Latest / Closing the Deal with Fexingo: Sales, Negotiation, and Revenue Conversations for Operators / The Sales Rep Who Won by Asking for a Time Machine
Transcript
- Lucas: There is a specific moment in a sales conversation that most reps handle wrong, and it sounds like this: the buyer leans back, sighs, and says, 'Look, honestly, we would have bought this last year. The need was there, the timing was right, but now? Budget's gone. Maybe next cycle.' Luna: And that's usually where the rep nods politely and walks away. Maybe sets a follow-up for six months later. Lucas: Exactly. And that follow-up almost never closes. Because the buyer's urgency has evaporated. But today I want to talk about a rep who did something different. She asked for a time machine. Luna: A time machine. I love that. What did she actually say? Lucas: Her name is Jenna. She sells a project management platform for mid-market construction firms. Long sales cycle, six to nine months typically. She was on a call with a VP of operations at a regional contractor. The VP had been genuinely interested six months prior, but then a big project got delayed, and the budget line item got zeroed out. Luna: Classic. The need didn't go away, just the money. Lucas: Right. And most reps would hear 'budget's gone' and shift into problem-solving mode — discount, payment terms, smaller pilot. Jenna didn't. She said: 'If I could go back in time to when you first started looking at this, what exactly was happening in your business that made you think, we need this now?' Luna: So she's not accepting the 'no budget' premise. She's reaching back to the moment of urgency. Lucas: Exactly. The VP paused and said, 'Well, we had three superintendents spending two hours a day reconciling material orders across job sites. We estimated it was costing us about $400,000 a year in wasted labor.' Jenna wrote that down. Then she asked: 'And who was championing that change?' The VP named the head estimator. So Jenna asked: 'Is the head estimator still there?' Yes. 'And is that $400,000 still being lost?' Yes. Luna: So the problem still exists. The only thing that changed was that a specific project got delayed and the budget got pulled. Lucas: Correct. And the VP admitted that. Jenna then said: 'If I could show you a way to recapture that $400,000 in the next twelve months, would you be willing to revisit the conversation with the CFO?' The VP said yes. That led to a second meeting where the head estimator, the VP, and the CFO all attended. Jenna didn't have to discount. She closed the deal eight weeks later at full price. Luna: What she did was reconstruct the original business case. She went back to the point where the pain was acute enough to start a buying process, and then she locked that pain into the present tense. Lucas: That's the move. And there's a psychological label for why it works. It's called the 'fresh start effect' — but applied retroactively. Normally the fresh start effect is about temporal landmarks that motivate action in the future: new year, new quarter, new month. But Jenna used it in reverse. She asked the buyer to mentally travel back to a time when the urgency was real, and then she bridged that urgency forward. Luna: It's also a way to test whether the buyer is genuinely interested or just being polite. If they can't reconstruct the original pain with specifics, then maybe it was never real. Lucas: Right. The vague version is 'we were interested last year.' The specific version is 'we had three superintendents wasting two hours a day.' That specificity is what makes the conversation real. And it gives the rep something to build a new business case on. Luna: So the question itself — 'if I could go back in time' — is the tool. But it's not just the phrasing. It's the follow-ups. The who else was involved, the what exactly was the cost, the is that still true today. Lucas: Absolutely. The question is the entry point. The real work is the forensic reconstruction of the buying committee and the financial impact. And if today gave you something practical you can use, that's exactly the kind of thing we hope lands with you. The way these conversations stay ad-free and listener-supported is through people like you who find value in them. If you'd like to help keep that going, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a sincere option if the show moves your work forward. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to say 'this mattered' — and it genuinely makes a difference for us. Lucas: So back to Jenna's story. After she reconstructed the original pain, she didn't stop there. She asked a second question: 'What was the trigger that made you start looking six months ago?' The VP said they had lost a bid on a $10 million project because their estimates were slower than a competitor using automated software. Luna: So now she's not just talking about labor waste. She's talking about lost revenue. A missed $10 million contract. