david sells goliath: landing your first fortune 500 customer
DESCRIPTION
John Casko, founder and CEO of BFS Consulting, which helps small early stage and seed level technology based companies find and establish loyal, high margin, and repeat early adopting customers in the form off Fortune 500 and worldwide market segment leaders. John’s expertise lies in helping innovative companies make their first sale. John will share a methodology he has developed in over a decade in the field through work with more than two dozen companies in a wide range of fields. Though the session’s methodology is is primarily designed for business-to-business (B2B) companies, all types of entrepreneurs will benefit from hearing John’s expertise.TRANSCRIPT
Where we will go…
John S. Casko, Jr.BFS Consulting
319-331-1995 (cell)[email protected]
• Start: Your Example• Think about a big potential customer you want
to talk to?• My background• What is Sales?
• The best purchase you ever made?• Pasteurizers• Complexity?
• Methodology• Live Demo
The Process…
1- What to look for
2- Where to look
3- How to Start Digging
Key Points…
Focus on:• Your most appreciative
customer• Their use case• What they value• The units they use to
measure that valueThis is your core competency
To find names:• Jigsaw.com !!• Company Websites,
news + events• Industry Conferences• Focus on Title/Position
To find Target Customers:• Think like a user/buyer• Companies who share
that use case• Their Competitors• The Supply Chain• Industry Associations• Advertising
To Engage…
Early stage needs authenticity• Be Brutally open• Be Hyper Selective
• Focus on the “yeses”• Forget the “nos”
Be respectful and to the point:• Who you are• What you do• Ask permission• 1:30 sec elevator pitch• “is that something you get involved
with?”• Just like looking for a job as a
teenager… “I have a lot to offer…”
Live demo…
Where do you want to go today?
ex: LightSprite…
Google Search DLS…
Website for Malvern…
Jigsaw for Malvern…
Contacts for Malvern…
Engage…What do you say?Part I (≤ 20 seconds)• Who you are• What you do…• Ask permission…
Part II (lemonade stand pitch)• Again, restate your company purpose• What your company does, core functionality/offering• How people use your product• Why you are calling them, specifically• Share the use case you had in mind• Ask “is that something you get involved with…” and then just be
quiet…• That is the yes/no qualifier
Engage…What do you say?Part II (cont.)
• Ask “is that something you get involved with…” and then just be quiet…• That is the yes/no qualifier
• If yes: Inquire and ask for help• How do you get involved with that?• What is the best way to go about introducing a company like
ours to your company?• How do you go about assessing new technologies such as ours?• So you are familiar with that use case?• How much of an issue is that for you?• What are you doing currently to solve that?• What should I do next?• Ref: Eric Reis, The Lean Start-Up/4 steps to the Epiphany:
• http://theleanstartup.com/
Part I…template (< 15 sec!)• “Hello, is this <their name>? Hi, <their name> , My name is <your
name> and I am the <your title> for <your company name>. We are a (optional : an early stage) <your company’s offering> out of <your location> + optional: and the <your center>, in the US.”
• “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
• If “yes” => “I’m very sorry, I will call you back…” (they may offer or suggest a time, or they may suggest that won’t be necessary…but neither is necessary.• OK to end the call quickly—show maximum respect for the
fact that they are busy• You can always call back, and always call back.
• If “no” => “Well, I can quickly tell you why I am calling.”• Engage part 2
Part I…example (< 15 sec!)
..\2013 03 IC CoLab March\Generic Call intro, 15 sec.m4a
Engage Part II…template• More background (shortened elevator pitch…)• How you thought your product might help them…• Why you thought to call them, specifically…• Is that something they get involved with?
• That is the yes/no qualifier• If yes: Inquire and ask for help
• How do you get involved with that?• What is the best way to go about introducing a company like
ours to your company?• How do you go about assessing new technologies such as ours?• What should I do next?
Engage Part II…example• Hello, is this _____ ?• Hi ____ my name is John Casko and I am the Development person
for an early stage natural language processing company called Hollingsworth Technologies out of Athens, GA, in the US.
• Did I catch you at a bad time?• As I mentioned, our company has emerging NLP technology that
has showed breakthrough potential in auto-summarizing or semantically indexing large volumes of digital text.
• This technology has demonstrated advanced functionality in pilot projects processing scientific content, medical content, USPTO content…etc.
• We think it might be particularly useful in auto-summarizing voice-to-text transcripts of surveillance audio tapes and email collections.
• I had you down as the e-Discovery Director for the DoJ, is this something you get involved with our would have any thoughts for us on?
Part II…example (< 1:30 sec)• Voice Recording• Call part II- B.m4a
Part II…example (email)
Lessons Learned…
Intro Comments• Correlations
• Germany is 90% the same as US• Want to focus on similarities (you can get the rest)• Recognize it is a process
• Thoughts on sales• What have you bought?• About finding, not persuading• That’s how I live with myself
• In order to find something you need to• Know what you are looking for• Know where to go look, and• How to put a pick into the ground..
• I can talk for months, where do you want to go?
Points• Cmdty v
Complex Soln• Acct mgmt v
prospecting• timelines
Appendix: Tools
Tools: CRM…CRM- Contact/Customer Relationship Management• Tons of solutions…just choose something• Required to manage process, critical to keep track of
activity/sanity
• MS Outlook or equivalent (desktop/web/mobile)• ACT! By Sage (desktop/web/mobile) http://
na.sage.com/sage-act• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Enterprise level (order, service tracking and more…)• Oracle/Siebel http://www.oracle.com/index.html• Salesforce http://www.salesforce.com/
Tools: Finding a Company/Customer…
• Google (really?!)• Ex: Dynamic Light Scatter => Horiba
• Find Competitors• Hoovers.com , et. al. http://www.hoovers.com/
• Industry Events/Activity/Professional Societies => seminars, tradeshows, • http://www.diahome.org/
• Sponsor activity/Advertising• News section of website, events section of website• Go where a customer is advertising…look for others
• Try the Supply Chain• http://www.sae.org/
Tools: Finding a Person…
• LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/• Company Websites Ex: Wyatt• Wyatt => About US
http://www.wyatt.com/company/about/about-wyatt.htmlÞ Executive Team
http://www.wyatt.com/company/executiveteam/executiveteam.html
• News => http://www.wyatt.com/events/news/events.html
• Events =>• http://www.wyatt.com/events/news/news.html
End….
Isms…• Pasteurizers: Finding not persuading..• Not Black Magic• Bell curve• De gustibus…• Purpose/function• One customer…• Reasons!• Not about price..• No one likes being told…
Points• Cmdty v
Complex Soln• Acct mgmt v
prospecting• timelines
Thank You!
And….
…Go Irish!!
Oops, I mean…
Go Hawkeyes!