Sales leadership · 2 min read

When the Client Thinks You're a Vitamin

A client who sees you as optional will cancel at the first quiet month. The work is getting the length of commitment right before that month arrives.

By Jeev Trika

The vitamins-and-painkillers idea is common in sales and startups, and Kellogg’s Mastering Sales program has a module on it: a painkiller solves a problem the buyer has right now, and a vitamin is something that would be good for them. When budgets tighten, painkillers stay and vitamins go.

Most of what I know about it comes from cancellation emails, on both sides.

From the buyer’s side

In January 2022 I cancelled one of our own software subscriptions. My note said:

We find the service useful, however, it has come to our attention we have other active accounts and don’t need this one.

Useful, and cancelled anyway. That is what a vitamin sounds like from the inside. Nobody was unhappy with it. It just was not solving anything that something else was not already solving.

From the seller’s side

The client who wanted to try it. In 2017 a client on one of our comparison platforms cancelled after a month without leads. I had wanted a longer commitment from the start, and I said so in my reply:

As I indicated to you from the beginning, I really did not want to have someone try this for a short time and wanted 6 months. I think you are making a mistake, but your call.

A client who signs up “to try it” has already told you how he sees you. One quiet month is enough to confirm it.

The client who asked for a guarantee. In 2018 a prospect wanted to know what leads I would guarantee before committing. My answer:

We have been through this man. We don’t guarantee anything. I really need to know the budget so that I can then present to appropriate opportunities.

When he settled on a figure, I told him plainly that more budget would get him more value, so that he would be happier from the beginning. A buyer who is underfunded from the first month is set up to feel like he bought a vitamin.

The cancellation with a reason that wasn’t one. In November 2018 one of DMA’s delivery partners forwarded a cancellation. The client’s keywords and traffic were up, but their sales had fallen and they could no longer afford SEO. My reply:

Not good enough of a reason. When you send these accounts, please advise of value of these accounts.

The client had stopped seeing SEO as something the business needed. And a cancellation reported without its value cannot be weighed against anything.

What I took from it

You cannot argue a client out of seeing you as a vitamin after the fact. What you can do is decide up front: how long a commitment the work needs to show results, what budget it needs to matter, and what the client will measure it by. If those three are wrong at the start, the cancellation email is already written.