Enterprise Sales: Small Bites = SUCCESS
"The best way to eat the elephant standing in your path is to cut it up into little pieces." - African proverb
Before we start, this is in no way an endorsement of consuming African elephants, African American elephants or any living species anywhere at anytime. Shout out to the vegan / raw / veggie crowds. Don't beat me up-Sincerely, Dwayne.
In my first role out of college, I was appointed as Regional Sales Representative for the Construction and Home Improvement Team at 3M Company. This meant I was responsible for partnerships with customers such as Sherwin Williams, etc., spanning a 5 state territory headquartered in the 3rd largest metropolis in the United States, Chicago, Illinois. No pressure.
Until that point, my largest responsibilities were keeping the lights on in my 455 sq. ft apartment, while ensuring my rent was paid during the 4 day grace period to avoid the $35 late pay penalty.
Upon meeting my team lead day one, he requested I use my newly minted corporate card (impressive!) to purchase a foldable map and some sticky craft stars. I was thoroughly confused.
The following week, we met for breakfast. He asked me to pull out the items he instructed me to purchase, I did.
We then charted all of my major distribution partners by color codes, "gold" being the most valuable,"blue" being the small fry, blue sky accounts, and other levels sat between, etc. I then scheduled all of my field visits based upon that formula. The heavy hitters (gold) saw me twice a month, silver monthly, etc,.
Within two quarters, I'd fully saturated my territory and established consistent cadence with four of the largest global paint companies in the world, leveraging a foldable U.S. map and some sticky stars from Walmart.
I was designated as "Rookie of the Year" for the Midwest, scored a sweet skyline apartment downtown and saw my "social life" enhanced overnight. :) The world was my oyster! All without the aid of CRM, which was the Siebel installed in my 47 lb. laptop, which is probably the size/weight of a current day server. I digress.
What's the point of this you may ask? Dunno. It's Friday afternoon, I'm somewhat freestyling here. I've been unemployed for four months, don't judge me.
What I learned early in my career is, when faced with a daunting endeavor involving many moving parts, it became imperative to break things down into pieces I could readily digest on a consistent, measurable basis. Ultimately, I would need to establish both quantitive / qualitative goals which exceeded the figures established by my employer, while gaining buy in from my customers at the same time.
Singular humans aren't designed to manage multi-million dollar relationships with global entities spanning 100k + employees. We're not, don't question me.
Here are some of the most important things you will learn as you enter the Enterprise space. (in no particular order)
Determining the core business driver for your customer's consumption of your solution is paramount.
Although this statement can apply to any level partnership, properly addressing their primary business need will provide a "North Star" in the face of a myriad of nuanced complications enterprise customers will bring. Excelling at the functions they expect from your solution will yield the requisite equity to successfully pitch new add ons throughout the relationship.
Many sellers fail to verify whether key members of their customer teams are truly satisfied prior to the cross / upsell activities. Ultimately, setting the relationship back considerably and costing valuable time.
A second reason qualifying your customer is important: Turnover. The average tech worker hangs around for a couple years. Therefore, if your company has been in partnership for over a period over two years, there's a distinct possibility your lead contact wasn't around when the original contract was agreed upon.
Why is this important?
Glad you asked! I was preparing an EBR for one of my customers, when I recalled a couple staff members state the CIO came from an organization which used our competitors tools, and he would want to secure bids from them prior to signing a new subscription. He wasn't involved when we became partners, and wanted to use a solution he personally felt more comfortable with, regardless of our performance.
With that info, I incorporated up to the minute figures on our ROI, performance and cost benefit analysis vs. that particular competitor. Upon review, we renewed for another 3 years.
That simple question in a weekly cadence call made all the difference.
2. The Stars Must Align Properly
If the corner office lacks faith in your solution's impact upon their organization, you're done. Executive alignment should be one of your top priorities!
While training Sales / CS professionals, I noticed the primary problem most faced was gaining access to the executive suite.
Many think some magic template / Chatgpt genie is going to unlock access to the key stakeholders in their account.
Look at it from this perspective, as a kid you probably played video games. It would typically take weeks to advance through the levels to defeat the "big boss".
