For most B2B salespeople, landing an account with a Fortune 1000 company would be a dream come true. Why not make it happen? Of course, if your business doesn't have the infrastructure in place to support such a large client's needs, then you'll have to stick with smaller customers. Even so, you can start laying the groundwork now so that as your company continues to mature, you'll be ready to sell to the big guys.
Selling to a huge company is very different from selling to smaller businesses or to consumers. Competition is stiff and decision makers deliberately insulate themselves from the hordes of salespeople who are continually trying to pitch to them. If you want to put your company up for consideration as a vendor, you'll need to find a way to get your foot in the door.
This is one area of sales where a network is almost indispensable. If you've taken the time to build up a system of contacts in various companies, odds are that you know someone who knows someone in your target Fortune 1000 prospect. LinkedIn is a great tool for finding a contact with the right connections, because you can browse through each of your contacts' lists of contacts and see if any names pop up.
If you don't find any way in right off the bat, you can take a different approach. Start by identifying your ten dream prospects. You might select based on who among the major companies is the best fit for your products, or simply start with the ones you think might be easiest to crack. Pull together as much contact information as you can for each of these ten prospects, including the name(s) of likely decision makers for your sale. With big companies, this will likely include both someone in their purchasing department and (for large purchases) someone in the department that will actually be using the product. For example, if you are selling contact management software, you'd probably end up pitching to the VP of sales at that company.
Once you've assembled the list of your ten big prospects, prepare an email to those contacts in your network who are most likely to know someone in those companies. In the above example, your email might look something like this:
“Sally,
I've recently started pursuing some major prospects who I think could really benefit from what my company has to offer. Attached you will find a list of ten hot prospect companies. I've filled in what information I already know, and am hoping you will send me any additional information that you might have, such as the appropriate contact name at each company. I would prefer to speak directly with the VP of sales but would greatly appreciate having the contact information of anyone you know inside these companies so that I may get my foot in the door. Thanks in advance for your help with this!
Regards, Fred”
Obviously you will want to reward any of your decision makers who come through with information – an e-card or heartfelt note at the very least. A small gift card or bouquet of flowers wouldn't be out of line given the scope of what you're trying to accomplish. If you close a sale to any of these dream prospects, then you'll definitely want to reward your helpful contact lavishly.
Hopefully your network will be able to provide you with at least the name of a likely decision maker. If they can give you direct contact information such as a phone extension, or if they know someone at the company and can set you up with an introduction, even better. If the person your contact knows isn't the decision maker, that person can still be extremely helpful in providing details about how the prospect company's purchasing process works, as well as any personality quirks for the decision maker(s).
Once you've got an 'in' at the company, call up the decision maker and schedule a meeting. Don't forget to drop your contact's name early in the conversation, because it will greatly increase your odds of landing the appointment. Be prepared for an extremely long sales process – the bigger a prospect is, the more hoops you'll have to jump through to close the sale. Just remember that once you've managed to get the process moving, you've already accomplished the hardest part.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
Selling to a huge company is very different from selling to smaller businesses or to consumers. Competition is stiff and decision makers deliberately insulate themselves from the hordes of salespeople who are continually trying to pitch to them. If you want to put your company up for consideration as a vendor, you'll need to find a way to get your foot in the door.
This is one area of sales where a network is almost indispensable. If you've taken the time to build up a system of contacts in various companies, odds are that you know someone who knows someone in your target Fortune 1000 prospect. LinkedIn is a great tool for finding a contact with the right connections, because you can browse through each of your contacts' lists of contacts and see if any names pop up.
If you don't find any way in right off the bat, you can take a different approach. Start by identifying your ten dream prospects. You might select based on who among the major companies is the best fit for your products, or simply start with the ones you think might be easiest to crack. Pull together as much contact information as you can for each of these ten prospects, including the name(s) of likely decision makers for your sale. With big companies, this will likely include both someone in their purchasing department and (for large purchases) someone in the department that will actually be using the product. For example, if you are selling contact management software, you'd probably end up pitching to the VP of sales at that company.
Once you've assembled the list of your ten big prospects, prepare an email to those contacts in your network who are most likely to know someone in those companies. In the above example, your email might look something like this:
“Sally,
I've recently started pursuing some major prospects who I think could really benefit from what my company has to offer. Attached you will find a list of ten hot prospect companies. I've filled in what information I already know, and am hoping you will send me any additional information that you might have, such as the appropriate contact name at each company. I would prefer to speak directly with the VP of sales but would greatly appreciate having the contact information of anyone you know inside these companies so that I may get my foot in the door. Thanks in advance for your help with this!
Regards, Fred”
Obviously you will want to reward any of your decision makers who come through with information – an e-card or heartfelt note at the very least. A small gift card or bouquet of flowers wouldn't be out of line given the scope of what you're trying to accomplish. If you close a sale to any of these dream prospects, then you'll definitely want to reward your helpful contact lavishly.
Hopefully your network will be able to provide you with at least the name of a likely decision maker. If they can give you direct contact information such as a phone extension, or if they know someone at the company and can set you up with an introduction, even better. If the person your contact knows isn't the decision maker, that person can still be extremely helpful in providing details about how the prospect company's purchasing process works, as well as any personality quirks for the decision maker(s).
Once you've got an 'in' at the company, call up the decision maker and schedule a meeting. Don't forget to drop your contact's name early in the conversation, because it will greatly increase your odds of landing the appointment. Be prepared for an extremely long sales process – the bigger a prospect is, the more hoops you'll have to jump through to close the sale. Just remember that once you've managed to get the process moving, you've already accomplished the hardest part.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
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