The Decision-Maker Said Yes, The Team Said No

(Have you ever lost a deal like that?)

This happened earlier this year for a startup I was working with.

We had C-Level (even Co-Founder) access. The guy was hyped and sold after the 1st meeting.

Now he had to ask the team…

But they were reluctant (extra lesson for me this year: engineers are proud, so convincing them is hard).

Since the C-Level already had retention challenges and needed each one in the team, he didn’t shove it down their throats.

We lost the deal. (He was still nice enough to vouch on our behalf to other companies).

Your lesson: the decision-maker has the budget control, but he may not be the main user (in fact, that’s rarely the case).

If you don’t bring the final users on board––who might rebel against (learning) a new tool (that might even make them less relevant)––there’s a chance you’ll still get nothing.

Or as another decision-maker once told me about other company’s stakeholders:

“They don’t have the power to say Yes, but they do have the power to say No.”