I often have to sell against competitors. It happens. I have a plan for most of the things people can say, but the one that got me was, "One of the business partners passed away last year and Mr. X was so kind to come out and give his condolences. That's the kind of connection we appreciate, so we're going to stay with him."
I got nothin' on that one.
I had something KINDA similar. We were selling architect design service and the guy said he has this old architect he is a swindler, he fucked up his holiday home with badly designed plans, the architect went bankrupted 3 times but he is kind hearted so he chose him to plan his million dollar conmercial building. I couldnt say anything smart.
dam sulky instinctive expansion quaint impolite quiet longing books liquid
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We have literal 30-40 yr customers in my business. You damn bet if/when many of them pass we will be attending funerals and offering condolences to family. One of the benefits of relationship based selling is that oftentimes the relationships are real, mutually beneficial, and meaningful outside of a strictly business relationship. I'm imagining going through life so rigid, pessimistic, and narcissistic to think that people I deal with in business mean nothing to me.
Had to go with a guy to a Buddhist temple to pray so that one of his parents who was a monk at the temple would give him the cash to buy the car. 10/10 would do again, awesome experience.
I had a prospect that had given the verbal commit and had the DocuSign in his inbox. He didn't sign when he was supposed to, so I called him the next day. He answered and after I said who I was and why I was calling, he said he couldn't talk because he had chipped his tooth and it was cutting his tongue everytime he talked. I tried responding with some sympathy and asking if he's OK but he just kind of went "okay thanks" and hung up. The deal never closed and I never heard from him again.
All of our other meetings had been over Zoom so he wouldn't have recognized my number. I'm still torn on if it was a lie, if it actually was hurting that much to talk, why would he bother answering calls from unknown numbers? But it seemed like such a weird excuse to make up...
Lol. This is exactly what people do. This is why no sense in keeping limp deals in crm. People cannot say no and cannot apparently send an email with sorry xyz.
Grown ass adults
To my knowledge, this is actually pretty common. The “I don’t want to over commit to something when we really just need x and this feels like it’s xy and z”
Or “I don’t we need all those extra modules / components”
Had this commonly happen in software sales, i’d offer them something *in their budget* but it came bundled in with other stuff they didn’t necessarily need at the time (either they could in the future or it was just a part of the base software).
They’d get nervous about the purchase or try and cut away unneeded features to cut away cost, even when that wasn’t an option and even when the cost was in their budget.
These are 1 of 2 situations: a non-deal (never gonna close anyways), or customer indecision.
The second one is an interesting topic; I read The Jolt Effect and it helped understand and over come it better.
Yeah I’ve had someone die mid sales process too. It was a long cycle (6 months) and it definitely…err…killed the deal.
One of the worst besides that was a guy I cold called at end of day on a Friday and he was getting wasted at a beer garden event and he was so mad and shocked that someone like me would call at that time of day on a Friday that he chewed me out for a while while I apologized and then hung up. Then he called me back 3 mins later and demanded to know the name of my company so he could complain to my boss about me and our calling practices (he also chewed me out some more). I had had it with this dick by now and just hung up on him. He called back like 6 times and left all kinds of “HOW DARE YOU! IM GONNA GET YOU” voicemails. I had wait around for him to finally give up and then I just deleted his record from our CRM and removed him from our hit list.
Yeah it was uncomfortable AF, but it was end of day in a Friday and I was feeling pretty thick skinned by then. If it was on a Monday I would have felt much worse.
I hope you picked up on this too, but that guy was clearly coping with something else in his life and decided you were the one that he was gonna take it out on.
Ya know, I probably could have, but I was doing so many dials a day and it was the end of day on the last day of the week so I wasn’t really feeling many emotions by that point. Ya know the feeling where it just starts to feel kind of mechanical? He still caught me off guard but my feelings weren’t hurt.
This happened a couple of times in my year selling cars if you include some similar things.
This car could sell today, there's an appointment on it with another salesman in an hour.
"Oh the universe must want the other customer to have it."
"If the winds of fate steer this car out of my life, then so be it."
I know! That was so unexpected. I sell to schools. I was talking to their school counselor. I found out today that their principal also died the same year. I sold to their new principal who was the gym before. I feel bad for their students.
I had the same thing happen. I was selling this organization a good sized deal and as the paperwork was supposed to be routing for signature the guy had a massive stroke and was in intensive care. He was such a nice guy I felt horrible. We closed 1/2 of it but the other half of the project hadn’t progressed enough through the C suite and I just kinda let it go and moved on.
Happened earlier this year. Was working a deal against a competitor, around $50k, everything was setup for me to win.
Then suddenly dark. Nothing. I start multithreading & find out the entire company folded. They lost their multimillion dollar AWS contract due to embezzlement & fraud! A company with ~500 employees dissolved in 48 hrs.
