Mario Martinez—the CEO of Vengreso and the host of the Modern Selling podcast—negotiated a 46-million-dollar deal when he worked for Sprint. How did he do it? Mario shares how he put everything on the line to make this deal a reality in this episode of Negotiations Ninja.
Outline of This Episode
- [1:58] Learn more about Mario Martinez
- [3:32] Laying the foundation for the deal
- [12:10] Negotiating the $46 million deal
How Mario Martinez negotiated a $46 million deal
While he was at Sprint, Mario worked with a Fortune 10 account (the world’s largest pharmaceutical distribution company). Over five years, he grew the contract from $2 million to $46 million. They were selling wired and wireless services to the 100,000+ employees in that organization.
There were three major players in the space, and they were the smallest of the three. Once he won the wire-line side, he looked into expanding into wireless. But they had some hurdles to overcome first.
Overcoming challenges to win business
One of the big challenges was building wireless infrastructure into the corporate office buildings. But as they did that, he knew they’d gain access to more users. So, a year into the first contract, Mario offered to reduce their wireless costs. How?
He started by placing wireless repeater systems in their buildings. But it was during this time that he realized they had a broken wireless procurement system. An employee had to print out a form, fill it out, and fax it to corporate. It took between 2–5 weeks to deliver someone’s cell phone. They had stacks of thousands of forms in piles for employees still waiting.
Mario said, “What if I could solve this problem for you?” So Mario said he’d come in three days a week and knock out the forms—if they were willing to try Sprint. His team knocked the five-week process down to two days.
Moving the entire process online
A year and a half into the process, Mario knew there had to be a better way to do things. So, he brought in a BSP to develop the software integration they needed to move the entire process online. Mario continued to find places to innovate where AT&T and Verizon were unwilling to.
When they launched the portal, Sprint saw a massive spike in sales. Why would anyone print and fax a form if they could do things online?
Mario had also built a relationship with the global CIO during this time. Mario invited him to concerts, football games, and he even came to his wedding.
Each of these things laid the framework for what would become a groundbreaking deal. Listen to this episode to hear how Mario turned this small account into one worth millions of dollars.
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- The Modern Selling Podcast
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