Anatomy of a Sale (I made a big mistake)

Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 3 minutes.

This week, we’re breaking down a recent sale and the mistakes I made.

Storytime

Recently, a partner introduced me to a promising buyer.

The pressure was on as every referral from this partner has turned into a paying customer.

Before the introduction, my partner presented two options I had created for this buyer, including pricing, descriptions, and lists of inclusions/exclusions (unusual for every other partner I work with, but normal in this case).

Next, we booked a 30-minute intro call. Which went well, and the outcome was for me to document a few changes to the initial options and send them over via email.

And if you know me, you can see I have made a critical mistake.

I broke a number of my own rules, including:

• Never email a proposal or pricing
• Every call ends in either BAMFAM or the alternative
• If you (the seller) are going to do any work, the buyer must make some level of commitment too.

The real sin is that I skipped steps in my sales process. And anytime you skip steps, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Proposals and Pricing

When you present proposals and pricing in a meeting, you get immediate feedback and can read the body language as much as listen to how they respond.

When proposals or pricing are sent asynchronously, you lose that extra learning and the momentum shifts - either away from you, or can stop entirely.

Honour Your Word

However, above all the mistakes I made during the sales call, the most important thing a seller can do is to honour their word.

Coming into any deal, you have to assume the buyer will not trust you (at least at first), and anything you do (or don’t do) can shatter the small amount of trust you build during each interaction.

As A D Ryan says:

Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.

Therefore, even though it was a mistake, I had to honour the commitment and sent over an updated proposal with two options. For good measure, I included a closing map (with approx timelines).

• See Follow-Up Template, and
• Closing Maps Newsletter

*Crickets*

One week later, the buyer had not responded.

So I hit him with a simple follow-up email, paraphrased below:

Hey NAME
Sentence referencing what we discussed.
Based on the options in the last email, are you thinking:
- Yes to both
- Yes to one (which one?)
- No to both
- I’m still unsure, I’ll come back to you on XXX date
Signature

Another week - still nothing

I was sweating now. This deal should have been a sure thing.

He has the pains I solve; he wanted them solved; there was a strong reason it had to happen now… But I hadn’t heard anything.

So I sent the first, and by far most effective anti-ghosting email, I have - it gets ~80% reply rate (not always positive replies, sometimes the deal is dead):

Subject: Update
Body: Hey NAME - I assume no news is bad news?
Signature

Six Days Later

At this point, I had written the deal off.

Things happen, and I knew I’d made mistakes in this deal.

Until I get an email from the buyer with (paraphrased for privacy):

Hey Scott
Yes, sorry!
I was excited after our meeting.
Let’s start in the new year - reach out on DATE.
Signature

Since the above, we’ve had more emails back and forth to schedule a kick-off in the second week of January.

While this is as close to a win as I would expect from the deal, it is not won until the buyer signs an agreement and pays their first invoice. Therefore, more work to do in the new year.

Summary

• Always present proposals live
• Honour your word, even when you make mistakes
• Clarity in next steps matters (closing maps)
• Persistent matters - but make it classy

This was a slightly different newsletter with a real case study - let me know if you found the breakdown helpful.

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