Issue #83

Turning “No” Into A Contract

Selling is hard enough, but selling procurement services to procurement departments, in the public sector, has to rate right up there with scaling Everest without oxygen.

I have done the first of these and will never try the second - I get dizzy if I go upstairs too fast these days.

I remember one particular hospital group I sold to, despite years of therapy.

Their procurement director was the smuggest person I have ever met. Mr S. Mugly McSmugarse from Smug Crescent, Smugsville, United States of Smugerica - except he was English.

If you look up “self-satisfied” in the dictionary, there is a picture of him.

He was totally confident they were already getting the best procurement deals. “We’ve negotiated tough contracts for years,” he said. “Our suppliers give us the best rates. I'm a pro.”

Welcome to my world; this was the typical starting point for my prospects.

Mind you, if he didn't believe he was the best, then logic demands he would have had to put himself out for tender.

Make Sure You Know Their Pain

I asked a simple question: “How do you know?”

Silence.

Then a defensive, “Well, we compare against past contracts.”

“That means you’re competing against yourself,” I pointed out. “What if there are better deals out there that you’re not even seeing?”

I knew they didn't have access to our database of pricing, built from the twenty or so members and associated companies who already bought through us.

I explained that our approach to procurement wasn’t just about driving suppliers down on price, but restructuring spend, consolidating vendors, and leveraging volume strategically.

“I know you are applying best practices and negotiating whole categories, but you will always be limited by small volumes in most of them.”

He had to agree with that, he was never going to admit that he was buying product by product, not consolidating categories. But I knew he didn’t have the time and resource to actually do it.

Prove It

I showed them a case study where a member hospital cut costs on theatre categories by 17%.

I broke down exactly how they did it, without sacrificing supplier relationships with their clinicians or lowering quality.

I talked them through the watertight legal processes we used to tender across Europe and how we had access to US pricing for benchmarking, if required.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “We’ll audit your contracts, benchmark them against the best in the industry, and identify hidden savings. If we don’t find at least 10% in efficiencies, you pay nothing.”

He made some noises about confidentiality and signed.

They always did.

Now, think about your sales career. You may believe you’re doing everything right.

What if there’s a better way?

One that makes you more valuable, gets you promoted, and increases your income?

That’s where sales coaching comes in. It helps you challenge your own approach, find blind spots, and unlock opportunities you didn’t even know existed.

Try the conversation structure I used on the hospital group:

• Uncover Existing Belief
• Challenge it and Create Uncertainty
• Offer New Perspective
• Provide Evidence of Success
• Suggest Risk Free Next Step

Maybe you could have figured that out on your own, but it took me about ten years to perfect.

Save yourself the time and buy that big house ten years earlier than you planned.

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Here's a video about choosing your comparisons carefully during sales conversations, another lesson I learned from the procurement community, who tend to be rather sharp in this area:

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