Trust you’re not the Rabbit

This is a continuation of the last post “Are you the Salesman or the Rabbit”. You may be wondering why I would give so much time to this topic. I guess it’s fresh on my mind since we recently had an Account Manager who unwittingly played the role of the Rabbit. I could see the signs, which I will discuss later in this post and what we could/should have done to help prevent this from happening. I also received an email from a reader last week which I am including towards the end of this post. Kris tells us a personal experience where he was the rabbit and how his relationship with a good customer will never be the same.

The signs you may be the Rabbit:

• Customer skips the natural sales processes of making us earn their business and gaining their trust.  In our case the customer was from another state and they had no previous experience with our company. We knew they had a strong relationship with one of their local suppliers but the project was in our backyard and having previous experience on the project we felt we had a legitimate opportunity for the business.
•  It’s always about price. We were emailed the customer’s request for quote (RFQ) and had a very short time frame to get pricing back to the customer. Since the customer was from another state this was not necessarily a red flag but the scope of the project required additional information and discussions. Any information we received was directed at us to provide the lowest price. They had very little interest in any value added services.
• Reluctant to give details of the project. Our Account Manager had participated in previous phases of the project and knew the project well. The customer was very vague when he asked questions or requested information.
• Gets upset if you question a request or ask for more time in getting the proposal ready. Throughout the process we were constantly under pressure to meet their demands. This was not our first rodeo, so any request we made was needed to present the best proposal we could. Each request was met with them getting seemingly upset and little accommodation to our requests.
• Never get to meet the boss or true decision maker. We were dealing with an out-of-state customer so not meeting the boss didn’t seem so important. But our Account Manager was given the impression he was dealing with the decision maker which turned out not to be the case.

As you can, see all of the signs of being a Rabbit were there. We had a very experienced Account Manager involved with the customer and we were aware we were going up against their trusted supplier. I would like to make excuses for not recognizing what the customer was doing early on but that does no good. By the time we realized what was going on we had a lot of time and effort in the proposal.

The fact is we were dealing with a very experienced negotiator who I believe never had any attention to work with us. He just needed a Rabbit (us) to use as leverage to negotiate with their preferred supplier.

So what should or could we have done to help from being the rabbit?

We should have not have violated the first step above ourselves. We were guilty of not getting to know the customer. Without first learning the customer’s business and gaining some trust, the only value we could bring was a lower price and to play the part of the Rabbit.

Without getting to know the customer and asking the right questions we were just making assumptions on the value we could bring to the customer.

In our haste to try to get the order we made it very easy for the customer to use us as a negotiation tool (rabbit) and not be taken as a serious contender.

We did at the very end send the Account Manager and a group from our sales team to meet the customer but at that point the negotiations’ had already begun with their preferred supplier and all we got from the meeting was a healthy bill for what must have been a very good steak (rabbit) dinner for all.

From the example above, this was a new customer of ours that we didn’t take the time to get to know. Kris, a reader of this blog sent me an email of a personal experience that shows it doesn’t only happen with new customers but even your good customers can at times use you as a rabbit.

Kris’s story:

“I really like your blog on the rabbit. I get that sort of thing from customers. One time in particular stands out. Some of our customers rent equipment from us but they own some of the equipment too. I had a really good customer call and asked for me to work up a price estimate for a major overhaul on a piece of equipment in the field, and while it wasn’t a tremendous amount of work involved I still got used as the rabbit. I always prepare a very detailed cost estimate showing specific part numbers, quantities, etc. so that my customer’s questions are answered. This particular instance I went a step further and did an on site inspection that required me to travel hundreds of miles to put eyes on the prospective job. I thought the job was in the bag. However weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything on the start date, so I made a quick call to check and see what their thoughts were for getting the job started only to be told my incompetent competitor was awarded the job. But to add insult to injury, I was also informed that my detailed estimate was ultimately passed off to this vendor so they could use it as a “guide” for what needed to be done and what parts should be ordered. I find myself reluctant to go that extra step for this customer now in fear of being the “rabbit” again.”

Kris thank you very much for sending me this story and letting me share it with others.

As you can see in both examples we were misled as to the true intentions of the customer. In both cases we didn’t know the customer as well as we should have. The customers used our efforts as a tool to negotiate with the competition, without letting either one of us have a fair opportunity. While the circumstances were different in both cases trust with these customers has been completely lost.

I have probably beat this topic to death but as Sales Managers and Account Managers we must always remember that before we can truly negotiate in good faith there needs to be a level of comfort and trust with our customers  to help ensure that we are not going to be the rabbit.