Has your business ever encountered a situation where you had to decide whether or not to back yourself or bow down to a client’s demands? One of our favourite businesses had this challenge a while back. Here’s a great story about Backing yourself in business.
Backing yourself in business: Know when to stick to your guns
They had been working with a prospective client for quite some time, presenting proposals, making adjustments, scoping and getting excited to start working together. Then, at the last stage, the client said no to their ongoing support fee – a vital part of the continued support that completes their whole service. “We will go ahead if you drop that fee”.
The business’ initial response was that they should accept because they had put so much time and effort into the client this far.
But they realised that the client had also put an enormous amount of time and effort in and had already begun to see the end product in their minds.
So the business stuck to its guns and said that the ongoing support was part of it and that if they wanted to use this company, that was the deal.
Business sweated for a while. The client said yes.
The lesson is that the client also invests time in the proposal phase and can be equally reluctant to walk away at the end over something small.
Note: There is an old negotiation ploy (sometimes called ‘left at the altar’) where you do exactly this – e.g. try on all the suits and shoes and agree, take everything to the counter and as they are putting through the sale ask for a tie to be through in whilst indicating that you will walk without it. The result is that the salesperson who thought the sale was complete throws in the tie due to the investment already made.
This is a tactic you should use it but try not to fall for it.
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