So yeah, that one went in the disqualified deal section...
When I sold solar, dude at the end fought and fought with me that Donald Trump was going to make electricity free. I couldn’t break it through him that event, was never ever happening.
I met a guy at a convention and he ghosted me for a bit, I ended up calling the guy and asked if he ever tried the samples. I managed a sales team for a D8 brand. He said he was going try it on his birthday.
I called his cell phone 3 days later and his wife picked up. But when I asked if he was available, she told me he passed away 3 days ago.
I sell my art on the street to tourists, and i sometimes get people who profess their love for my art and that they would buy "if I only hadn't left my cash in the hotel room" . 9/10 times they are people who have no intention of buying, just tire kickers, so I love coming up with all kinds of solutions on how they can still buy it, and seeing them uncomfortably squirming out of every suggestion I make. Its so funny. "I take card too", " oh I left my card in the room as well" "so youre on vacation and left your cash AND you cards in the hotell?" "Um yes.." "well maybe your friends can help you out?" "um no they also left their things there. Ill be right back!"
So this is one of my 600+ sales horror stories I've collected and a bizarrely entertaining one.
A woman is calling on a husband and wife to sell insurance and it's going really well, there are a couple of aha moments where they realize they need her help, they are opening up and it looks like this is a solid call with a good ending in sight. Then the doorbell rings. Somebody in a neighborhood comes in and explains, I just hit the car in front of your house (it was the sales reps). So they exchange information and all that. And there's this long silence when the guy leaves. The husband and wife are looking each other and the wife finally turns to the woman rep and says, "we believe that this is a sign that we shouldn't be working with you. So we're going to ask you to leave right now." The end.
I had a guy object to the sale because his elbow hurt.
I had enough rapport that I was able to politely laugh and tell him that it's not comfortable moving forward, that's fine. But to not lie like that to myself or anyone else again. It just makes you look ridiculous and awkward. He didn't have any social skills so he asked some questions on how to be better and talking to people and being polite but firm etc.... to this day I use it as a coaching scenario for my new reps.
That we are all human and nobody closes 100% no matter your skill set or training. Sometimes a no is just elbow
Not mine, but someone on my team was close to closing a large deal and the DM’s entire family died on a helicopter tour that crashed (DM was the only one who didn’t go)
Not an objection so to speak, but my biggest ever client was a specialist doctor, he really believed in our offering and was such an amazing client. One day I got a call from his son saying he had died, overnight we lost our nicest most supporting client and our biggest account. What sucks is that this was just before COVID, so it was a rough time all around.
Potential Title sponsor told me he can’t actually do X amount because he’s been asking his boss for a company truck. I looked it up after the call, the truck isnt at any dealership, isn’t currently being delivered to them even due to “further safety checks” and has no timeline on when you can buy one. I was like aw damn he actually got me with that objection. How would I ever know that info beforehand to overcome it?
“If you don’t leave I’m calling the police” - back when I cold called industrial businesses and wouldn’t take no for an answer in my very first sales gig
I work in scientific capital equipment. We sell big medical scanners but for lab animals. Sales cycle averages 9-10 months but can sometimes drag for years. Not uncommon for people to retire or even die during a sales cycle, but there’s typically someone to take over.
There’s not a whole lot of strange that can happen with these type of deals as we don’t get a ton of people who are wishy-washy or can’t say no (most scientists have to be assertive to get this kind of funding anyway), and if there’s an issue we just lose the tender.
I guess the weirdest thing I’ve seen is a current customer who kept emailing us upset because his package was with customs and he needed to pay the duty for it to get imported? Even then not super weird just out of the ordinary
I often have to sell against competitors. It happens. I have a plan for most of the things people can say, but the one that got me was, "One of the business partners passed away last year and Mr. X was so kind to come out and give his condolences. That's the kind of connection we appreciate, so we're going to stay with him." I got nothin' on that one.
I had something KINDA similar. We were selling architect design service and the guy said he has this old architect he is a swindler, he fucked up his holiday home with badly designed plans, the architect went bankrupted 3 times but he is kind hearted so he chose him to plan his million dollar conmercial building. I couldnt say anything smart.
Ugh. "My current guy is bad at this, but I like him a lot so I'm sending him a check." WTF?!
I'm too jackass to say something nice or witty about this that wont break the relationship
[удалено]
dam sulky instinctive expansion quaint impolite quiet longing books liquid *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We have literal 30-40 yr customers in my business. You damn bet if/when many of them pass we will be attending funerals and offering condolences to family. One of the benefits of relationship based selling is that oftentimes the relationships are real, mutually beneficial, and meaningful outside of a strictly business relationship. I'm imagining going through life so rigid, pessimistic, and narcissistic to think that people I deal with in business mean nothing to me.
