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The Bermuda Triangle – The Mystery of Stuck Deals

The famous Bermuda Triangle is a place of paranormal activity: When perfectly safe and functional aircraft and boats enter this place in the ocean, they’re never heard from again.

In the sales process there’s also a Bermuda Triangle. It occurs right at the point of the “testing phase” with a new client. It seems to be a sunny, cloudless place of hope and excitement.

But, in fact, it’s a very dangerous place.

I call this area the Bermuda Triangle because, just like the part of the ocean bearing the same name, once a perfectly healthy sale enters this region, they’re never heard from again. In fact, there isn’t even debris floating in the water to signal its fleeting existence.

Most big sales have a few steps after “yes.”

They may include a prototype phase, a beta-test, initial installation, and so on. All of these pre-rollout processes are designed to protect the buyers from large-scale mistakes and damages. So they limit the first implementation to a very manageable and contained area. This is reasonable, but often times, deals stall out somewhere in the middle.

The Bermuda Triangle of sales has three points:
  • Expectations

  • Connection

  • Performance

If you navigate these points well, you get through the triangle. Ignore or mismanage them at your peril.

    Let’s take them one at a time:

  • Expectations. Why don’t sales people tell the whole story? And on the same token, Why don’t clients listen to the whole story?

    • The “whole story” means the full details of what’s going to happen and what will be necessary on a program. Sales people sometimes gloss over rough points, and clients hear only what they want to hear in the sales process. Later on, memories fade and morph, leaving you stuck with a “he-said, she-said” mess.

    Getting the expectations into the proposal is key to having traction in the sale after the first dollar. Here are a few of the most important ones to include:

    • Calibration. Your sales promise was made with stories of great performance and ecstatic clients. These were real. However, they occurred because the client started using your product or service and you “dialed it in” to their specific needs. There are lots of small adjustments that are made early in a relationship that make the difference between a good relationship and a great one. This expectation of a period of calibration needs to be set early and clearly laid out in the proposal.

    • Adoption Curve. Every change that occurs inside a company has an adoption curve. The curve starts at a level that’s less than ideal but that improves to its optimal sustainable level. That final level is what you promised the client. But it doesn’t start there. You have to paint the picture of what the Adoption Curve will be, including what level of performance can be expected on day one, and then how many days, and at what rate, the performance will improve. Showing the graph of the Adoption Curve puts the client in a clear position to explain to others in the company that the program is right on track, even if the performance is not yet at its promised level.

    • Additive Results. As you implement any solution into a company, efficiencies occur, learning happens, and adjustments are made. This results in performance increases over the course of time--days, weeks or months. You have to explain what the cycle of additive results will be and cite examples of past programs in which there were additive results achieved. If you do not, then just like the adoption curve, which is about resistance and training, there will be disappointment along the way because best performance is not achieved on day one.


  • Connection. One of the most dangerous practices that we see occurs with companies in their approach to “checking in.” This means that the process of monitoring the progress of the first phase of an implementation is handled almost exclusively by the salesperson and comes in the form of checking in. In order to maintain traction, there needs to be a much more vigorous process of staying connected with the implementation, and with all of the key stakeholders during the early stages of a big sale. Specifically:

    • Frequency. Be detailed in the proposal and the presentation concerning what the schedule of contact will be, by which people and what the key topics will be in each session. This drives a sense of value to the interaction and creates a sense of safe sailing for all involved.

    • Method. You need to have a very organized approach to monitoring progress so that you are in the best position to show early success and accelerate the next phase of implementation. This means punch lists, sign-offs at the front line level, and a combination of measurements and anecdotes.

    • Team Touch Points. There is often an assumption that the people who are involved in the design and deployment of the proof-of-concept phase are the buyers for the larger program. Oftentimes they’re not. When you sell a company and they test you in a specific location, district or region, that doesn’t guarantee you will roll-out across the company. If you don’t include members of the next step in the roll-out of the initial testing phase, you’re dooming yourself to starting all over again in the sales process with the next group. Include members from the next group to roll-out in the implementation of the first group as a way to keep velocity in the implementation of your full program across your target client.


  • Performance. The true results, the full ROI on your solution, may not be immediately realized. This means that if your client is waiting for performance to reach a certain level, you could be delayed for a long time on reaching the account’s full potential. We see many deals stall out as the results are reviewed and re-examined by different groups within a client company. What can you do?

    • Teach the bumps. Be clear up front what the bumps are along the way so that when they do occur (and they often do), there’s an understanding that they’re natural, and there’s a process to smooth them out as they happen. A good way to paint this picture is by presenting a case study from a previous engagement, which will depict the bumps along the way, and your methods for correcting them.

    • What are early success signs? If you can create a clear path of what the road to success will look like for the client, then you can accelerate the rate of purchase of the complete solution if there are early, credible wins. Think of it this way: on an unfamiliar road, you keep looking for the big green sign that tells you how many miles to your destination. When you don’t see one, you check the map and you start to worry. You’re doubting yourself and whomever you got directions from…that is, until you see the next big green sign. We are not responsible for laying out the map, but we do need to tell the client what the green signs are for this program and how he or she will know that we are all on track.

— Tom Searcy





Tom Searcy, The Whale Hunters Company, Large Account Sales, Business Growth, Sales Process Development, Fast Growth Strategies, RFPs, Key Account Management, Current Account Growth, Sales Management, Breaking Business Growth Plateau's, Prospecting System, Business Acceptance Process, Sales Management Development, Big Sales, Big Deals, Deal Coaching, Transform your company, Explosive Growth, Whale Hunting

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