When to Say No to Meetings with a Fortune 500 Prospect
Jon Steinberg
CEO of Future Plc. Founder of Cheddar, former President/COO of BuzzFeed, former President News and Advertising at Altice USA
Saying no to a Fortune 500 prospect can be difficult, but it can also be the only honest and efficient way to address a long sale cycle.
As a startup employee, time is literally your most valuable asset. Always say yes to a first meeting with any brand in the Fortune 500. But, after numerous meetings (I'd say 3 to 5 over a 2 month period), you often need to pause your interaction and let things "marinate" over at the Fortune 500 company. If you can not get a specific timeline or evaluation criteria for a purchase decision but are still asked to come over for more meetings, tell the prospect employee with great respect and politeness:
- You'd love to work with their company
- You understand things can take time
- As a startup you are severely time constrained working with existing customers and other signed deals. (You also likely have to manage the books, deal with operations, and everything else under the sun.)
- Can you revisit one another when it's possible to lay out a concrete path to yes or no?
Speaking with honest, soft, and polite candor, this can not go wrong. I have had this exchange no less than 5 or 10 times with only the most understanding responses.
The sales cycle with a large corporation can often take over a year. These "pause periods" can allow the partner to work things through internal processes, while you just hang back. In fact the Fortune 500 employee may be bringing you in again and again out of duty- you letting him/her know that you are comfortable hanging back and understand the process will be a welcome relief!
During the pause period, you should share news and updates and when the time is right, and if the partnership makes sense, the person at the large company will contact you. Sometimes this happens when you least expect it.
Photo: Klaus Vedfelt/Riser/Getty Images
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11 年A startup should not even consider meeting a fortune 500 in the first place. Bad sales strategy.
Managing Partner I Co-Host of Breakthrough Podcast | Digital Master Trainer I Speaker
11 年Valuable tip for all sales professionals out there.
Independent Sales Consultant at Korn Ferry
11 年Good point and not just for start ups.
So true, Say no to get them to say Yes ! Thanks for your comments ...
Enterprise Architect specializing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Contact Centers
11 年I am the first person to back saying no. However, this assumes that you're meeting with someone below the C-level and is in a VP or Director role. Therefore this is a sign that you aimed too low and are now paying the price for it. So let's clarify the message - aim high, it's fine to be passed down from above, but trying to climb from a too low entry is always a losing proposition. If at any time you are getting caught up in corporate foot dragging, if you've had the initial meeting at the top, return with a "thank you for the referral to X (exec, group, department) but it appears that your organization is caught up in a lot of different activities as we haven't made any progress." The answer will be either be a foot in someone's backside to get it going, or an agreement that they have too much on their plate now. If it's the latter, get an honest answer of when you could return and receive the appropriate level of attention given your value prop. You won't be successful if you stick with selling to the janitor. Start at the top ***every time!***