There are two major differences between an average B2B sale and a mega-deal:
- The size of the audience
- The amount of risk
Historically, it takes an experienced and specialized individual or team to traverse a megadeal audience. Multi-billion dollar deals normally involve a vast ecosystem of financial, contractual, and cultural complexities. There are always many obstacles to maneuver when it comes to the people involved in a megadeal.
Risk mitigation is equally vital but tends to be somewhat easier to pin down.
Flip My Funnel guest-host Steve Watt had the opportunity to chat risk mitigation for megadeals with the co-author of the forthcoming Megadeals: How Multi-Billion Dollar Deals Are Done and What the Rest of Us Can Learn From It, Chris Engman.
It’s worth noting that Chris is the founder of four companies; has been a CEO, CRO, and CMO; is an investor in 12 companies, and is ultimately a megadeal sales leader.
He knows his stuff.
Here’s what we’re unpacking today:
- Why you need to be proactive about risk in a megadeal
- Why transparency in a megadeal is crucial
- Tips for running a risk mitigation workshop
This post is based on a podcast with Chris Engman. If you’d like to listen to the full episode, you can check it out here and below.
Proactive risk management in a megadeal
In a deal involving dozens – maybe even hundreds – of people and billions of dollars, there’s no time to be reactive.
Megadeal makers like Chris don’t get to where they are today by covering up mistakes they didn’t see coming.
Considering proactive risk management for every aspect of a megadeal is a requirement for success. This is achieved through candidness with your potential partner.
Seeming too unconventional will turn future partners away in fear of the risk that accompanies working with you. On the other hand, claiming that you’ve already resolved any potential risks will make you appear unrealistic and, frankly, not trustworthy.
To successfully roll out a proactive risk management strategy, you need to address the potential risks before your prospect does. When you’re working with a megadeal number of people, risk should be among the first topics you bring up.
Your megadeal prospects are not in the positions they are because they’ve ignored risk their entire careers. They have learned to identify it and build a savvy proactive risk management plan around it.
Transparency in a megadeal
Proactiveness and transparency are among the most imperative elements of a megadeal.
Risk is always involved in megadeals. Where you can stand apart from other deal makers is how you mitigate that unavoidable risk.
It’s true, you won’t have a solution to everything. However, your transparency about risk is necessary because:
- Your prospects aren’t shallow. They will research you and they will uncover your weaknesses if you don’t bring them up.
- It will allow you to build a trusting relationship right off the bat. Potential partners know that there will always be some type of risk. They will appreciate you being forthright about it.
- It will make the qualification process move faster. The quicker your prospects know about the risks of working with you, the quicker they can qualify you.
Offer a risk mitigation workshop
To achieve proactiveness and transparency in your megadeal, Chris suggests offering a risk mitigation workshop.
A risk mitigation workshop will not only help to address risk head-on, but it will also act as a space to brainstorm ways to decrease the risk. By offering a workshop, you’re already fostering a situation in which your prospects are imagining working with you.
A few things to keep in mind when you’re hosting a risk mitigation workshop:
- Think like a CEO, not a sales executive. How will this megadeal affect the bottom line? Work through scenarios that are important to organizational leaders.
- You don’t have to throw away your credibility. While you should strive to lay out all the potential risks on the table, you should offer ways that you can uniquely serve your future partner.
- You won’t find a solution to everything. Although, the way in which you mitigate risk should still help your prospects put trust in you.
Honesty is key to risk mitigation
Proactively and transparently addressing risk will help your megadeal prospects qualify you faster and put more trust in you.
Megadeal ecosystems can get complicated. Risk mitigation shouldn’t.
