Sodexho Wins 4X Food Service Contract
for Memphis Baptist Hospital Chain
Edddie Bonds - Sales
Manager Southeast, Sodexho Healthcare
One of my clients recently let me
assist him with a tough sale.
He was initially reluctant because he was
concerned how his management would view his competence as a sales
manager.
He did however have a critically important
sales opportunity on the table.
Still he didn’t think of using me as a
resource until, in his words, “I tickled his brain with a different
perspective.”
After the first 1 hour strategy session, Eddie's
comments was, “Sam, you brought out critical pieces of information that
I had not seen or seen differently.”
We then assessed probability of
success.
He was thinking 80% and I showed him 60%
using my analytical forecast tool.
We then determined what levers had to be
pulled to increase his probability.
A week later, after a few more
sales calls, we strategized again. We built a two-tier strategy to
improve his position now that he had good information, and to leverage
what good relationship he had built and wasn’t using.
Then, for a critical meeting with
the CFO we did a
Sales Call Plan.
He freely admitted that this sales call
preparation was different than what he would have done.
The sales call went beautifully.
As we discuss the situation and
developed actions, he became far more proficient in taking his selling
and management skills to another level of effectiveness.
"Being
aware of the concepts and the actual use of the concepts is a mental
shift that can only happen when someone coaches you through it," Eddie
said
Eddie's Comments along the way were:
“I realized that competition and price were not the
deciding issues.”
“My coach was not a coach and the real decision makers
were not as obvious as I thought initially.”
“The real needs and wants of the individuals have to
come directly from each person.”
“Everyone will tell you exactly how to sell them if
the interview is conducted correctly.
His final comment was,
“Before
you (Sam), I thought we had run 3 good laps and if you hadn’t gotten
involved we would have easily lost the sale on the 4th
lap.”
He won the sale which was 4 times bigger than their
typical sale.
If you would
like to hear the actual post sale interview, I have a CD that you can
listen to.
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