EPISODE 731: How a Chauffeur and a Champion Closed a Multi-Million Dollar Deal for Faheem Moosa


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Today’s show featured an interview with Faheem Moosa, founder of Consulting Leap.

Find Faheem on LinkedIn.

FAHEEM’S TIP:  “Even though I had a champion in the organization, I couldn’t push too hard. That was a learning for me. There are different dynamics that take place within an organization. Champions are not going to save you all the time, but then it doesn’t stop you from pursuing other angles and still being top of mind in other ways. That’s what I learned about champions in a complex sale.”

🚀 Key Takeaways:

Sales champions help—but can’t always seal the deal. Even a CFO advocate might hesitate if the timing isn’t right.
Persistence pays off. Even when doors close, creative networking can lead to a breakthrough.
Sales isn’t just about strategy—it’s about patience. The right opportunity can take time, but when it comes, the deal can happen fast.

THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE

Fred Diamond: I’m excited today. I got my friend Faheem Moosa on. I’m really curious about what story he’s going to tell. He works with consultants, helps them become more effective at marketing and bringing their services to market. Faheem, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do and then we’ll get on with your story.

Faheem Moosa: I think you said it, Fred. I own a company called Consulting Leap. What we do is we help management consultants, both independent consultants and owners of boutique management consulting firms, to build a sales and marketing pipeline. I come from a management consulting background. I’ve run my own firm for about 10 years. The biggest problem that we have in our industry is that we are all domain experts, we’re technical people, but we don’t have a background in sales and marketing. That’s what I help consulting firms do.

Fred Diamond: You and I have had numerous conversations because some of our listeners may know that for about 14 years, I was a fractional CMO, chief marketing officer, and I’ve had some great stories along the way, a couple that we’ve shared together in various formats. But I’m more interested in your story today. Faheem, tell us a great sales story.

Faheem Moosa: You know that I’ve been in consulting for a long time, almost 20 years, but the story I have today is from a past life. Before I got into the world of management consulting, I ran a manufacturing company, and it had roughly around 2,000 people. I ran multiple plants and so on. During the course of that business, it so happened that one of our companies went into debt and we had to sell one of our larger properties in order to pay off the loan and get the business back on its feet and so on. That became one of our focus areas for a pretty long time.

It was interesting because the property was about an acre. It’s not a small property. It was classified as an industrial property, which means that only other factories and plants and manufacturing businesses could purchase that property and build a plant. We couldn’t sell it off to a residential builder or a commercial builder. That was another constraint. The other biggest constraint was that it was under litigation. We had some litigation going on, and buyers didn’t want to touch it for those very reasons, and it was critical for the survival of that business. We spent months trying to look for a buyer. It was extremely hard. It was stressful. Nobody was forthcoming and so on.

Then it so happened after some time that the very adjacent property to that property was purchased by this very famous company doing hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. We felt that this was a perfect opportunity for us to go pitch the property to them because buying an adjacent property is more valuable to anyone. Then this company was expanding and it just made a lot of sense. Through our network, we got to know an attorney who was part of that company, and through the attorney we met the CFO. We learned that the decision maker was obviously the CEO, and the CFO and I hit it off. He understood our value proposition. I was leading the entire project and engagement. He said that when the time is right, he’ll introduce me to the CEO and facilitate this transaction because it makes sense.

Months went by and I couldn’t get a meeting with the decision maker. We tried very hard with both the attorney and the CFO, and even though we all got along really well, the value proposition was clear, didn’t happen, nothing happened. We looked at other buyers as well, we looked at various other potential buyers, but because of the constraints of that property, we could not find the right buyer. I had my sights set on the neighbor, because it was such a perfect deal, but nothing happened.

Even though the CFO was our champion, we noticed that he was keeping himself away after some time. It was very confusing for me at the time. But as salespeople, you got to keep pushing forward and finding ways to keep being top of mind and getting your foot in the door.

Later on, we realized, a few months later, that the CEO’s chauffeur, he had a private chauffeur, and we realized that we knew somebody who knew the chauffeur, and the person said, “I can put in a good word.” Well, no harm in trying. We said, “Okay, fine. Do it.” As luck would have it, we got the meeting with the CEO through the chauffer.

When we got the meeting, everybody was present, the CFO was there, the lawyers were there. When we got the meeting, this was after like almost a year of pursuing them, the deal was done in like five minutes. The transaction closed within the next couple of months. It was a multimillion-dollar deal. It was certainly the biggest deal that I was part of, and it solved a lot of problems. The litigation went away, the debt went away, the interest stopped, and it was an end of a dark period for that business.

That’s the story. The entire pursuit, it was certainly the hardest sale that I’ve ever made. It was, in many ways, the easiest sale that I’ve ever made after having met the final decision maker.

