Yes, You Heard Me

Whenever a client project goes badly, you naturally look for reasons in the decisions you made along the way. Sometimes it’s a project management issue; other times the cause is scope creep, poor leadership, or incompetence.

Often, you can trace the root of troubled efforts back to misconceptions or misunderstandings on the front end of the sales process. In every selling situation, you strive to understand the client’s issue, and that’s where the trouble may start.

By the time a sales meeting is set up, both buyer and seller are likely to be motivated to design a solution quickly. The buyer may be under pressure to resolve the issue, and the seller wants to reach closure as soon as possible. When everyone is in a hurry, look out.

One result is that the seller may be too inclined to confirm the buyer’s interpretation of the issue, instead of independently verifying what’s really happening. In fact, some clients may be too impatient to let you do that. If the client is wrong about the real problem, though, it’s likely that any solution will miss the mark. And when it does, don’t expect the client to take responsibility.

The last thing any seller wants to hear is to slow down the sales process. But, in some situations, that’s the best strategy for ensuring that you’ll have a profitable sale and a happy client. Listen carefully to what the client says about the issue, of course, but make sure to draw your own conclusions. Otherwise you’re risking the long-term success of the project and the client relationship.