As the great architect, Mies Van der Rohe said, “Less is More”. Especially when talking about yourself.
Senior executives of big companies have often been in sales and can fill in the blanks pretty quickly. In an initial conversation, they usually have these questions on their minds:
a) Your role in the business
b) Why their company is on your target list
C) Has your firm done work that resembles their challenge
d) Does your firm have the capacity to support a company of their size
e) The price of your average solution
They are qualifying you as to the scope & scale of your offering before they refer you to someone on their team. If you satisfy these questions, you may get the "green light" in the form of a referral.
A “30 second commercial” has 3 components
“I have noticed that…..” (the market trend)
“What we care about is….”(what you do)
“What we do is….”(your value)
It may sound like this:
“When I was an associate in a small firm, I noticed that we were either too busy working on projects or had no work because we only pursued new business when we were slow.
Smaller businesses have a great advantage in today’s market because they are nimble and responsive. However, smaller firms are often challenged by unpredictable revenues. We care about helping our clients win work with the Big Guys so they can grow year over year.
Preferred vendor agreements with big companies means our clients have ongoing engagements rather than one-off projects." **
The next episode is called: "Comment/question: Conversational Tennis"
**(Big Game Hunting’s “30-second commercial”)
Catherine Mcquaid is a Big Game Hunter in the Urban Jungle. Her clients are mid-sized business services firms who want to win consulting assignments with the Fortune 1000. Trained as a semiotician/literature critic, she now owns a key account development business.
Her strategies for getting into large companies and getting very senior executives to open the door to the C-suite can be used by big game hunters everywhere. She writes on Major Account Acquisition strategies.
Connect / Follow: blog, Twitter, LinkedIn.
To contact directly: email, phone, 416.923.0877.
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