Bad Things Come to Those Who Wait

You are competing to win a deal and things have gone well. At some point, you find out that you aren’t the only one pursuing this particular company, that they are also engaged with a competitor. As time has passed, your prospect has gotten much quieter. They used to call and email you questions, but you haven’t had a question in weeks. You used to have meetings, the last one being over a month ago. Without warning, your prospect goes dark.

You may have been told to wait, that your dream client was still working through things on their end. You may have received emails thanking you for following up and asking for your patience. You may worry that acting will cause you to lose the deal you are working on. The greater risk isn’t asking; it’s waiting.

If given the choice between doing nothing and losing, or taking action and potentially losing, the right decision is to act.

You don’t want to call again because you have been told that your client will get back to you. You don’t want to go over your primary contact’s head, engaging the executive sponsor that brought you into the deal. You don’t want to have someone from your leadership team reach out to their leadership team. You don’t want to get real and have the tough conversation because you are afraid you are going to find out you are losing the deal. But when you avoid taking action, you are likely increasing the odds that you lose the deal.

If you were positioned to win, another phone call should not cause your client to go another direction. If you’re not positioned to win, doing nothing isn’t going to improve things for you.

Bad things come to those who wait, things like being notified that you lost, being notified that your prospective client decided to kill the initiative, or that your dream client is going in another direction. If you are going to lose, don’t lose without even trying to win.