Eight Customers You Don't Want and How Four of Them Can be Reformed: Qualifying the Sale from an In-House Counsel's Perspective

Abstract

With quarterly targets, annual goals, sales incentives, and aggressive sales management, how could you suggest that your client assess the viability of a transaction or even reject the pending sale after the sales team spent weeks, months, or maybe even years cultivating the prospective customer? A typical in-house legal department struggles to be viewed as a helpful part of the sales process and acting as the deal executioner, instead of the sales enabler, appears not to help their reputation. But what if that customer had a poor credit history, tied up your client’s customer service team, put other projects at risk, or otherwise disproportionately consumed the company’s resources or hurt their brand? Would taking a second look at a deal still feel as distasteful?