Time Kills All Deals (revised and updated)
WMMM #057 - This week, I share a story that taught me a lesson in sales.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter March 9, 2024 9 min read
At about this same time last year, I shared a story about one of my first experiences as a salesperson.
"Time Kills All Deals" (Learning the hard way - the Diamond Shamrock story) was released over two weeks last March in separate editions, WMMM #006 and #007.
It was well-received.
I share a new and improved version this week, consolidating it into a single edition.
I hope you enjoy it.
Great Sales Training courtesy of BUNCH
As a young salesperson at Wang, I was eager to learn everything I could about the sales process.
My managers, Neil and Larry, were seasoned sales professionals who had both worked at the "BUNCH" companies - Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell - which competed with IBM in the computing industry.
Wang was part of the "128 Corridor," a group of minicomputer companies in Massachusetts.
The BUNCH invested heavily in sales training for their employees, which was critical to their success.
I would benefit from that BUNCH investment throughout my early sales career by working for sales managers who had gone through that training.
The "Fox" in the Account
We had been working with the CFO of Diamond Shamrock, Jack, for over a year.
The company was strongly biased towards IBM, and its Management Information Services department was "all IBM."
However, Jack was an innovator who saw the potential of office automation and its impact on an enterprise.
He had bought into Wang's vision.
We had a unique solution for a business problem, but the IBM bias gave us fits.
We approached the opportunity with solution selling, not just selling office automation.
The biggest pain we found was in exploration - selecting where to drill for new oil reserves and improving hit ratios.
Our solution was still in beta testing and only ran on the Wang VS.
The company that developed it was a small startup in Dallas, so Neil was involved.
The Shea
However, Jack had what I recognize now as analysis paralysis.
He kept coming up with new questions and more objections.
I would dutifully chase down every question and handle every objection Jack would throw.
Jack looked forward to our interactions, but he was a busy executive.
We moved our meetings later and later in the workday.
They began spilling over after hours.
Our offices were in far north Dallas, closer to Jack's home, so we chose a dive bar across the street.
We began meeting there for a beer and deal discussions.
Neil loved the entertaining aspect of sales and was a willing participant.
The conversations inevitably turned to sports, politics, business, and life.
If the evening lasted more than a couple of rounds, I recall the place serving an Italian sausage sandwich they called The Shea.
Jack liked The Shea.
That dive became our regular spot at least once a month.
This "dance" went on for months.
Late Summer turned to Fall.
As Winter approached, salty Larry saw this and helped get us to the goal line for a December close.
The Big Mistake
We had chosen the Friday before Christmas as the signing date.
On Monday of that week, Neil and I had an idea to take Jack out to celebrate the holiday season.
It would be the day before our signing date, and everything was done, right?
We rationalized that we could also use Thursday to ensure everything was in order for Friday.
As you probably guessed, we had a great time on Thursday night.
When we said our goodbyes, Jack asked if we could push the signing date to after the holidays.
He assured us that all was good and a "done deal."
He was taking the rest of the year off and would return on Jan. 2nd.
Ruh Roh
Upon returning to work after the holiday break, Jack chose Friday, Jan. 4th, as the new signing date.
Why not Thursday? Wednesday?
I did not ask.
But we weren't going to make the same mistake again.
There will be no drinks this Thursday—no meetings at all this week.
The meeting was scheduled for 2:00p in Jack's office at the Diamond Shamrock Tower in downtown Dallas.
At 12:30p, my phone rings.
It was Jack.
He was postponing our meeting.
I'll never forget his words to me:
"Jeff, I came to the office this morning with a checkbook (i.e., budget) and a pen. As of an hour ago, I no longer have either."
Armand Hammer, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, had initiated a hostile takeover of Diamond Shamrock that morning. William Bricker, Diamond's CEO, had taken the checkbook from Jack.
Big Blue
The delay had given IBM an opening, and they were a formidable opponent.
At that moment in technology sales history, there was no finer sales organization than IBM.
They had relationships in every C-Suite and boardroom, and you didn't give them a second chance to save a deal.
But despite the odds, we prevailed.
We had mapped our technology to a specific business problem that only we (at that moment) could solve.
We had good competitive information against IBM.
But most of all, we had an excellent Coach (Bill) and Champion (Jack.)