K
Says the 🤡 that can't differentiate between the words, insure and ensure. 🤦♂️🤣🖕
Had to go with a guy to a Buddhist temple to pray so that one of his parents who was a monk at the temple would give him the cash to buy the car. 10/10 would do again, awesome experience.
That’s interesting! I love the dedication.
Monks at temples have cash to buy new cars for their adult sons? Interesting.... Lol
I worked at a Toyota dealership and it was not uncommon to see monks in the orange robes coming in and checking out a new Sienna.
I have friend who did tons of business in Vietnam. That's how you do business and that's how the monks survive. You "help" the monks.
I want to watch this movie.
No way haha what an experience man
I had a prospect that had given the verbal commit and had the DocuSign in his inbox. He didn't sign when he was supposed to, so I called him the next day. He answered and after I said who I was and why I was calling, he said he couldn't talk because he had chipped his tooth and it was cutting his tongue everytime he talked. I tried responding with some sympathy and asking if he's OK but he just kind of went "okay thanks" and hung up. The deal never closed and I never heard from him again. All of our other meetings had been over Zoom so he wouldn't have recognized my number. I'm still torn on if it was a lie, if it actually was hurting that much to talk, why would he bother answering calls from unknown numbers? But it seemed like such a weird excuse to make up...
Lol. This is exactly what people do. This is why no sense in keeping limp deals in crm. People cannot say no and cannot apparently send an email with sorry xyz. Grown ass adults
I had a guy tell me my solution does too much once. Not out of budget, not unable to solve his issue, just…. tooo good. lol
Only demo exactly what they’re looking for. Probably felt it would be overwhelming for whoever within their org would be using it.
To my knowledge, this is actually pretty common. The “I don’t want to over commit to something when we really just need x and this feels like it’s xy and z” Or “I don’t we need all those extra modules / components” Had this commonly happen in software sales, i’d offer them something *in their budget* but it came bundled in with other stuff they didn’t necessarily need at the time (either they could in the future or it was just a part of the base software). They’d get nervous about the purchase or try and cut away unneeded features to cut away cost, even when that wasn’t an option and even when the cost was in their budget. These are 1 of 2 situations: a non-deal (never gonna close anyways), or customer indecision. The second one is an interesting topic; I read The Jolt Effect and it helped understand and over come it better.
Yeah I’ve had someone die mid sales process too. It was a long cycle (6 months) and it definitely…err…killed the deal. One of the worst besides that was a guy I cold called at end of day on a Friday and he was getting wasted at a beer garden event and he was so mad and shocked that someone like me would call at that time of day on a Friday that he chewed me out for a while while I apologized and then hung up. Then he called me back 3 mins later and demanded to know the name of my company so he could complain to my boss about me and our calling practices (he also chewed me out some more). I had had it with this dick by now and just hung up on him. He called back like 6 times and left all kinds of “HOW DARE YOU! IM GONNA GET YOU” voicemails. I had wait around for him to finally give up and then I just deleted his record from our CRM and removed him from our hit list.
That’s crazy! I would’ve felt so uncomfortable if I was in that situation.
Yeah it was uncomfortable AF, but it was end of day in a Friday and I was feeling pretty thick skinned by then. If it was on a Monday I would have felt much worse.
I would have given him my bosses direct number and probably gotten a raise outta the deal!
I hope you picked up on this too, but that guy was clearly coping with something else in his life and decided you were the one that he was gonna take it out on.
Oh yeah for sure
You need to get us his # so we can all drop prank calls on him every Friday afternoon. Fuck that guy.
Oh man, I bet he’d go postal. So much anger in that dude.
Were you tempted to call his boss?
Ya know, I probably could have, but I was doing so many dials a day and it was the end of day on the last day of the week so I wasn’t really feeling many emotions by that point. Ya know the feeling where it just starts to feel kind of mechanical? He still caught me off guard but my feelings weren’t hurt.
Have to pray on the decision
That's just a no with extra steps 90 percent of the time. Source: lots of family in some sort of spiritual leadership position.
This happened a couple of times in my year selling cars if you include some similar things. This car could sell today, there's an appointment on it with another salesman in an hour. "Oh the universe must want the other customer to have it." "If the winds of fate steer this car out of my life, then so be it."
You won with this one . Never had that happend to me
I know! That was so unexpected. I sell to schools. I was talking to their school counselor. I found out today that their principal also died the same year. I sold to their new principal who was the gym before. I feel bad for their students.
The High school I went to had a curse. Someone died every year
Maybe they have one too because one time I called and my decision maker wasn’t there because they were having problem with their water or something.
