If I had a dollar for every client who tried to convince me that closing a smaller deal than what we had set as their strategy was a good thing, I could quit and retire to Jamaica right now. Aaron Ross, in his book From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue talks about this very phenomenon. He claims that in order to upscale your business and to do it quickly, you need to exponentially grow the size of the deals that you’re doing. It seems like such a no-brainer then what’s the hold-up?
Can’t Build a Big Business
My clients hire me to make more money. Yes, that’s true. But they don’t want it to be at the expense of their family, health and spare time. Most of the people who want to make more money want to make it by working smarter, not harder. So how is that going to be accomplished if they create a business for themselves that is no bigger than before and has them and their staff working longer hours because they couldn’t close anything but the smaller contracts?
What’s Getting In The Way
The first obstacle to nailing bigger Deals is that businesses don’t really have a good handle on their niche, ie. what industry and what specialty would garner bigger Deals. They don’t know who to target and they don’t know what one specific service or product to build their expertise and positioning on. They are simply staying afloat by taking word-of-mouth referrals and easy sells as they come instead of actively and strategically pursuing the bigger fish and bigger contracts. When you survive by taking what others toss your way instead of going out and hunting your own game, you will definitely be eating scraps so you don’t starve. Not niching is definitely getting in the way of most companies getting and closing bigger Deals.
Who? Me Play Big?
The other thing that stops small businesses from closing big Deals is that they are scared to go after the big clients and to quote big prices even if they do end up in front of a big client. They tell themselves that ‘just this once, I’ll give a price discount. Just this once, I’ll include a huge perk that wasn’t supposed to be included in the Deal. Just this once, I’ll extend the terms.’ When businesses have no previous experience in courting and closing big Deals, they revert back to their comfort zone and tell themselves all sorts of rationale to make themselves feel better. I should know, I was one of those people as I was growing my own business.
No Accountability
The real reason why businesses can’t build a big business is that even though they want to put into place a strategic niche, a sound marketing plan and a higher pricing strategy, they simply have nobody to keep them accountable to it. The best of plans and intentions do not change anything. Accountability does. For me, my coaches have always kept my feet to the fire. I’m happy to say that I do the same and pull my clients back from the brink on a regular basis. Even so, some are too scared to listen and change. Others can be saved. Thank God.
So if you want to grow big, you have to GO after BIG Deals. Then you have to stick to your strategy and to your guns, even if you want to throw up a little in your mouth and close those big wonderful Deals.
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