To locate the right buyer in a large company takes cunning and determination. Two
salespeople for New York consulting firms that routinely work with large companies
offer how-to advice.
"Start with lots of advance homework,” recommend sales representative Joelyn Cecere
of Forum Corporation and sales manager Dale Klamfoth of Drake Beam Morin.
First, go to the target company’s Website.
Cecere recommends clicking on “Investor Relations” to see recent speeches from top
company executives and start to get a feel for the company’s culture and leadership.
Klamfoth looks for press clippings about the company, not only on its Website, but
also from such independent sources as Dun and Bradstreet (www.dunandbradstreet.com)
and One Source (www.onesource.com). Learn about the company’s new products, how
its stock is performing, the company’s financial performance, problems with new
products, and such organizational changes as new board members and new companies
it has acquired.
Before contacting the company, be sure you understand its products, culture and
clients. Otherwise, you may experience something like what happened when one of
Klamfoth’s reps called on Stewart Enterprises in New Orleans. During the meeting,
the potential customer asked, “What do you know about our company? What do you think
of our products?” The enthusiastic rep replied, “I love your sandwiches.” She lost
the sale. Stewart Enterprises owns funeral homes. Stewart Vending makes sandwiches.
Oops.
Klamfoth also tells about being called by one rep who was referred by a co-worker.
“When the rep tried to sell me recruiting software, I replied, ‘We are an outplacement
company, not a recruiting firm.’ I lost interest when the rep asked, ‘What’s outplacement?’
Klamfoth could have explained that outplacement refers to helping laid-off employees
find new jobs. But wasn’t it the rep’s job to find that out before making the sales
call? In both cases, a little advance research would have saved the rep the embarrassment
and needless frustration of a lost sale.
When she’s finished her homework, Cecere says, the next step is internal brainstorming
with co-workers and people from other departments at her company. She includes her
sales manager, other sales reps, marketing staff and service providers. She asks
everyone to come up with different ways to turn a target company into a client.
“By getting other people involved in my accounts, I get the benefit of their experience,
contacts and ideas. They also start looking for information related to that potential
client and bring it to my attention. Sometimes I may bring one or more of these
people along when I meet with the client’s decision maker.”
Network to make contacts within the target company. Do you know someone who works
there? Do any of your clients, co-workers or other business or social contacts know
someone? Even if you don’t think so, don’t give up. Klamfoth gave a class at Tulane
University in New Orleans, LA, and asked his students how they might contact someone
at Compaq Computer. No students from New Orleans knew anyone at Compaq’s local office.
But when Klamfoth asked if there was anyone from Houston in class, one student said,
“My mom has a friend who knows someone at Compaq’s Houston headquarters.”
Once you have a contact, make an appointment to learn about the company. Cecere
tells her contacts she doesn’t want to sell them anything. She just wants 15 minutes
to learn what’s happening at their company and hear about any important issues they
might be facing. At the appointment, Cecere learns all she can about the target
company’s needs and priorities. She describes her company’s service and asks who
would be the right person for her to see next.
Klamfoth’s reps ask their inside contacts to describe the company culture. Are purchasing
decisions made centrally? Or are they decentralized? His reps’ other challenge is
to identify which decision maker has an immediate problem that they can help solve.
They ask, “If you were me, who would you be talking to? Who would be most likely
to be interested in what I have to offer?”
Cecere then lays out an organizational structure in which she selects 40 to 50 decision
makers (each representing a possible buying center). “It’s almost like a job search.
I learn all I can about each buying center’s needs and priorities. I may meet with
lower-level people initially to test out my assumptions. By the time I meet with
each decision maker, I can demonstrate that I am familiar with that organization’s
needs and able to offer specific solutions to their problems.
“When I make my calls each week, my first goal is to get an appointment. My second
is to earn the right to be considered for big projects. It’s an ongoing process
– it can take months to win a small contract. The biggest mistake you can make is
to treat a large company as a one-shot effort and give up if you don’t achieve an
immediate sale,” says Cecere.
Most companies will test vendors by first offering a small job. After completing
a small job, Cecere frequently establishes a relationship with the manager who gave
her the contract. That person becomes a mentor and advocate for her within the large
company – someone with whom she can brainstorm and receive advice and other feedback.
Being consistently persistent is her key to success.
How do you make the initial contact with a potential decision maker at a large company?
Klamfoth suggests that your first direct contact be by email. To ensure that spamming
isn’t a problem, his reps call the decision maker’s extension and usually reach
that person’s assistant.
“We ask if the person is available. When the assistant asks why we want to talk
to the decision maker, we say that we want to send some information that we think
the decision maker would be interested in receiving. Could we get that person’s
email address? If the assistant asks for more details, my rep responds, ‘We’ve been
doing quite a bit of work in your industry, and we’d like to share our findings.’
By suggesting that we have something valuable to the decision maker, we make ourselves
stand out as a solution provider, not merely another vendor. Too many reps respond
by merely saying to the assistant or the decision maker, ‘I’d like to introduce
myself and meet you,’ without showing how that could benefit the potential client.”
Sometimes, a large company’s purchasing department may be an obstacle to a sale.
That department may be asked to evaluate an unfamiliar service or product. Then,
the only factor becomes cost. When this occurs, Klamfoth suggests partnering with
the purchasing agent or manager. “Honesty and directness are the key. Focus on their
need – not your product’s or service’s features and benefits. What is life like
here? What department will be using the product or service? What problem are they
are trying to solve,” asks Klamfoth, whose goals when calling on large companies
are to identify buying centers with problems he can help solve and to build relationships
with those centers’ decision makers by becoming a resource and solution provider.
“Sometimes we even provide a solution by making a referral to another supplier.
That makes us even more valuable to our potential client. They may not have been
aware they had a problem and may not know where to look for help. By helping the
clients find the best solutions for their needs, we build relationships based on
trust and credibility.”
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get an immediate sale. Both Cecere and Klamfoth
have found that patience, persistence, taking time to build a relationship based
on trust and remaining a resource for the potential client are the keys to success.