Reading the Signs

When Big Game Hunting’s clients want help landing long-term relationships with major league companies, we leave all the “sightings” in a web-accessible place to avoid ambushes.

Knowing the lay of the land inside a large company is part of “thinking and behaving big”.

Large, complex organizations are a collection of business units, divisions and “silos”. Industry information and even anecdotal comments from people in different roles inside the corporate jungle can be clues and can help win the business.

Tracking a Big One can take a couple of years.

Consider this: The average lifespan of a senior executive is about 2 years. If doors have been closed in a particular company, you may check public documents a couple years from now and you will probably find new roles and new names in the organization chart.

Since you have a database, you can capitalize on the tree-shaking you did in that company a while ago. For example, you can go back to contacts you made last year. Their former assistant may be able to help with the name of their replacement.

Now you have a 2-for-1 win: a new contact and the original contact in a new role.

Your notes and observations can also be ice-breakers when you contact the new appointment. Information from previous conversations may be a jumping-off point for building rapport or developing high-gain questions.

By updating and storing everything you come across about the companies you are tracking, when you spot a new appointment, you may be in a position to make an educated guess as to whom they may report.

An internal reorganization or functional rchanges within an organization may be clues as to why they have been saying “no” in the past. As you scan industry publications, you may uncover additional clues as to whether or not the timing is right to try again.

In the concrete jungle, business intelligence is a sharpshooter’s weapon.