Do you sometimes go for the ‘big sale’ and miss out when there was a more doable deal that you could have first secured?

My first ever sales/consulting role was with the Morgan & Banks Group back in the early nineties. Morgan and Banks was established in 1985, and quickly grew to be one of the leading HR and recruiting firms across Australia and Asia. It was publicly listed in 1994 and sold to TMP in 1998 for $380 million.

I was reminded just the other day of a piece of advice that was given to me by Andrew Banks (now with his long time business partner Geoff Morgan, once again heading up leading Australian HR Consulting Company Talent²).

Andrew had a motto of ‘do the doable deal’. This is great advice. Now, depending on your own situation, doing a doable deal first, before trying for the ‘big deal’ can be the first step in building long term trust relationships.

You don’t ‘get’ trust…..you earn it.

Doing the doable deal can demonstrate your expertise, your values and the value that you can create for your clients. Sometimes, winning the smaller deal can quickly lead to the levels of trust that are required to win the bigger deals.