"Understanding the Corporate
Buyer"
by C.J. Hayden
Selling your services to corporations is an
attractive proposition. The contracts are larger than with small
businesses and individuals, and often longer-term. There's the
possibility of repeat business worth many billable hours at
respectable rates.
But the best clients are not always the easiest
to get. If you don't grasp the realities of the corporate
environment, you may sabotage even a hot lead. Here are five
important keys to working with the corporate buyer.
1. Managers are busy. This is just as true in
economic downturns as during a boom. When business is slow,
unnecessary employees get laid off. The people left behind have to
pick up the slack.
Busy people ignore unsolicited email and letters,
and will not return your phone calls. Even when you are in the final
stages of closing a deal, your contact may not return your calls for
weeks. If you accept this as normal behavior instead of obsessing
about how you may have caused it, you will sleep better at night and
use your daylight hours more productively.
2. Hot buttons open doors. If you want to capture
the interest of a busy person, you need to tell them exactly how you
can help them. Calling just to introduce yourself will not get their
attention.
What do the people in your target market perceive
to be the greatest problems they face, or the biggest goals they
wish to achieve? Ask these questions of the people you serve and the
other businesspeople who serve them. Read trade literature or
special interest publications and educate yourself on the key issues
in your marketplace. Then tell your prospects in every communication
how you can help address these needs.
3. Every choice must be justified. When you sell
to the owner of a small business or to an individual for his or her
own use, your buyer is free to make purchasing decisions based on
instinct, whim, or gut feeling. But every corporate sale must be
justified to someone else in the organization.
A supervisor must justify choices to a manager,
the manager to an executive, the executive to the CEO, the CEO to
the board, the board to the shareholders. Each one of these people
wants to look good to the next link up the chain, and dreads making
a public mistake. If you want your sale to go through, you need to
provide your contact with EVIDENCE why you and your solution are the
best choice.
4. The bottom line rules. When you provide your
evidence, it had better include dollars and cents. If you are more
expensive than your competition, what added value will you provide?
If hiring you will cost more than solving the company's problem in
some other way, what tangible benefits will they receive that make
the added expense worthwhile?
Individuals and small businesses buy services in
the category of nice-to-have, often to improve their quality of life
or that of their employees. Corporations, especially in lean times,
don't. You must sell them something they actually NEED and prove how
it will enhance their bottom line. Real-life examples of results at
other companies can speak volumes. Illustrations with charts and
graphs are more convincing than any brochure.
5. No budget; no project. Even when the company
needs what you have and thinks you're the best one for the job, the
deal won't go through if there's no money in the budget. You can ask
your contact to try for a budget variance, but no budget usually
means your project will be deferred until the next fiscal year.
Always ask if the client has a budget at the
first meeting. Don't necessarily expect them to tell you how much it
is -- price negotiations will come later. But if your contact can't
answer budget questions, it's also a strong clue you are not talking
to the decision-maker.
