The Anatomy of a Million Dollar Deal

After four years of pursuing this client, I finally got a leader to take my call. I asked him why we had never had a chance to meet with them. He asked me what our markup was, and I said it was 40 percent. He said the markup had to have a 3 before the rest of the markup. I said does 39 work and he decided to give us an opportunity. I went into the building and watched my competition prepare for their meeting. They were a big company, and we were a small, family firm doing good work. They came out looking like they did well in their interview.

I followed in after them to see 14 people around the largest conference table I'd ever seen. One leader said, "this is our staffing task force." I did what I always did: get everyone's name and their role. Because I walked in by myself, I managed all fourteen, but after a few minutes, it was clear that three people were going to make the decision. They were tough, asking hard questions, but I was on my game. Their current firm was not a good firm. They didn't do what good firms did, and that was the reason the leaders were looking for something better, a lot better.

The three senior leaders said they wanted an on-site at each facility. I said we don't have the money for the 39 percent you gave us. The contract I prepared said a single on-site, not the three he wanted. We sat down to sign the contract. The leader said that I promised three on-site managers, "you lied to us." I am not afraid of conflict. I stood up, he stood up. I would never lie; even if we lost the deal, I stood up and said I am walking out of here. The other leader was a Full Bird Colonel. He made me and "the holdout" sit down and sign the contract.

At the second meeting, we brought all our branch managers, who walked in and introduced themselves wearing their names. The leaders wanted to see who they were going to be working with. The three leaders who were going to make the decision asked if we would go through their plants. One was a union facility, something not normal in staffing. They tried to get us out, but were on contract. They would tell me that I needed 21 staffers to fill their needs, so I brought extra in case they needed more for people who called off. 

As we were executing our work, the Bird Colonel said if you don't get us better staffers, we are going to get another staffing firm. I went back to my office to try get better people, but when I started to look at all the data, I decided to make an executive briefing. I sat down and showed their team why they are not getting the caliber of employees that they needed. They paid nine-dollars an hour, but most companies were paying twelve dollars at that time. The Bird Colonel was happy with changing the new pay rate, and we had a three million dollar client every year.