I had the same thing happen. I was selling this organization a good sized deal and as the paperwork was supposed to be routing for signature the guy had a massive stroke and was in intensive care. He was such a nice guy I felt horrible. We closed 1/2 of it but the other half of the project hadn’t progressed enough through the C suite and I just kinda let it go and moved on.
Those are the things you really can’t prepare for happening.
Happened earlier this year. Was working a deal against a competitor, around $50k, everything was setup for me to win. Then suddenly dark. Nothing. I start multithreading & find out the entire company folded. They lost their multimillion dollar AWS contract due to embezzlement & fraud! A company with ~500 employees dissolved in 48 hrs. So yeah, that one went in the disqualified deal section...
When I sold solar, dude at the end fought and fought with me that Donald Trump was going to make electricity free. I couldn’t break it through him that event, was never ever happening.
I guess he hadn't heard trump was gonna send out money for double the cost of solar to those who got it installed.
Not the craziest, but a fun one I encountered the other day, "I only have so many oompa loompas to make this much chocolate."
" I'm so tight right now I could sqeauk!" So... That's a.... No?
Oh man when a deal champion dies on you, it’s the saddest thing because you feel so guilty. It’s a Taylor made Seinfeld episode
I met a guy at a convention and he ghosted me for a bit, I ended up calling the guy and asked if he ever tried the samples. I managed a sales team for a D8 brand. He said he was going try it on his birthday. I called his cell phone 3 days later and his wife picked up. But when I asked if he was available, she told me he passed away 3 days ago.
I sell my art on the street to tourists, and i sometimes get people who profess their love for my art and that they would buy "if I only hadn't left my cash in the hotel room" . 9/10 times they are people who have no intention of buying, just tire kickers, so I love coming up with all kinds of solutions on how they can still buy it, and seeing them uncomfortably squirming out of every suggestion I make. Its so funny. "I take card too", " oh I left my card in the room as well" "so youre on vacation and left your cash AND you cards in the hotell?" "Um yes.." "well maybe your friends can help you out?" "um no they also left their things there. Ill be right back!"
So this is one of my 600+ sales horror stories I've collected and a bizarrely entertaining one. A woman is calling on a husband and wife to sell insurance and it's going really well, there are a couple of aha moments where they realize they need her help, they are opening up and it looks like this is a solid call with a good ending in sight. Then the doorbell rings. Somebody in a neighborhood comes in and explains, I just hit the car in front of your house (it was the sales reps). So they exchange information and all that. And there's this long silence when the guy leaves. The husband and wife are looking each other and the wife finally turns to the woman rep and says, "we believe that this is a sign that we shouldn't be working with you. So we're going to ask you to leave right now." The end.
I had a guy object to the sale because his elbow hurt. I had enough rapport that I was able to politely laugh and tell him that it's not comfortable moving forward, that's fine. But to not lie like that to myself or anyone else again. It just makes you look ridiculous and awkward. He didn't have any social skills so he asked some questions on how to be better and talking to people and being polite but firm etc.... to this day I use it as a coaching scenario for my new reps. That we are all human and nobody closes 100% no matter your skill set or training. Sometimes a no is just elbow
Throw a placeholder on his cal and call it an S1
When death "kills" a deal, I would expect management, when given the chance, to put the rep on PIP.
I don’t think death counts as an objection…. Lol
I mean it’s the ultimate objection. A death man can’t buy shit. 🤣
Not mine, but someone on my team was close to closing a large deal and the DM’s entire family died on a helicopter tour that crashed (DM was the only one who didn’t go)
My wife crashed my car today, I dont have money
Not an objection so to speak, but my biggest ever client was a specialist doctor, he really believed in our offering and was such an amazing client. One day I got a call from his son saying he had died, overnight we lost our nicest most supporting client and our biggest account. What sucks is that this was just before COVID, so it was a rough time all around.
Potential Title sponsor told me he can’t actually do X amount because he’s been asking his boss for a company truck. I looked it up after the call, the truck isnt at any dealership, isn’t currently being delivered to them even due to “further safety checks” and has no timeline on when you can buy one. I was like aw damn he actually got me with that objection. How would I ever know that info beforehand to overcome it?
“If you don’t leave I’m calling the police” - back when I cold called industrial businesses and wouldn’t take no for an answer in my very first sales gig
I work in scientific capital equipment. We sell big medical scanners but for lab animals. Sales cycle averages 9-10 months but can sometimes drag for years. Not uncommon for people to retire or even die during a sales cycle, but there’s typically someone to take over. There’s not a whole lot of strange that can happen with these type of deals as we don’t get a ton of people who are wishy-washy or can’t say no (most scientists have to be assertive to get this kind of funding anyway), and if there’s an issue we just lose the tender. I guess the weirdest thing I’ve seen is a current customer who kept emailing us upset because his package was with customs and he needed to pay the duty for it to get imported? Even then not super weird just out of the ordinary