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a much more powerful number for the CFO. Jenna then asked: 'Has that competitor's advantage gone away?' The VP admitted it hadn't. So she said: 'If you don't address this, how many more bids are you likely to lose in the next twelve months?' The VP estimated three or four. Jenna did the math: $30 to $40 million in potential revenue at risk. Luna: That's the kind of number that gets a CFO's attention. Suddenly the $150,000 software investment looks like insurance. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the key insight. The time machine question doesn't just recover a lost deal. It surfaces the real cost of inaction, which is often much larger than the buyer initially frames. Because the buyer, when they say 'budget's gone,' is thinking about this year's spending. But the rep using this technique shifts the frame to the cost of not solving the problem. Luna: I want to know more about the execution. How do you ask that question without sounding gimmicky? Because 'if I could go back in time' could come off as cheesy. Lucas: Good point. The rep I talked to said she usually prefaces it with something like: 'I know the timing isn't right now, but help me understand what was different six months ago when you were interested.' That's a very natural opening. And then she lets the buyer talk. The key is not to interrupt. Let them paint the picture. Then you ask the follow-ups. Luna: So the phrase 'time machine' is more of a teaching concept for us. In practice, you're just asking about the past with genuine curiosity. Lucas: Right. And the other important detail: you have to ask about the people. Who was in the room when the decision got put on hold? Who was the strongest advocate? Who was skeptical? Because those people still exist. The power dynamics haven't changed, just the budget timing. Luna: That's a great point. If the champion is still there, you have an ally. If the champion left, you're starting from scratch. Lucas: Exactly. In Jenna's case, the head estimator was still there and still frustrated. So she had a built-in internal sponsor. She asked the VP: 'Would it be helpful if I prepared a one-page summary of the cost of delay for the CFO, using the numbers we just discussed?' The VP said yes. That summary became the document that reopened the budget conversation. Luna: So the rep becomes a consultant, not a vendor. She's helping the buyer make the case internally. Lucas: That's the shift. Most reps, when they hear 'no budget,' they go into preservation mode — keep the relationship warm, send a quarterly check-in. Jenna went into detective mode. And the result was a deal that had been declared dead came back to life. Luna: It makes me wonder how many dead deals are actually just waiting for someone to ask the right question. Lucas: I think the number is huge. Most sales organizations track 'closed lost' and move on. But if you look at deals that were genuinely qualified — the pain was real, the budget was there, the timeline was there — and then something external shifted, those are exactly the deals where this technique works. The external shift might be a reorganization, a new CFO, a delayed project. But the underlying need hasn't changed. Lucas: Exactly. And then pick up the phone and ask the time machine question. Not in a pushy way. Say: 'Hey, I know it's been a few months. I was reviewing our conversation from last spring, and I remember you mentioned X. Is that still a pain point for you?' You're not selling. You're investigating. Luna: And if the pain is still there, you've got a conversation. If it's not, you know for sure and can move on. Lucas: Right. Either way, you get clarity. I think that's the underrated value of this approach. It forces a real qualification moment. A lot of reps carry dead deals in their pipeline for months because they're afraid to ask the hard question. The time machine question is a gentle way to find out if there's a pulse. Luna: So for our listeners who want to try this: what's the one script they can take away? Lucas: I'd say: 'I understand the timing isn't right now. But when we spoke before, you mentioned that was costing you. Is that still the case?' That's it. Then listen. If they say yes, ask: 'What would need to change for this to become a priority again?' And then be quiet. Let them answer. Luna: Simple. But most reps won't do it because they're afraid of hearing 'no.' Lucas: That's the barrier. But the rep who's willing to hear 'no' often finds a 'yes' on the other side. Jenna's deal closed eight weeks after that original call. And the CFO told her later: 'I'm glad you called. We had almost forgotten how much this was costing us.' Luna: The forgotten pain. That's a good way to think about it. Your job as a rep is to remind them. Lucas: That might be the best takeaway of the whole episode. The forgotten pain. Most buyers are busy. They move on. But the pain doesn't move on. It's still there, quietly costing them money. And the rep who can gently, respectfully bring it back to the surface has a shot at closing a deal everyone else wrote off.