Sales techniques for a venture company

Hello. This is Irino, a strategy consultant.

“How shall a venture company like us do business with major corporations?”

I get this type of question quite often. I will summarize the points to keep in mind when venture companies want to do business with major corporations and provide “an answer book for doing business with corporations” for downloading.

Where it fits

Executive summary
Background
Management team
Company overview
Management and business principles
Product/service overview
How your profits are made
Analysis of the market and the competitors
Marketing and sales strategies
Operation plans
Personnel strategies
Start-up strategies
Growth strategies
Exit strategies
Financial plans :
– Sales forecast
– Cost plans
– Financing forecast
– Capital policies
Risk management
Project management

Do’s & Don’ts for Beginners

■　Don’t use business cards like major company employees using

Business cards have different significance for venture companies and major corporations. Business cards for major corporations have:

The name of the company	≒	Verification of the company’s capital strength and credence
Department	≒	What kind of business the company is involved in
managerial position	≒	Your rank

On the other hand, business cards of venture companies have:

The name of the company	≒	What’s that?
Department	≒	How many departments?
Managerial position	≒	Anybody can be a company president, right?

What points need to be innovative for business cards of venture companies…

Put a head-and-shoulders photo on it.
Especially, it is effective for sales in a business party. Many of people can’t remember all faces when they meet a lot of others in a day.

Put a menu or photo of your products or services.
Make an appeal of the products or services you want to sell most and make use of the back of the business card for that purpose.

Include your personal skills and experiences.
Please be ready so that you can answer straight away to the following questions like: “What can you do?” or “What is it that you do?”

It could be just a business card, or something more than that. It is up to you. Business cards are one of significant sales tools for venture companies, so make sure to make full use of them. Please remember that “differences are coming from details”.

■　believe your own brand’s products or services

I sometimes meet sales reps who have faith in neither the products, the services or their companies. You will always get reaction that “it won’t sell” from people around you when you are dealing with products, services or companies that are new≒original regardless of how fabulous they are. Beginner entrepreneurs get discouraged by the reaction of those around them and they feel inferior about what they are dealing with in big situations. Major corporation clients always will detect your inferiority complex. They will not buy products or services that even sales reps don’t have faith in.

How shall you overcome such inferiority complex? The answer is to ignore the “weaknesses” of SWOT analysis altogether, because venture companies are meant to have “weaknesses”. When it comes to marketing, “strengths” are all that matter. There is no need to repeat asking yourself what your weaknesses are. Instead, you should be prepared to provide your customers with clear answers when you are asked what your strengths are.

Do’s & Don’ts for Intermediate Entrepreneurs

■　Don’t approach a company from its “main entrance”

Basically, it is safe to say that reception desks at major corporations are there “not to receive people”. The probability of you getting into major corporations through their main entrances is really low and it is just not a best idea for venture companies whose sales resources are limited to begin with. What you need to do instead is to be introduced to “people who will open back doors”. The important thing is to

let your acquaintances know exactly what kind of people you want to be introduced to.
welcome seniors who have wide personal connections as advisory boards or mentors.
be kind to people on ahead so they will help you at critical moments.
become an attractive person that people want to introduce to others.

There is a way of thinking called “Six Degrees of Separations”.

44×44×44×44×44×44= 7.2 billion > The world population

This calculation indicates the following. “If you mediate 6 people who have 44 acquaintances, you can connect to everybody in the world, so you shall be able to do business with Bill Gates.” On a practical level, mediating 3 people is the limit. Even that will give you 44×44×44＝85,000 people to do business with.

Do’s & Don’ts for the Master Class Entrepreneurs

■　Make up the mood of meetings

If you are a salesman, you need the ability to sense what people are thinking or feeling as a minimum requirement. However, when venture companies pay visits to major corporations, people have negative feeling in their meeting in most cases. So, you will have to create the right mood.

■　Aim to connect with top managers who have both authority and high spirit

Experienced entrepreneurs try to do business with the top people of major corporations even when their companies are small as fleas. The reason is because of:

The wall of middle management
There are many mid-level executives who do not report suggestions made by venture companies to their superiors no matter how excellent the ideas are.

The wall of accounts
It is hard for venture companies to even make accounts for doing business with major corporations.The departments that are in charge of companies’ credit research often stand in the way. There is a possibility that middle management can’t jump over the barrier of credit departments’ regulations.

Payability of suggestions
Many suggestions made by venture companies to major corporations will not lead to profits right away, so most of them will not be realized unless these ideas are being handled by those in the top management team who have authority to claim that it’s OK to disregard profits when they are discussed at company meetings.

Top managers’ kindness
Especially among major corporations that have been around for more than 30 years, there still is quite a few people who have experienced launching their companies and still have the pioneer spirit.

Editor’s note: Professional but natural

I attended one of my friend’s wedding ceremony the other day. It was held at a 3 star restaurant and what surprised me was not only how good the food was, but how high the quality of their service men was as well. Their chief manager was really splendid. There were more than 10 service men, but I could tell who the chief was at a glance. The way he smiled was extraordinarily natural and professional.

That’s it for today.

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