Selling to Big Business

…no more one-time assignments…

Moving from One Herd to Another

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Jun• 06•13

acquire-key-accountIf you want to be a Big Game Hunter, you need to know where big companies prefer to hunt, what they eat and who their predators are.

If your client roster is limited to one industry and you wish to win business in another sector, how do you make the business problems you have solved relevant to that industry you want to enter?

Often an industry perceives its challenges as unique to their particular circumstances. You may see your relevance more broadly. However, relevance, like beauty, may be  in the eye of the beholder.

For example, if you have helped with customer retention in consumer finance, you would be able to demonstrate credibility in other industries where equipment leasing, retail lay-away plans or insurance are offered.

I helped migrate the  experience a client had in consumer finance to 2 other industries: capital finance and automotive. By connecting the dots about buyer behaviour in credit cards and financial planning, I was able to help win new buiness in 2 adjacent sectors.

Knowing the landscape you are tracking means knowing your prey’s challenges. Read their industry journals. Follow their thought and opinion leaders. Know which conferences they meet and speak at.

A cursory survey of the topics at important conferences and journals can give you clues to the challenges they are facing and how to position your offering in front of those challenges.

Challenger selling

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Selling your Company? Fatten Your EBITDA

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Apr• 11•13

key-accounts“EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Deductions and Allowances”  is why you want  to have big companies as clients. 

When I was retained by an early-stage services company, they needed stable, predictable revenue. Friends and family had been promised they would have their investment back within 3 years.


Therefore, the company had to be sold for a profit. Their existing clientbase was in a cyclical, declining industry, which meant that they suffered monthy swings in revenue as their clients dodged threats in their market.

Since this was a services company with no intellectual capital, I had to secure long-term contracts in a stable, growth industry.

My strategy was to pursue high-margin, high-volume service contracts with market leaders in the consumer credit cards. Not only were these open-ended, long-term contracts, but a broad product range represented growth opportunities for my client.

However, be warned:  even if they are big, a major account will only fatten your company’s EBITDA  if the industry itself is in growth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Watching the Herd: Tracking a Major Account

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Mar• 04•13

large-accountsWinning a new key account takes more than sales skills.  In fact, taking a sales approach, which expects a yes/no outcome from every contact can hurt you if you’re going after major accounts.

 

When pursuing a key account, much more time is spent with influencers, ie. those who may have an indirect interest in your services.

 

I call these types of conversations “discovery” conversations because you don’t spend your time “telling” or “selling”.

Strategic questions sound like this:

 

“The last quarterly report said…about shareholder value…how is this impacting your business unit?”

“I’m guessing from the CEO’s comments…your unit’s mandate for next quarter is….?”

“Knowing that the…market segment is under-performing, are resources being re-allocated?”

 

Tactical questions sound like this:

“Who makes the decision?”

“How much do you spend on…?”

 

Tactical questions will lead you to operations and purchasing!

key-accounts-customersThis is where Request for Proposals, annual budgets and purchasing departments happen.  In my opinion, this is the hardest way for a new supplier to get a foothold.

 

Becoming a preferred vendor company-wide requires access to and influence with EVERYONE who would be impacted if your firm were to be hired. I have learned the hard way that there is never just one right person to talk to.

 

Influencers, champions, implementers and user groups each  have different needs and will perceive your offering differently.  

Each group will want different  things from you and will see the value of what your firm offers quite differently.

 

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Key Accounts: Where Should You Hunt?

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Mar• 04•13

Since you are a specialized business services firm, becoming a preferred provider to a few key accounts may make the difference between a stable income and “drought” periods.  Before you pull on your jodpurs, you’ll probably need to know:

Are you hunting water or tree-dwellers?

Where do they prefer to eat?

Do they travel in herds or are they loners?

Knowing the habitat and habits of the entity you are tracking means you have a greater chance of not scaring them away before they spend a little time to check you out.

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Before deciding which kind of entity would best suit your business, look for clues in your successes… (and failures) in the past.

In what industry or sector(s) can you demonstrate competence?

Is the business problem you solved unique to that industry?

Can you demonstrate relevance to other sectors or industries?

If not, should you pursue work in the sectoryou’ve had success with before going to other sectors?

How might you demonstrate relevant credibility to other sectors without becoming a generic offering?

If your only credibility story is in a cyclical industry and that industry is in the trough of its cycle, they simply may not have the means to purchase at this time. You’re best to find new territory to hunt.

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Major Account Myth # 3: Get to the “right” Person

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Mar• 01•13

Discussions about how to win major accounts usually involves the “get to the right person” myth.

The bigger the dollar value of the service you offer, the broader the impact of your service and the more stakeholders it affects, the more people will be involved in the decision before you are hired.

As a rule of thumb, you should plan to have “discovery” conversations with all 3 roles  before starting discussions about a specific solution  (cheque signer, influencer & implementer).

I’ll give you an example from a specialty business services client:

 I had been reaching out to executives in targeted companies for 9 months.  All my development metrics were being achieved but no project had been identified.

major-accounts-5One of the influencers inside the company asked my client to come to an internal conference. 

We thought it was going to be a “beauty pagent” but it turned out that the subject matter experts among the implementation group (who had told us they had “no budget this year”) had been told by the head of the business line, where we had started, that if they could get buy-in from the field, a pilot could be given the green light.

 Had we gone away when we were told “there’s no budget”, or stopped asking for meetings with other business lines, we might never have nudged the project into existence.

Because we had covered all the roles in the decision in 6 different lines of business (each having discretionary budgets) and because, as we argued, my client’s solution would have a cumulative effect if implemented enterprise-wide, the contract was awarded.

