While the picture might give that impression, just to be clear, this isn’t about being ‘physically’ attacked. That’s a criminal offence in most countries and should be brought to the notice of the appropriate authorities. This blog is about the time when you as a sales professional are being attacked while in a meeting presenting your solution. What do you do, when you are continuously being undermined by one or more people?
First let’s try and understand why that must be the case in the first place. There can be multiple reasons, but let’s just focus on the top two. The first and foremost is them trying to impress someone else in the meeting. It’s usually someone trying to showoff to the boss, and you are the easiest target since you are the outsider. The other reason could be that they have a soft corner for another vendor and want to come out on top of the meeting by putting you and your solution down.
Whatever the reasons are, you are in an unenviable position right now. If you try to give them direct rebuttals, it’ll seem like a personal attack on that person. Try and prove them wrong, and you might win the personal battle but will eventually lose the sale. If you don’t do anything, you’ll not just continue to face the attacks during the meeting, but will most probably be not called back for a meeting again with this company. Here’s what you can do instead.
While I don’t want to lay down the exact words you should say because every situation and culture warrants a different set of words to be strung together, here’s the what you can lead with. State clearly that you are hearing a lot of concerns being thrown at you, which in a way is good because that shows that the customer is looking for the best solution for their organization. BUT at the same time, you are unsure that this combative line of questioning is going to augur well for the relationship you might have in the future.
Before proceeding any further, ask for permission from the whole room to ask a question. Do remember that you should sound calm and collected during this whole process, any whiff of attitude from your side, and you’ll be back to the scenarios mentioned earlier.
In such circumstances, you’ll almost always be given a chance to go through with your line of thinking. It’s important to note that while there might be some folks that might like you to fail, the fact that you have been given an opportunity to come and present your solution to the audience you are in front of states that they are interested to know what you have to present.
Getting back to the situation. You then mention that it’s not necessary that your solution is the right fit for their company, but the truth is that companies ABC, DEF & XYZ (companies that they will recognize, preferably similar or bigger than the one you are at) have all used your solution. There on, you should emphasize that these companies are astute in their own process of selecting a vendor who can deliver for them, which you have. Then quickly lay down the references that you can bring up and would be happy to connect them with in case they want to assuage any fears they might have. So in the time left for this meeting, you would want to the ways the solution you are presenting has helped some of these companies and what it would be able to do for their company too.
Once you are done with this, there are only two outcomes that you’ll have:
Still confrontational:
While quite rare, that this will be the case because you have tried to calm down the situation without putting anyone down. But if the meeting is still with a fighting mindset, you have to realize that there is a hidden agenda and you never really had a chance here. Do complete the meeting in best way you can under these circumstances, exchange pleasantries with everyone, especially those who have been nice to you during this time and exit the meeting. If you plan to stay in this industry for long, you’ll realize pretty soon that there is no advantage in burning bridges, as it might come to bite you in the future. Also by being a pleasant with folks who liked your presentation, you have an option of coming back at a time when the outlook isn’t combative.
Smoother meeting:
Typically this is the scenario you can expect, and it’ll happen because the highest ranking member in the meeting step in to set a calmer tone for the rest of the presentation. You can still expect questions to come your way but they’ll be far more constructive than what you started with. You’ll most probably get a comment from your detractor too which will be something like “We’ll still need some of those questions answered, but for now you can present ….” (fill in with “differentiators you’d like to present”, “the advantages you have compared to <similar solution with a competitor>”, “the success you’ve had with ABC/DEF?XYZ”). At this point you know that you have saved the meeting and continue your meeting.
I do want to leave a caveat here. As you might have quickly noticed that this is not something that you should do when you are faced with general questions some of which are combative in nature, but it’s only when you are pushed time and time again by one or two people within the meeting group for reasons you believe are meant to derail your presentation.
CONCLUSION
As a sales professional you have to be resilient towards rejection and not buckle down at the smallest incident, but at the same time you should draw a line when things are out of hand. In the latter circumstance, offer your detractor an olive branch, but if that doesn’t work, look at a way to amicably close the discussion and exit.
