The only way to deal with this situation is to put it down to experience, but ensure that you keep in touch with the prospective client. It is only by keeping this connection that you will be able to influence their future decisions. With my longer experience, I can console you by confirming that on a number of occasions I have suffered the experience of my initial proposals being rejected but have had the joy of succeeding at a later date.
However, like all setbacks, you should take the opportunity of reviewing where you might have gone wrong :-
1. Did you communicate your scheme effectively? Could you have done it better / differently? Remember it is a danger with all experts that they perceive their audience to be as knowledgeable as they are.
2. Were you speaking to all of the people who could influence the company's decision?
3. Did you get deflected by the questions they asked?
4. From the outset, did you find out in detail what their needs were and did your proposal meet those needs ?
Keep persevering, I am sure the right outcome will be achieved. It just may take slightly longer than you would like.
Comments
I can see that maintaining the contact would be useful, especially with our larger clients who have multiple sites and therefore potentially more information.
Your point about the message is well made, and we did conduct an after-action review which helped us address some key points here.