 

Why hunt big game?

 

 

 

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Major Accounts: What Difference a Word Makes

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Feb• 19•13

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Major accounts can seem like another species.

I have learned that words are neuropathways to the heart.

Let’s say you’re a service provider to the pharma/biotech industry. Would you talk about “customers”  or “KOLs”  (Key Opinion Leaders)?

I was having a discovery conversation on behalf of a client.  The audience was the training group in a Biotech firm.

They taught me a valuable lesson.  If you are  using the language of your audience, your chances of building credibility increase

This is what happened:  I asked about their customers.  The learning leader, who had started her career as a scientist replied, 

“I suppose you could call them customers but they’re KOL’s.”

Immediately, I substituted “KOL” for “customer” in all my client’s materials and conversations.  We continued to pursue business within the pharma/biotech industry.

Changing our language may be the reason this manufacturer has agreed to consider my client’s solution in 4 of their therapeutic groups.

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Key Accounts: Do you Know YOUR Jungle?

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Feb• 04•13

A couple of key accounts can be all it takes for a smaller business services firm to have predictable growth. At times of mass enthusiasm for a trend, pressure to follow the herd rather than rely on one’s own information and analysis is almost irresistible.

Yet the best strategies break away from the trend. Some actions may be necessary to match the competition – imagine a bank without ATMs or a good on-line banking offer.

But these are not unique sources of strategic advantage, and finding such sources is what strategy is all about.

“Me-too” strategies are often bad ones. Seeking out the new and the unusual should therefore be the strategist’s aim.

Rather than copying what your most established competitors are doing, look to the periphery for innovative ideas, and look outside your own industry.    

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David in the Jungle (without Goliath)

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Feb• 01•13

Pursuing a key account, even if you have a great portfolio of clients, can lead to rethinking how you deliver services.  If you are a business advisory or professional services chances are you prefer to be on-site.

Might winning a big company as a new client mean you have to deliver services outside of North America? This happened when a Fortune 500-sized company became interested in retaining my client.

The company wanted to retain my client but they felt person-to-person contact would take too long to roll out internationally if on-site service was their only delivery model.

My client agreed to explore an alternativeto their preferred, face-to-face mode.

The outcome? Within 6 months, the #5 company in the industry requested a proposal.

And my client realized a 24% return  on their investment in my fees.

 

 

 

 

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Tracking Major Accounts: How Long is Too Long?

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Jan• 03•12

major-account-customerWinning a major account is not for the faint of heart.

Four years ago, on a client assignment, I initated contact with a senior executive of a firm ranked in the top 10 of their industry..

When this leader took a  position in another company, I was back in touch.  Still no business was won.

Shouldn’t I have stopped tracking and gone on to greener pastures?

This leader now heads up the #6-ranked firm in the industry. Will this leader remember something about my client from previous contact?

Probably not. She is more likely ro refer me to one of her direct reports.

A referral will mean a triple win:

1. By referring us to someone on her team, she signals that the business problem our client addresses is a concern. (If it weren’t she would have declined)

2. Since it has come from their boss, the referral will almost certainly look closely at my client’s solution.

3. A merger has taken place, so the referral will most likely put together a new team. From here on, we are inside and will meet members of the herd through referrals.

Most trackers give up too early.

Winning with Big Companies   416 923 0877   catherine@HuntNewBiz.com

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Teddy Roosevelt & Ernest Hemmingway on Safari

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Apr• 09•01

Creating demand for big-ticket business services inside the C-suite requires much more than contact with that executive.

If your service will impact a couple of  business units,  there may be 25-30 stakeholders who have a point of view about your company. Knowing their interests and needs before proposal time, increases your odds of winning  an assignment.

Assignments leading to approved vendor status can have cycle times of +24 months.

This may explain why the cost-of-sales in business services firms is upwards of 40% of revenues.

High lifetime-value clients rather than one-time assignments can challenge even the most optimistic Big Game hunter.  However, becoming an approved vendor enterprise-wide means sustainable revenue growth.
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In the process of client acquisition, Big Game Hunting delivers 4 transferrable business assets to a company:

1. A systematic business development process; everyone within the company becomes fluent in the system

2. Personalized access to “wish list” companies within an identified industry, including stakeholders surrounding an engagement

3. “Green Light” or referrals from senior leadership to members of their team.

Offering a context for the initial contact, or having an “ice-breaker”  can double an executive’s receptivity.

An ice-breaker might be a conference where the executive you want to reach has presented, an article where the individual was quoted or, best of all, an industry award.

4.  Exposure within each business unit of “wish list” companies increases the odds of winning an assignment.

Winning a major account can bring to mind images of Teddy Roosevelt or Ernest Hemmingway on safari.

Just a note: they went on safari with trackers and  jungle  guides to increase their chances of bringing home the trophy.


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Winning Major Accounts: David & Goliath in the Concrete Jungle

Written By: Catherine McQuaid - Apr• 15•13

If you are a smaller business, you may underestimate your competitive advantage when pursuing major accounts.

Do you deliver quick turn-around for your clients?

Deliver creative responses to client demands?

Service narrow, specialized business needs?

major-account-1This is true for one of my clients who delivers specialized training. They had done a couple of projects in consumer banking when they hired me to help win major accounts in the US marketplace.

After scanning industry publications, it seemed customer experience was a hot spot for the industry. Banks were worried about losing clients. With mergers going on, banks needed to take action because the name on the front door may have changed and clients were likely feeling less loyal. 

Today, my client is a preferred vendor to 3 of the 25 largest financial institutions in North America.

By the way, their cost of sales is 12%.  

The business services industry cost of sales averages 32%.

 

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