Relationships often get strengthen after working through a bad patch.

Ford

As a recruitment leader I had arranged for a large number of candidates to attend interviews with my new found client. Unfortunately none of the candidates got through the interviews and the client was obviously disappointed.

Instead of going silent after the episode, We followed it up with some quality calls to the client, got to bottom of the whole thing and were surprised to get some valuable feedback from finally ensuring that the relationship was kept alive.

Today we are the preferred vendors to the same client!

Great story.

Ford Harding

Thanks for the mention. Always good to talk about the badges of honor we get from losing!

“The worst thing one can do after a loss is to never contact the prospect again.”

What Gary has stated is so true. In one of the cases where I lost a deal to another consultant (who had an inside track with management), the sales prospect came back to me about a month later when the other consultant couldn’t start the project for one reason or another. During the period from deal lost to deal won, I tried to be a good citizen (and turned off my “aggressive” sales mode) by keeping in touch and passing on useful information and opportunities in the local market.

When some hires your competitor, they have just postponed the pleasure of hiring you. You will get them next time.

Ford Harding

Every time I lose, I shoulld learn something that will help me next time.
No different than a losing football team after a loss - they review the films of the game over and over.

The worst thing one can do after a loss is to never contact the prospect again. I have had many Corporate people say something like the following to me,”That consulting firm was our friend for the past three months of the proposal process. Once they lost they never contacted us again. That showed us that they did not really want to build a relationship.”