AMA: Yext Director Enterprise Sales, Fabio Maglieri on Deal Strategy

Answer yourself the question "What's in it for me?" for the multiple stakeholders involved before approaching them. Get this information through own research or better together with your champion who you are working on making this deal happen. The more compelling your outreach, the closer it is aligned to personal and company-wide goals, the more likely you will get a response. Leverage internal and external resources whenever needed to address different personas. If it's about the business value, work on a business case with credible numbers with your champion and your engineers. If it's about the readiness of your product arrange a reference call. Do you know of partners, advisors involved that can help you drive the deal towards closing - use them.

How to influence in general? Act as a trusted advisor that makes use of the RFP to demonstrate the superiority of your product and educate the customer. Try to get a hand on the material before it gets published and influence that your USPs gets mentioned so only your product fits the requirements. Make use of partners, advisors that helped the prospect/customers with the RFP. When you feel that you get the RFP late? Be bold enough to ask for the reasons. They ask you to make a bid so you are also free to make demands on information. If they are hesitant with giving you reasons or you obviously feel that they are not telling you the truth - it is possible that they only need you as a counteroffer or to have reference bids. If you feel that no matter what you will propose they won't choose you - save the effort. But try to convince them that a RFP is always a possibility to challenge the status quo, research the market for better solutions and go with a product that is better than the current one (if there is any).

No product has all the features, but barely people choose products because of one specific feature. Find out what the prospect really tries to solve with the legacy incumbent and what they are currently struggling with. Sometimes it takes time and effort to really find out the pain points because people got used to them and see them as unchangeable. Build up a story on where they will be like in 1-2 years with your products instead of sticking to the existing one. Make them want this future and explain why only you can build this future.

Test it. How strong are they on their price point and are they willing to give in for something else? Also find a bargain and do not give discounts without getting anything in return. Nonetheless sometimes it can be smart to give some discount if you get something in return that is more precious in the future (access to management, other departments, stakeholders, references, ...).

Interesting one. On the one hand side change is the only constant, but no one likes changes because it means uncertainty. Therefore try to replace the fear of uncertainty with the desire to create something new, something better (with your product). Build up a story on where they will be like in 1-2 years with your products instead of sticking to the existing one. Make them want this future and explain why only you can build this future.

Make yourself relevant. Always tie your solution to strategic company goals. If it is all about productivity and cost savings, show how your solution can help achieving that - the more precise your numbers and the business case reflects their business, the better. If it is all about increasing revenue, show how you can accelerate time to market or increase conversion rate. Proof it with references, the closer to your prospect's business the better. Additionally indicate the costs of doing nothing when the prospect is hesitant to invest the tight budget in your product. What does they loose if they do not start today but in a year?

Look for personalities who are outspoken about their personal and company goals and tie your solution's USPs to those goals. If you can demonstrate that you can support them with achieving them they will see the chance to promote themselves.