DEALING WITH GIANTS: Dealing With the BIG BOYS, Getting to know you...

Dealing with Giants
with Claudine Halpern

I have received many comments on my articles in the last few months, but one has intrigued me so I will write about that today, the comment was, How do you get to the BIG BOYS to start off with?

Really Really, Really good question, I don’t claim to have all the answers but I have some ideas.

This is networking 101, the same way that you get yourself a good job, or accomplish any of your goals, the rules of networking work here, but slightly more targeted. Here are thirteen important points. I just turned 13 into a lucky number.

1) NO FEAR; I have a sign at my desk in 60 point type, bright red NO FEAR, the only thing that can go wrong is, you don’t get the business, but that’s where you are today

2) Target your company; Research the companies that you think might be a fit

3) Learn the pain points of those companies, it’s not about what your selling it’s about what they need first and want second, solve a problem

4) Calculate the companies cost benefit potential and keep that in your back pocket

5) Be a perfect fit, not a almost perfect fit, but a perfect fit

6) Work your network: the best way in is someone you know, or someone who knows someone in the company that you want to reach

7) Network your a** off, go to anything that might look like it may be sort of close to what your looking for, you may be able to expand your view

8) Prepare for a very long lead time, my experience is that 9-12 month lead cycle for this type of sale is not unusual

9) Become the go to expert, talk to everyone, use all the social networking sites, join groups, write blogs, answer queries

10) Work backwards, look at the web site of the company, see if any names pop out at you, old high school buddies, people you worked with 20 years ago, the guy who rides the train with you and go for it

11) Conference, Conference, Conference, oh and did I say attend conferences

12) DON’T GIVE UP EVER, choose more than one company and experiment with the one that you want the least, you may actually score that business

13) Constantly Recalibrate. Always keep up with issues that come to light. Laws change so quickly that you may be needed one day and obsolete the next, or the other way around

I’m a firm believer in being nice to the people on the way up, because you meet the same people on the way down, so if you’ve always been nice, great, you’ve got a foundation. If not, START NOW, BIG BOYS are people first, and want to work with people they like.

Hope this helps, please let me know…………………

Please send your questions and business situations to chalpern@theychgroup.com.

The YCH Group, Inc.

The YCH Group, Inc. makes things work. We have a proven track record in delivering projects to a successful end state on time and within budget. We work with on site management to improve deliverables and control costs to primary and secondary firms in the financial sector and across a broad span of business sectors, domestically and internationally.

Claudine Y. Halpern, President

Claudine Halpern is a chameleon, she has worked in many different situations during her more that twenty five years in business; as a management consultant, Claudine advised many of the major brokerage, insurance, and financial houses, completing more than fifteen major corporate initiatives during the past ten years. As a crisis manager for major corporations, Claudine successfully brought in projects and products that other firms would not touch. As a specialist in business and management consultancy, Claudine consults to emerging businesses across the spectrum.

www.linkedin.com/in/claudinehalpern

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DEALING WITH GIANTS: Dealing With the BIG BOYS, Getting to know you...

DEALING WITH GIANTS: Selling to the BIG BOYS - Doing the Job, Managing your Reputation, and GETTING PAID

Dealing With Giants
with Claudine Halpern

WOW, you’re business has it’s biggest customer ever, whether your business is a service or product business, there are some really important things to address now.

If you have a product business, you are probably finding yourself in the unenviable position of needing stock that you don’t have. You either need to purchase the stock or manufacture it. If you are well financed then it’s no problem, you go and buy it or make it.

WAIT, how did you set up your contract with your big customer? Let’s talk about some ways to make sure that you can keep your head above water while you’re getting the goods together.

• I very often suggest that a customer give you a percentage of the money that’s owed on contract signing, usually half, that might not cover all you costs but it should get you along the way to fulfilling your deal.

• Or you can get half up front and deliver incrementally, so that you can satisfy your customer and keep your head above water.

I did logistics work for a publicly held major BIG BOY catalogue retailer, it was Mother’s Day and the BIG BOY ordered squeaky bears that were selling for $5 as a bonus with other purchases. In order to save money, the BIG BOY outsourced the bears to China in January, with every expectation that they would show up in plenty of time for Mother’s Day. Each bear cost $2.50, so the profit margin was there. The BIG BOY had orders for over 1 million bears. They were planning on starting sorting and delivery in late March.

A storm hit the South China Sea, and the ship, carrying the squeaky bears, was delayed by three months. Oooooops, 1 million customers were not going to be happy, and the BIG BOY needed to do something fast.

In March, the BIG BOY ordered 1 million squeaky bears, from a local manufacturer, for $5.00 each. So the bears cost $2.50 +$5.00 or $7.50 each, and sold for $5 each. That created a loss of $2.5 million for that quarter, not happy shareholders.

1million bears showed up in July, decorated for Mother’s Day. What to do with 1 million Mother’s Day bears in July? The BIG BOY hired a local firm to redecorate the bears for Thanksgiving at $3.50 each and sold them in the catalogue for, you got it, $5. Total Profit ZERO, Total Loss well you figure it out.

So if you are producing goods for one of the BIG BOYS, Be smart, be careful, price intelligently and have a contingency plan, to keep your reputation intact you need to deliver quality merchandise on time and in budget.

If you have a service business, you may have a little more flexibility in pricing. I always recommend incremental pricing based on milestones. What does that mean? That means that you get paid for getting to the milestone, not for finishing the job. Here’s how you create the incremental milestones plan:

· clearly establish and document the BIG BOYS goals

· break down the deliverable into obvious, smaller pieces

· clearly establish and document what tasks belong to you and what belong to the BIG BOY

· clearly establish and document what the BIG BOY must provide (information, support, office space, technology, coffee, raw materials etc,) and when

· clearly establish and document change control procedures, that means that there are no changes unless all agree and the scope and dates are renegotiated

· clearly establish what you will get paid when you hit each milestones

I had a small software client who got a multi million dollar contract with one of the BIG BOYS. We wrote the contract following the rules above. We always got paid on time, even though we did not always hit the milestones, we could always prove that we didn’t hit the milestone because of something the BIG BOY promised and didn’t deliver.

When working with the BIG BOYS, Be Smart, Be Effective, Be Thrifty, Have Contingency Plans, Be Realistic, Be True to Yourself and Your Company, good ideas for business and good ideas for life.

Next Time; Building on current BIG BOY business to get more BIG BOY business.

About Claudine Halpern

Claudine Halpern is a chameleon; she has worked in many different situations during her more than twenty-five years in business; as a management consultant, Claudine advised many of the major brokerage, insurance, and financial houses, completing more than fifteen major corporate initiatives during the past ten years. As a crisis manager for major corporations, Claudine successfully brought in projects and products that other firms would not touch. As a specialist in business and management consultancy, Claudine consults to emerging businesses across the spectrum.

EMAIL chalpern@theychgroup.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/claudinehalpern

For more information, please visit Claudine's TNNW Bio.

Published by THE NATIONAL NETWORKER Newsletter. All rights reserved. Subscribe Free - Click HERE.
The National Networker Companies
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DEALING WITH GIANTS: Selling to the BIG BOYS - Doing the Job, Managing your Reputation, and GETTING PAID