Same here. In order to present to the "big boss" as an adult, the same level of dedication and discipline applies.
Here's how it's done:
Do these things properly, you build the requisite equity to prompt your customer to allow an opportunity to perform an EBR, aka Executive Business Review to key leadership.
If you can properly distill all of the above activities into one impactful slide to present to the C-Suite with quantitive data, you can now start picking out the color of the Porsche you've been eyeing. (I like Mamba Green)
You, Sir / Madam have just secured a renewal. Congratulations!
3. Not all companies / customers are created equal, plan accordingly.
Chances are, 20% of your customers influence what the other 80% will do.
Upon starting my Enterprise career, I was in awe of the logos I had the privilege to engage with. About a month later, I realized the 80 / 20 rule was applicable.
Twenty percent of my customer base was progressive, proactive organizations capable of traversing the marketplace regardless of trends.
The other 80% followed the actions of the top tier companies. If you follow Gartner, the numbers will probably be even more stark.
Therefore, I had to strategize using cohort analysis to surmise how much time I should devote to my accounts weighing factors such as churn risk, opportunity size, etc.
I never see my book of business as "cookie cutter", regardless of size. I've managed sixty customers at the beginning of my CS career, down to two as a Sr. Principal.
领英推荐
Each relationship was unique, with it's own set of challenges, and must be dissected with a scalpel, not a hatchet.
Several of those lesser accounts throughout my career I was able to grow to Enterprise level.
4. Regardless of size, each organization is solely comprised of humans. (As of today)
"The ability to effectively traverse cross functional bottlenecks / silos will brand you as an indispensable asset to your organization" - Dwayne
If you've read any of my other stuff, I always tend to circle back to my "human first" mantra, it's served me well. It's a key component of my success in both my business and personal life.
Success in breaking down silos is purely based on positive interpersonal experiences. If you're the type who can easily make friends, your job gets infinitely less complicated at the enterprise level.
I've said this before, people buy from those they like. If you can establish credibility with your main contact, look to leverage that relationship to learn more about other areas of the company.
Your goal is to have a fluid, dynamic, personal working knowledge of every individual who interacts with your solution from a decision maker / influencer position.
My father spent 38 years of his life working for Chrysler auto group. He began his career on the line building cars in 140 degree Midwest factory heat.
He was the oldest of three children born in the Delta of Mississippi during the height of segregation. He was a few months younger than Emmett Till, and was raised in the area where that historic event transpired.
Recently, he shared a technique he used to gain promotion over his career, ultimately becoming the head of the hazmat division.
"I'd occasionally bring donuts to the foremen of various crews on my shift. I'd inquire about what kept them up at night. They'd explain all the reasons they couldn't get things done. I'd then proactively develop a system to address the issue, and present it to them"
This happens for two decades, culminating in my father being designated as one of the first African American managers for the St Louis truck division within Daimler Chrysler. I guess I had a mentor.
My dad Cleveland saw bottlenecks / silos as opportunities, you should too.
5. Don't reinvent the wheel. Simply improve the design with consistency.
Solving for a problem which hasn't been previously acknowledged is the hallmark of tech.
Every great tech entity has grown to scale addressing issues society didn't know existed until we told them.
Link your solution's capabilities to emerging trends in your customer's marketplace. Proactively assess potential needs they didn't see coming prior. At the enterprise level, you hold infinitely more opportunity to build value and expand your partnership on a meaningful level.
Chances are, your customer leverages less than half your offerings, spanning perhaps one or two primary functions. This serves as a solid foundation, however, growth is your primary objective.
This is where you reframe the relationship by proactively notifying your base of all new features / updates via demonstration by either yourself or a product manager for that feature.
Relying on long term partnerships coupled with significant integration can cause complacency.
Maintaining a dynamic, proactive approach will future proof both your customer's company and your career as well.
Again, you're not reinventing the wheel, you're simply improving upon it's design in the customer's eyes, one demonstration at a time.
Realistically, I could legitimately rattle off 40 more items, but you have things to do.
With that said, we're done here for the day.
Happy Selling!
Your friend,
Dwayne