In front of Jack, we repeated a mantra: "You've had IBM all along. How's that working for you?"
My Colleagues
I am now able to look back with a better perspective on just how good I had it in that Dallas sales office of Wang Labs.
Tom was my rival.
He was early in his career, and unlike me, he did not possess a technology background.
But he had some sales experience that I did not, having worked at Dictaphone before joining Wang.
He was mapped to a mentor, Doug, as I was to Ed C. - I've written about Ed previously.
Although there was a friendly rivalry, even extending to Doug and Ed, Tom and I secretly rooted for each other's success and would do anything to help the other.
There was Jim, a bright and experienced sales professional with lots of Wang tenure.
Ed D., Brian, and Mike were all former college athletes who were "naturals" at relationship selling.
Ken was our equipment leasing representative who gave me my first exposure to financial selling, which I always remembered.
I kept his training binders in my home study longer than I'll admit.
Linda J was our branch sales assistant who helped us create customer-facing documents like proposals and contracts, but so much more.
Linda and I bonded over something silly.
On Wednesday nights, we both regularly watched the weekly television series St. Elsewhere (think Grey's Anatomy or ER of the 1980s).
We were both Midwest transplants; she was from Michigan, and I was from Illinois.
We became good friends, and she was a big supporter of mine.
Linda was wicked smart and helped me in so many ways with so many things.
I learned later that Linda had a famous brother who co-founded Sun Microsystems with McNealy, Bechtolsheim, and Khosla.
They had all become friends and witnessed the highs and lows of this roller coaster of emotion I was enduring while attempting to win my first large deal.
The Little Things Matter
With the meeting scheduled for Jack to sign the order, we arranged an internal meeting with Larry and Neil in Larry's office.
We agreed that all three of us would attend, a tiny decision in a cycle that had hundreds of them.
But it proved invaluable.
And as we adjourned, two more of my peers appeared at Larry's door.
Linda and Annette had adopted me as their "project" and were also rooting for me to succeed.
They were experienced relationship salespeople and experts in etiquette.
They were always dressed impeccably, and I listened if they said I should or should not wear a particular suit or tie.
They presented me with a Mont Blanc pen for the contract signing.
It was for me to present to Jack.
I would not have thought to do such a thing.
We needed "wet" signatures in those days - Docusign wasn't a thing yet.
The Veteran
But as the authorization meeting commenced, Jack was holding court.
He was putting on a small show for my management for my benefit.
While I would have preferred an uneventful "pen to paper and out" meeting, he gave us our props for perseverance, which he did not have to do.
It was a nice gesture.
Fifteen minutes in, he glanced at the paperwork, which had already been approved by legal and purchasing.
With the Mont Blanc in his hand and the executables in front of him, Jack began asking questions.
He asked about our system's ability to expand as usage grew.
I answered it.
He asked another about third-party software.
Neil handled it.
I looked over at Larry.
He had seen hundreds of deal signings, and I hoped to pick up a facial expression.
Thirty minutes into this meeting, Larry looked like he needed a cigarette.
I knew the look and the irritated body language.
When Jack asked a third "What If?" question, Larry spoke up:
"Are you going to sign this thing or what?"
Jack looked at Larry with a slightly incredulous expression as if to say, "Did you just say that to me?"
At that moment in my career, my first sales role in tech and first large order, there was no way I would risk challenging Jack like that.
I felt a little uneasy.
We were at the altar, and I did not want this meeting to go sideways.
But Jack, very comfortable in his own skin, said something like, "Why not?".
He signed the order, and we left.
Bless you, Larry!
Of course, Larry knew what had to be done and did it.
Lessons Learned
1) Time kills all deals. Once we get a verbal decision in our favor, focus obsessively on minimizing the days, hours, and minutes until order execution.
2) Don't celebrate too early. We cannot relax or take our foot off the accelerator until the order is booked.
3) Our success is in the agency of others. Resist a go-it-alone strategy. Seek counsel from those who've gone before us. I should have asked Larry for his advice at every step.
4) Team selling has its advantages. There are different roles best played by other people. The tiny decision to bring Larry and Neil to that meeting was invaluable.
To summarize, success is not a one-person show. It's a team effort, and anything is possible with the right strategy, perseverance, and a little bit of luck.
Thank you for reading.
Jeff
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