Sales Tip 1822: Losing for the Same Reason Over and Over? Embrace It! - Todd Caponi

“If you’re going to win, great. If you’re going to lose, losing really, really fast is the second best thing.” – Todd Caponi in today’s tip 1822.

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Transcript:

You’re listening to the daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Todd Capponi. Todd is the author of the three time best book award winning international bestseller the Transparency Sale and the new bestselling book the Transparent Sales Leader. Todd is a multi time C level sales leader who’s had two successful exits. Today he speaks and teaches revenue organizations about leveraging transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity. As principal of salesmelon llc. Here he is.

Todd Caponi: So you’re losing for the same reason over and over again. It’s a new shift. What do you do? Well, you can either fix it or I would actually recommend embracing it. And here’s what I mean, I just spoke with a client whose solution is awesome. Like, the customers love it and the reason that they love it is that it impacts customer long term value. Meaning customers come back, they stay, they buy more and they’re more likely to advocate. So those are all really valuable things and they do it in a very measurable way.

Here’s the problem. The industry that they’re selling to right now is constricting. Like things are tight. And as a result, all of the people that they’re selling to are being measured on conversions, meaning short term. When they come to us for the first time, they’re buying, right? That is their primary metric that they’re being scrutinized for and they’re prioritizing. So here’s what’s happening. The company that I was speaking to, their reps are engaging with prospects. The prospects get really excited. They’re like, of course we care about customer loyalty.

This is amazing. This is so cool. And then they get to the goal line and they go running up the ladder and they’re getting knocked down because the companies are prioritizing short term over the long term. There’s really nothing they can do about it. They’ll come back to it. What do you do? Well, in my opinion, the company’s not going to fix that problem. I mean, while they do touch on short term a little bit, it’s hard to measure. It’s too soft.

They’re not going to change their whole solution because their solution is designed for the long term and the customer retention. So what I mean by this is embracing it. So in the first conversation with prospect and you’re talking to somebody that’s a lot like these other ones that are having the same situation, the conversation probably goes like this, hey, before we dig too deep into this, a lot of your peers that we’re talking to at other companies are experiencing a reprioritization as to what they’re measuring and what they’re really being judged by. And that’s the short term, the conversions. Is that you? Because again, before we get too deep into this, our solution really drives the long term value. The customer retention, the customer return, Stay Buy More advocate. And while I’m sure you’re really excited about that part, what keeps happening is that we get right to the goal line and these companies are like, whoa, we got to put that off until next year.

Right now, our focus is on the short term. Is that you. And listen, right? Because one of a few things is going to happen. Number one, they’re going to go, no, as a matter of fact, it’s not. We’re fine on short term. What we were really caring about is long term. That’s our priority. Ding, ding, ding. You got a nice qualified prospect. You can invest your most valuable asset, which is your time, in them. Number two thing that could happen is they say, you know, let me check on that. You might be right. I’ve heard some rumblings of some things getting put up for the short term. And then they go check and they come back and they’re like, thank you. You’re right. We just saved a lot of each other’s time.

That’s win number two, right? If you’re going to win, great. If you’re going to lose, losing really, really fast is the second best thing. Or number three thing that could happen is they say, yeah, but now that I know that, let’s work together and figure out what our message is going to be to combat that and see if we can get in front of it. See if we can clear that elephant.

And I get approval for doing this evaluation and bringing it in now versus us waiting until the goal line and doing it then and getting smacked. Another good thing, right? Qualified opportunity. Clear that elephant. The most important thing that I want you all to think about is if you lose for the same reasons over and over again, embrace it. Because your result is going to be, you are going to be seen as an advocate for the customer and their time.

You’re going to build empathy because you understand their world and you’ve proven that you are experiencing it. And number three is, like I said, the most valuable thing you and your team can turn into revenue is your time. It’s never going to be any earlier than now. Lead with it. Lose fast if you’re going to lose. All right, give that a try and let me know what you think.

Scott Ingram: For links to Todd’s YouTube channel and to connect with him on LinkedIn, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1822. Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening.