If the shoe doesn’t fit (being a gracious loser)

Seth Godin had an especially good little piece last week on how you should act when there’s really not a good fit between your organization/product/services and what you’re prospect is looking for.

Seth started out with a little tale about someone (I’ll assume it was Seth and/or his wife) going into a shoe store that didn’t carry the size shoe he was looking for. When he asked whether there was another shoe store in town (not his own town, by the way), the clerk said, no, and asked whether he wanted the shoes in another size.

Now, there are some things in life that you can suggest a substitute for. As in, ‘we don’t have that sweater in black, but if you’re interested we have it in navy, and I think you’d look really good in that color.” Or even, “Our product doesn’t have that precise feature, but let’s talk about what you’re hoping to accomplish and we’ll see if it’s something we can handle.”

Shoes are another matter. If you need a size 6 (which, parenthetically, I haven’t needed since 4th grade), a size 8 (which, parenthetically, I haven’t needed since 6th grade) just ain’t gonna do ya.

And so, Seth writes, this clerk missed an opportunity to help someone out who just may have become a positive word-of-mouther for this store (which, given that this is Seth Godin is, let’s face it, missing out on some word-of-mouth opportunity).

He ties the shoe incident to something that us B2B marketers run into more frequently: responding to an RFP where there is really no fit between what we have and do, and what the customer needs and wants.

We’ve all been there, no?

I remember working one RFP that was completely explicit about a key requirement that we were completely unable to meet, no matter how we stretched and spun.

When I pointed this out to the sales rep - and also pointed out that the only competitor who fit the bill was X - he brushed me off.

So, ultimately, did the prospect, who - surprise, surprise - went with X.

You could argue that we were going to lose whether we mentioned X to the prospect or not. But to my way of thinking, we missed an opportunity to stand out in the prospect’s mind. At some point, that prospect might have had a need we could meet, and might have remembered that we were straight shooters, good to work with. You never know, but the chances of our getting business in the future from this prospect would surely have been enhanced if we’d been helpful up front.

Seth points out that this is not about throwing in the towel during a tight race. If you’ve got a legitimate shot at a win, you should definitely not fold just because there’s some small advantage for the other guy. But if you really have no business in the deal to begin with, there’s no point in not being gracious, is there?

This can backfire, of course, as a variation-on-a-theme

Once, when I was waitressing at a particularly heinous restaurant (where I had to wear a polyester, miniskirt sailor dress), a late in the day patron asked whether the fish was good. Since the fish had been sitting on a steam table since about 11 o’clock that morning (and it was now 8 p.m.), I warned him off it. He then went and ratted me out to the manager. (Boy, and I hadn’t even recommended another restaurant. I just told him not to get the scrod.)

Mostly, though, if your shoe doesn’t fit, and the other guy’s does, it’s sound advice to let shoeless Joe know where he can get shod.

(That Seth Godin, he’s so smart! No wonder I was thinking of going out as him for Halloween. But I didn’t have a bald wig on hand, so I just put my Obama 2008 cap on and went as a Democrat.)

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