. You have to negotiate. If you weren’t dancing, you wouldn’t have a deal.

Engage. Dance.