The Recommendation That Cost Us the Sale
A German lift manufacturer asked us to supply a drywall system for US testing. After looking at how their lifts are actually installed, we recommended masonry and concrete instead — and lost the contract. They passed on the first attempt.
The Brief
A German lift manufacturer needed to test their product in China for the US market. They came to us through a laboratory introduction, looking for a team that understood both the test standard and the construction of the specimen itself. Their request was specific and simple: supply a drywall system for the furnace.
What We Found
Before quoting, we asked how their lifts are actually installed. In most of their projects the shaft interfaces with brick or concrete — walls a laboratory can build without special preparation and without introducing new variables. A drywall system would have meant more joints, more failure points and a lower chance of passing on the first submission, at a higher cost to build and to specify. The request was understandable; it just did not match the way their product is used.
What We Recommended
We advised them to test against masonry and concrete walls instead. It was the honest answer and the commercially worse one for us: no drywall supply contract, only a recommendation and the drawings to go with it. The client accepted the reasoning, tested on walls that matched their real installations, and passed.
The Outcome
We did not win the order. The client entered the US market without a second submission, at a lower cost than the route they had originally planned. Not every conversation ends in a sale, and this one was never going to. It ended with a manufacturer who understood their own test requirements more clearly — which is the part of the job that does not appear on an invoice.
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