How to Turn Lose-Win Into Win-Win

by Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez with Tad Tuleja

In a recent column, we talked about "buying the business". It's a risky tactic of playing Lose–Win to get a sale, of giving away something, hoping the investment will pay off in the long run. It usually doesn't. But "usually" suggests there might be situations where the calculated risk is worth taking. Here is one.

You might want to consider Lose–Win in situations where the potential return is so good and where the prospects for long–term business are so promising that you'd feel like a fool just walking away. Obviously, there are no rules we can give you for determining which accounts and which situations these are because nobody knows your business like you do. But we can give you a story that makes the point.

A friend of ours runs a plant–care service in Manhattan, supplying and supervising the care of decorative houseplants for corporations and large retail outlets. Some time ago, she was offered the opportunity to supply the foliage for one of the largest banks in the city—a company with dozens of locations that could have doubled her income overnight. Because she was so eager to get in the door, she agreed to supply and tend plants for a midtown location for six months at approximately half her usual rate. At that kind of introductory discount, she made nothing at all on the deal. In fact she lost money. But she considered it worth the gamble because of the expected return.

Our friend explains how she presented the gamble to the bank: "What I do, I do extremely well—but there was no way the bank would have ever found that out if I had gone head to head with the competition. They would have priced me out of the business from the start. So I told the bank that I was willing to prove to them how good I was by taking a bath on the trial period. I spelled it out very clearly. I was giving away the store up front, and I told them so, in writing. And I made it perfectly clear that, if they wanted my service to continue, it would be at my usual rates. I've now got a ten-site contract for two years, and I never had even a hint that they thought I was upping' my prices."

That illustrates perfectly not only the single exception we're pointing out—that is, when it's all right to operate in a Lose–Win fashion—but also how to do so. The reason Lose–Win so often degenerates into Win–Lose and then into Lose–Lose is that the salesperson fails to point out that the client is getting a special deal. So if you find yourself in a situation where Lose–Win seems a reasonable gamble, go for it. But be up front with your clients. Tell them what you're doing. Admit this is difficult for you and your company. Tell them why you think their business is worth it. And—most important of all—tell them exactly when, and under what "new" conditions, reality is going to be reintroduced into your relationship.

Adapted from The New Conceptual Selling

Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez with Tad Tuleja ) 1999 by Miller Heiman, Inc., All rights reserved with permission of Warner Books. Inc.