A trip down memory lane with IBM

From the archives…

With a touch of nostalgia…

It’s the height of summer 2005, and we’ve been working on a major opportunity for months. After an extremely long meeting in a small conference room, we feel that we’re about to get the go-ahead.

We’ve found that “click,” and we have a solution that’s good enough to win them over. After a few weeks, we get the long-awaited phone call. The project manager calls me and says, “We want to work this out with you.”

Yes!

That's great news, of course, but it's a rather sensitive time.

We’ve actually just signed a buyout agreement. This means we’ll be moving forward with a very small team, and this could give us a flying start… or mark a very painful beginning to our new adventure.

Calimero complex

After all, we owe it to ourselves to tell our potential client that we’re no longer a group of 20 people, but five times smaller. For a brief moment, we feel like Calimero (“They’re big and I’m small, and that’s not fair, oh no”). Fortunately, we’re not in this alone.

Still wet behind the ears, we decide to ask our IBM account manager if he’d be willing to help us. We have an exceptionally good relationship with him—we’ve really invested time and energy in it—and he’s happy to join us for our meeting.

I’m calling to set up a meeting with someone from management and ask for an appointment—we really need to discuss this in person. This is one of those moments when you know: a streamlined and efficient digital meeting just isn’t the best idea right now.

It’s a good conversation. We present the proposal to our potential client and give him the opportunity to back out. The executive speaks up, responding in a manner that is both casual and determined.

“Can I count on you guys?” he asks.

Without wasting too many words on it, we look him straight in the eye and say “yes” wholeheartedly. Period.

Our partner manager sits calmly beside us, looking confidently at the client and at us. He expresses his confidence in a personal capacity, with a nonverbal demeanor that speaks volumes to our client—and it’s a GO.

It's moments like these that make you feel great for just a second, because one person stands up and says:

"I've got your back."

We completed a truly wonderful project and built a long-standing relationship. Out of sight, but not out of mind.

From the archives…thanks, Michael!

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about transparent selling, read our white paper, “The Trust Mindset.”