Story : Closing a deal with a corporate in MENA..

In a time not so long ago, in a land not so far away, I was invited to give a talk about “closing deals with big corporates in MENA.” Given the fact that I have, in my very humble past experience, closed a dozen or so such deals, sold a fund to a semi-government entity and built half a dozen PPPs, I would know a thing or two to share about the topic. ( I think the actual reason is that the host is a friend..)

In this story, I will take you through the characters, events, twists and hidden gems of cracking a deal with governments and big corporations in our region

Like all our stories the characters, events and quotes in this story are real and are mostly among us to this day.

Part of any business growth strategy is trying to link up with ,high purchasing power / high frequency buyers, those are usually represented in government/ semi-government entities or big corporates.

Now all corporate and government entities in MENA lead a super lean, very innovative culture that is always looking to be disrupted, so as a founder you will not face a problem cracking a deal if you have the right proposition.

Needless to say, this is a fantasy.

Here is the real deal and how the story actually goes. 

The journey to a corporate contract starts with you actually having a valid product. A valid product is something that actually saves money, increases productivity and has the potential of significantly improving the buyers measurable metrics. Now in all fairness, this is what most founders think that they have, and almost 95% of the time they are under *founder fever* and they are wrong, and had I been a “transformer” at some corporate I would have focused on this angle and discussed it in my story, but this is a founder story, a founder with a viable product (yes you, smiling behind the screen, this is about you).

Hunting for a corporate

You open LinkedIn and you begin reaching out to anybody whose title indicates any hint of authority or relevance to your project, dropping them InMail’s along the lines of “let’s catch up for coffee because I really want to get to know your super interesting personality and no I'm not trying to sell you anything ;).“ Needless to say, if you send out 100 of those InMail’s, no body of any importance will answer, or if anybody answers they will say something along the lines of "send an email to our [email protected] "

So how do you get a hold of a corporate, and how do you take it from “can we please have coffee” to the signing table. 

In all honesty, I don’t know. So if you are looking for a pre-defined recipe that you will follow, you can stop right here and go back to InMail-ing your potential client list. What I will be sharing is my own experience and what worked and did not work for me, and considering my roughly 7% success rate with corporates/governments, I am sure there is a lot more for me to learn but here are my 2 cents on the topic..

Making bridges, 

I have often found that there are multiple kinds of personalities that exist in a corporate and the destiny of your deal more often than not, relies on who not how you make it happen. If your deals falls in the wrong hands it could be years before you see light at the end of the tunnel, that is if you ever even get to see the tunnel.. so below are certain types of people in the corporate world that you would want to avoid. 

The bouncer 

This person is usually a mid-level manager whose job description literally says “listen to everything and reject everything” and he is famous for saying “it might not be the best thing for us right now”, or things like " we will have to run our process, but don't wait on us if you have to make any big decisions"

The rock

Think of this person as a real rock. Ancient, immovable, cold. A rock where waves and waves of entrepreneurial dreams break on daily basis, sitting tall in his leather chair, and saying things like “there is no way this will work.” The rock’s job is to find fallacy in everything you say, he is an expert hole poker and is usually adamant about the fact that “we are already doing something similar.” / " we have tried this before and did not succeed".

The transformer

This one is tricky, sticky and expert time waster. They usually comes with a transformation title, he is one of those people that treat LinkedIn as part of marvel universe and his bio looks like “x careem x facebook x google x men” and their role description says something like “leading the industry into a brighter future.” You might meet this guy a dozen times and not really understand what his role is or what he does. Take it from me, this guy is more of a nice piece of furniture that the company hires to look like they have a digitization agenda and who gets handed down all of the “projects” that never actually materialize. The transformer is the guy usually posting LinkedIn tips and tricks on daily basis, this is how you know they never get any work done... LinkedIn is more their full-time job than their actual job. 

The philosopher 

This is a guy that is a grand master in asking the question “what if in 10 years a baby falls on the product and it stops working.” The philosopher is usually part of the legal team or the finance team, you’ll find him saying things like “I am a tech guy myself look I even have a blackberry.” 

And finally,

The “inshallah” guy

This creature is exclusive to the MEA , and usually has nothing to say but “we are following up on it, inshallah by next week we will respond and don’t worry about it.” do worry about it.

Now that you know who to avoid, the person you need to look for is 

The owner

The owner is not necessarily someone who owns the company, it is usually someone with great dedication and extreme ownership towards the business. It is someone who does not think of their job as a 9-5 clock in clock out, it is usually someone who cares about taking the organization to the next level, sometimes it is someone with almost no virtual power that is willing to get you a meeting with the CEO or sometimes it is the CEO, and this is the person you need to meet. 

Pilot first and pilot fast  

You have to always keep in mind that if this is your first implementation of the product, you do not have great leverage to discuss financials, your goal should be to prove the concept. In this sense you need to negotiate a viability deal, one that would not exhaust your resources, but will show that your product is up to the task. A big mistake people do is that they go around offering free pilots, and eventually in the pilots you will always find mistakes that need to be rectified which means you will need to reiterate the product, but if you had stretched yourself too thin then you might take your company bust before you actually win a project.

HFT ( high frequency testing)

I have found that the best way to run a pilot is through HFT, high frequency testing. HFT is usually used by ear doctors to measure at what frequency someone can hear sound so they start with the minimum and they keep increasing accordingly until sound is heard (excuse me for murdering the medical practice with this oversimplified explanation.) Running a pilot should be the same, you start with the lowest number of resources and you keep increasing until you solve the problem for that client. 

Make the deal, that does not break you

If you pass your HFT and manage to get your product to the standard that is required by the corporate, meaning you can now mark your product viable, your power to negotiate changes. This is the critical moment where you need to make sure that you do not go into a deal you will regret, being a young company with a fresh product, opens many alleys for you to get driven by momentum and signing deals that you might at later stages regret. 

The other part you need to make sure of is that your deal does not close the market for you. There is a theory of emotional intelligence called “the theory of pre-approval,” in layman’s terms, if you dated a good looking person, more good looking people will be attracted to you. In the case of your viable product, if it worked on one corporate there are odds that it will work on others as well. 

We grow together

A big part of the success of any ecosystem is the passing of value through the different layers of the system. If the system is to be sustainable, big corporates are supposed to pass value to smaller ones that would grow and, in turn, pass value to even smaller and newer companies, and so on and so forth. If you are a founder, I hope this gives you some insight; if you are a decision maker in a corporate, I hope this serves to clarify the other side of the table; and if you are the guy on LinkedIn with X this that or the other in your bio, I hope you find yourself in this big confusing world.