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This is a very specific industry that consists of pool and bar management at hotels. There is one major player in our area that has bought up a bunch of smaller companies over the years, but they don't have a great reputation with customer service oddly enough. However they are branded well, have multiple officers and warehouses all over the area, you can't even hit a stop light without looking up with one of their vehicles.
I've been tasked to help a company who is taking a slightly different approach to these contracts grow their business but of course that means going after monopoly contracts. These deals are multi-year so when you miss them it could be another 3-5 before you get a chance to bid again. A lot of them also have RFPs, so you can spend a week with a team combing through the details and building a very thought through proposal.
In the last 4 months, we have been told that we've won 9 contracts that would have been taken from this competitor, however, in every single instance, they had the option in their existing contract to price match and ultimately got to keep it themselves. All the time and effort we put in it just so the big guy can say yeah we'll do that is tiring.
How can you possibly get past this?
It's almost all about the money by the way. Corporations, hotel chains, HOA boards are the ones making these decisions. If they can squeak out more money for the deal that's all that matters to them unless someone royally screws up. The little things like we provide better customer service, we're technology focused, increase customer spending etc are all looked at as salesman fluff.
Also you don't get to meet with the decision makers very easily. Going after a Hilton hotel, the local GM has little say. Going after a neighborhood, there are a dozen people on the HOA board and you may have only spoken to one of them.
What can be done here?