I want to change someone's mind

May 10, 2006 7:53 AM

I'm one of the top two candidates being for a very large and complex public art project. It's the second location of a high profile hospitality industry brand leader, and they want to do a similar art treatment as they did successfully at their first location.

I've proven, through a mock-up, that I can do the work, and the project's been bid, and I know I have a lower price than my competitor. However, due to the complexity of the work, price is not the only consideration. The client also has to have complete confidence that the successful bidder can do the work on the large scale and within the tight deadlines involved. My competitor is the one who successfully did the work at the first location.

My problem: Everyone on the client team wants to choose me for the project except the key decision maker. This person feel that my competitor, who did the work on the first location, did a fantastic job, and, as they put it, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" (not withstanding my better price). It is high profile, it does have lots of room for error, why should he risk choosing the new guy?

Can anyone offer any general rhetorical or other strategies to help change someone's mind who feels the way this guy does? What can I tell this guy that will really get under his skin, and shake him out of this conservative frame of mind?

posted by extrabox to work & money (5 comments total)

The guy in charge wants to avoid risk. If he sticks his neck out (i.e. choose you), you need to convince him things will not go wrong (show previous work, credible references) and/or he will not be blamed if things do go wrong (make detailed plans, promise regular progress reports, etc).

Basically you need to sell your story to the boss of the decision maker.
posted by beno at 8:01 AM on May 10, 2006

Offer overrun guarantees/penalties? Might be risky but it might convince them. Bear in mind that any costing/scheduling from your competitor will include their calculation that "We've done this once so can hit the ground running," whereas you'd have to figure things out from scratch and it will take you longer. Good luck!
posted by carter at 8:56 AM on May 10, 2006

To meet the guy's concerns, why not draw up a timetable that shows you getting it done, start-to-finish, slightly ahead of schedule?
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:18 AM on May 10, 2006

i like carter's suggestion of overrun penalties as a guarantee. also, is there any kind of value-added thing you can point out to the guy? that is, can you not just do it cheaper, but also do it better somehow to boot? without knowing anything about the project itself it's hard to give suggestions, and of course this is not feasible if they want the exact same thing.

the guy in charge is reluctant to change because if it goes down badly, it's his ass that'll take the heat. the trade-off you are offering is the risk of appearing incompetent to his supervisors vs. spending less company money. if i was in his shoes i probably wouldn't spend less if i thought it had a fair chance of making me look bad, particularly not with a high-profile project.

the point is this is not just about the company's risk, it's about the boss guy's personal risk. so, i think you need to make the risk equation work out so that if he chooses you, he ends up looking good. finding some way to make the installation better than your competitor will make it so that he has something personal to gain from choosing the riskier proposition.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 12:49 PM on May 10, 2006

Generally, you can't "sell" price. People generally believe, rationally or not, that if you are charging less, they are getting less. If your competitor can make the case that what is being offered is not a fungible commodity (and in this case, because of the client's identification of this project as a corporate prestige component, it is certianly not fungible), having the lower price can be a subtle strike against you, on a couple of levels.

First off, if you were selected, and actually delivered the second project acceptably at the lower price, you'd make the decision maker's decision on the previous project look bad, as, obviously, money was left on the table on the first job. Secondly, as the lower bidder in this round, you may have set yourself up already as a source of problems in future negotiations, as being interested in "buying a deal" on price, when actually, what the client is wanting from you is confirmation that you are sensitive to other requirements they have beyond price.

Knowing when to offer price concessions, and how much to offer, if any, is an art. From many years in sales, I'd always rather be the higher priced vendor, with better margins, than the low price guy in a bidding round, as it is far easier to make a "total value" close from the higher priced position than from the lower priced position. What I think you've got to do is go back to a reverse total value close, and use your knowledge of the approximate difference in price to confirm, point by point, your superior value, or adjust your price if you find discrepancies in requirements you haven't, up until now, appreciated.

You might say "Mr./Ms. Buyer, I've been thinking about this deal a lot lately, trying to put myself in your shoes, and by doing so, be sure I've met your requirements. It occurred to me that there is a big difference in price, and that if I were you, I'd want to be absolutely sure that I was getting everything I needed for the price quoted. So, I wondered if we could go over my proposal again, point by point, and be sure that I've understood everything, and that you see that you are getting the full package of goods and services you expect, in the case you choose to give me your business." Then you go over your proposal, not by talking, but asking informational questions, and listening. Every question you ask is an opportunity for the buyer to inject new requirements or re-emphasize old ones, and to upsell himself on additional close points, giving you a reason to come back with a price closer to what he's getting from the other guy, with additional services, product details, or value guarantees to support his decision to give you the business. And even if you don't, together, find reasons to adjust your price, you've given your client a legitimate opportunity to restate and confirm his specifications with you, and to see you as a competent, and you hope, superior vendor, with the communication skills and business savvy to support his decision to give you the business.

Or, as they used to say in the 20th century sales seminars "They don't care what you know, until they know how much you care." Bottom line is, your client is telling you he doesn't believe you can beat the established vendor, and you need to make a way for him to talk himself into believing you can. Informational questioning, listening, and following his lead to bring hidden objections to the surface are key. If the key decision maker is past any review point, you may not be able to bring this one in. If not, learn from the experience, and apply what you learned in this negotiation to future deals.
posted by paulsc at 2:27 PM on May 10, 2006