Latest / Sales Leadership with Fexingo: Quota Carriers, Sales Managers, and Revenue Teams / How to Handle the Prospect Who Keeps Changing Their Buying Criteria
Transcript
- Lucas: You're three months into a six-figure deal. The procurement team has signed off on your proposal. Your champion is on board. And then, on a Friday afternoon, you get an email with a bullet-point list of new requirements — things your product absolutely does not do. Luna: The moment your stomach drops. I've been there. What most reps do is panic and promise a workaround they can't actually deliver. Lucas: Exactly. And that instinct — to say 'yes, we can figure that out' — is usually the wrong move. Today I want to walk through a specific playbook for handling the prospect who keeps changing the buying criteria. It's a scenario that costs sales teams millions in wasted pipeline every quarter. Luna: Let's start with a real example. I was working with a mid-market SaaS company last year — they sell compliance software to financial services firms. They had a $400,000 deal that was supposedly at the 'verbal yes' stage. Lucas: Verbal yes — that dangerous phase. What happened? Luna: The prospect's legal team came back with a data residency requirement. They needed all data stored on servers in Germany. The company's infrastructure was entirely us based. The rep immediately said, 'We can have that up in three months.' He couldn't. Lucas: Classic. And what was the outcome? Luna: The deal stalled for four months. The prospect lost confidence. Eventually they went with a German competitor. But here's the interesting part — six months later, the same prospect came back. The German vendor had integration issues. The rep had a second chance. Lucas: And what did he do differently the second time? Luna: He paused. He didn't say yes or no. He asked for a call with the decision-making team, and he said, 'I want to understand how this requirement ranks against the original six criteria you gave us.' Lucas: That's the first move in the playbook — pause and re-qualify. Because the new requirement is rarely the real issue. The real issue is usually a change in the prospect's internal dynamics. A new stakeholder joined. A budget shifted. A competitor whispered something. Luna: Right. The new requirement is a symptom, not the disease. So step one is to stop promising and start asking. What specifically do you ask? Lucas: I ask three questions. One: 'When did this requirement emerge, and who raised it?' Two: 'Is this a nice to have or a hard block?' And three: 'If we could meet it, would it change the timeline or the budget?' The answers tell you whether you're dealing with a real blocker or a negotiating tactic. Luna: The third question is key. Because if they say 'no change to timeline or budget,' they're probably testing you. If they say 'we'd need to revisit budget,' then it's a serious new initiative. Lucas: Now, step two: re-anchor the evaluation criteria. Most sales teams do a discovery call at the beginning of the deal, document the requirements, and never revisit them. But when the criteria shift, you need to go back to the original list and ask the prospect to rank everything — old and new — in order of importance. Luna: I love that. Actually get them to put it in writing. In the case I mentioned, the rep sent a simple one-page document with the original six criteria plus the new one, and asked each stakeholder to rank them. The CEO ranked data residency at number four. The CTO ranked it number one. Lucas: That's the internal alignment problem. The rep discovered that the CTO was the one pushing the new requirement, but the CEO didn't care as much. So he asked for a meeting with both of them to reconcile the ranking. Luna: And that meeting saved the deal. They agreed that data residency was important but not a deal-breaker — they accepted a phased rollout over eighteen months. The rep won the deal on the second try, but it cost him an extra nine months of selling. Lucas: Which brings us to step three: create a contingency plan in the contract. If you can't meet the new requirement immediately, offer a timeline and a conditional clause. For example: 'We will deliver German-hosted infrastructure within twelve months, subject to a minimum of $200K in annual recurring revenue.' That aligns incentives. Luna: So you're not just saying 'we'll build it' — you're saying 'we'll build it when the relationship proves it's worth it.' That feels fair. The prospect sees you as a partner, not a vendor who overpromises. Lucas: Exactly. And the data shows that deals where the rep re-anchors the criteria after a change have a 40 percent higher close rate than deals where the rep just tries to accommodate the new requirement without resetting expectations. I've seen that in Gong's benchmark data. Luna: Forty percent — that's significant. And it makes sense, because when you accommodate without re-anchoring, you're essentially admitting that the original criteria were negotiable. The prospect loses trust in your process. Lucas: Right. Your process is your credibility. So let's talk about sales leaders. If you're listening and you manage a team, how do you coach reps through this? I've got a specific drill I use. Luna: I want to hear it. Because most sales managers just say 'go figure it out' or worse, 'just say yes and we'll figure it out later.' Lucas: The drill is called 'The New Requirement Roleplay.' You take a real deal from your pipeline, identify the most recent new requirement the prospect added, and have the rep roleplay the pause and reanchor conversation with you. Time it. The goal is to get through the three questions in under two minutes. Luna: Two minutes — that's tight. But it forces brevity. Because in a real call, you don't have time to ramble. If you sound uncertain, the prospect will run over you. Lucas: Exactly. And after the roleplay, you debrief on what the rep learned. Did the new requirement actually reveal a hidden stakeholder? Did it change the power dynamics? One rep I coached discovered that the 'new requirement' was actually the CFO's way of killing the deal without saying 'no' — he wanted the rep to disqualify himself. Luna: That's a fantastic insight. Sometimes the new requirement is a polite rejection. If the prospect knows you can't meet it, they're handing you an exit. But if you re-anchor, you might find out it's not a deal-breaker after all. Lucas: So the framework is simple: pause, re-qualify, re-anchor, and build a conditional plan. But the hardest part is the pause. Because every rep's instinct is to fill the silence with a promise. Luna: We talk a lot on this show about the psychological side of selling — the Zeigarnik effect, anchoring, scarcity. This is another one of those moments where the psychology works against you unless you're aware of it. Lucas: Speaking of the show — a couple of dollars a month, if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, is genuinely what keeps these going. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Every bit helps keep it ad-free and focused on the tactics that actually work. Luna: Yeah, absolutely. It's a small gesture that makes a big difference for us. Now, back to the moving target — I want to leave listeners with one concrete email template they can use tomorrow. Lucas: Good idea. Here's the structure. Subject line: 'Quick alignment check on the evaluation criteria.' Body: 'Thanks for sharing the new requirement around. To make sure we're prioritizing correctly, I've attached the original list of criteria we agreed on. Could you and your team rank these — including the new one — in order of importance? This will help us focus on what matters most to you. Happy to jump on a 15-minute call to walk through it together.' Luna: That's perfect. It's collaborative, not defensive. And it forces alignment on their side. I'd add one thing: send it to all the stakeholders you've identified, not just your champion. That way you get the full picture. Lucas: Great addition. And one more thing — if you get the rankings back and the new requirement is at the bottom, you have an easy conversation. 'It looks like this is lower priority — should we park it for now and move forward on the original scope?' That's a close. Luna: That's a close disguised as a favor. I like it. So the takeaway: when the criteria change, don't react — pause, re-anchor, and let the prospect's own ranking guide you. Lucas: Exactly. The prospect who changes the criteria is not your enemy. They're giving you information. The question is whether you have the discipline to use it.