Fred Diamond: Tell me again how you interacted with the chauffeur. Did you just walk up to him one day, or did you get to know him? It’s interesting, we talk about this sometimes where you think in sales you’re going through the right process, you’re talking to the right people, you know who the stakeholders are, you try to bring them together, yada, yada, yada. But then there’s a little twist, where there’s this angle that you didn’t even think about, maybe it’s a personal tie or maybe something else, or maybe somebody went to school with the CEO, where then all of a sudden, boom, things just fly in. How did that happen? How did that interaction happen with the chauffeur?

Faheem Moosa: I never personally interacted with the chauffeur. Someone we knew and knew the chauffeur and we were talking to a lot of people to sell this property. One of those folks said that, “We know this person, let’s just put in a word.” They did that. I didn’t have any interaction. Once that move was made and initiated, we got the meeting in about a week. We heard that when the chauffeur mentioned to the CEO that these folks want to meet you, the CEO was like, “Yeah, the CFO told me about it. I forgot about this.” He wasn’t avoiding us or anything. He had other things going on.

Being top of mind really helps and you’re finding a different angle. If you’re stuck on one side, try to find different ways to get your foot in the door and never assume that it’s being done deliberately. A lot of times things keep playing in our head that this company doesn’t want to buy our services or whatnot, but it may not have anything to do with you.

Fred Diamond: Those guys, especially at that level, there’s so many things that they’re involved with. That’s a great story. Give us a tip that you took away from that story. I know you mentioned you actually had a couple.

Faheem Moosa: I do have a couple of tips. The first tip is about timing and control. As salespeople, we feel that we want to have control over when the buyer says yes. We try and do a lot of things that we shouldn’t be doing and pressurizing buyers into buying, being too “salesy”, having commissioned breadth, all of those things. Salespeople tie themselves in knots trying to break through, and they probably do things that they shouldn’t be doing and spoil their reputation in trying to force buyers to buying.

But then what I’ve learned, not just with this transaction, but along the way as well after so many years, is that you can’t have control over when the buyer decides to pull the trigger. There are a lot of external circumstances that may prevent the buyer from saying yes, or they may have different priorities. In our case, in this story, is that the buyer simply had bigger priorities. He was busy with other things, there were some other things going on. He was probably waiting for something to happen on his side before he makes a move on our property, which was slightly bigger than the adjacent property that he’d just purchased. You really can’t control when the buyer says yes. But at the same time, there are certain things that you can control.

You can control how much effort you put in. You can control what you say. You can control how you design the value proposition. You can control how to follow up, when to follow up, and you can control not giving up. Those are the things you can control, and there are some things you can’t control. I would say that focus on what is directly in your control and do what you have to do to make that sale happen without bringing any dispute to your own brand or reputation.

Fred Diamond: That’s a great answer. Do you have one more tip you want to share with us before we wrap up?

Faheem Moosa: The other tip is about champions. In sales, especially in complex sales, we usually have champions that push us through. In the example I gave, the CFO was our champion. I got along really well with him, very decent human being, and so were the others in the organization. I really felt that this person’s going to push us through. But what I realized a little later is that because the timing was wrong for the CEO, the CFO did not want to push too hard, because in these big transactions, you don’t want your boss thinking that you’re going to get a kickback out of a transaction or a sale. The CEO said, “Look, this is how much we can do. Let’s wait. Just be patient.”

Even though I had a champion in the organization, I couldn’t push too hard. That was a learning for me. There are different dynamics that take place within an organization. Champions are not going to save you all the time, but then it doesn’t stop you from pursuing other angles and still being top of mind in other ways. That’s what I learned about champions in a complex sale.

Fred Diamond: Like you just said, it’s almost always on the customer’s side as far as when they’re ready, and you don’t know. You had a great champion, the CFO would seem to be as good a champion as you could possibly have, and he saw the value, and he liked you, and he obviously brought it to your end user customer, the CEO who’s making the decision. For whatever reason, just the timing wasn’t right or wasn’t presented the right way at the right time, and who knows what else is going on. We’ve learned that too, a lot of times I’ve been talking to sales reps and they’ll say things like, “We got a champion and they’re definitely going to help us push it through.” It’s like, “Great.”

Then you see on the pipeline, it’s 50% likely to close because the champion said, “We love you, we definitely want to bring you in,” but you don’t know the perfect information and you don’t know what else is going on. In almost every case, your sale is not their priority. Might be important, might be necessary, but at the same time, they didn’t make a decision for a year. You, for a year, wanted to sell the property, but they didn’t die not making a decision, not buying it. I like the way you said you also pursued other avenues. You had a lot of constraints. But at the same time, it’s like, “Okay. Well, we think this is going to work. It makes a lot of sense. It makes sense for us, it makes sense for them. We have a champion, the proximity, all those kinds of things.” But again, you’re not really privy to all their inside conversations, even though the CFO wants to champion you and help you with the deal.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo

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