Enterprise Deal Strategy: Profiles

The Compass

When working with my clients on a new opportunity, or even trying to create them, one of the optimal starting points in developing our initial deal strategy is to engage in Profile discovery.

Many salespeople simply look in the CRM to see what transpired in the past, check out Linkedin to see who looks good to engage with or do a google search on the company and maybe their industry.  That is entirely inadequate and provides limited data for developing a winning deal strategy.

Remember the definition of sales strategy:  it is the discipline of creating the power to achieve a successful transaction with our Buyer. 

Below is an approach to help you bring some discipline to your profile discovery process so you have the power to navigate to a successful outcome with your Buyers.

The Profile is the attributes of the companies involved in the deal.  Of course, the primary profile is the Buyer, but you need to also discover those of any Competitors or possible Partners involved. You then need to compare your own Seller profile in terms of your market position, brand strength and any historical relationship you may have with the Buyer, competitors & potential partners. This has a strong influence on developing your winning deal strategy.

There are several reasons to focus on this Profile discipline:

1. To find clues to buying behaviors.

2. To gain insight into the timing of a potential close.

3. To look for events that could increase your deal velocity.

4. To find ways to get close enough to the Buyer to engage. Proximity sells.

5. To find ways to strengthen your position with the Buyer and against competitors.

6. To find ways to increase the value of your offering.

7. To determine the best deal strategy for each account at each stage of the buying process.

Elements of the Profile discipline:

A.     Stage of Growth – this is where the Buyer is in their growth journey.  This is important because companies have very distinct challenges in each of these stages.  They have the most risk to their business as they transition from one stage of growth to the next so this is when they are most open to new solutions that, you the Seller, may be providing.  This is a relatively easy discovery process.  Google, Crunchbase, the company website, Bloomberg and other news sources provide plenty of easy to access insight.  These stages are segmented by buying behavior.

• Start-up:  Focus is on traction.  Their enemy is time.

• Emerging Growth:  Focus is on brand.  Their enemy is a lack of focus or clarity.

• High-Growth:  Focus is on scaling.  Their enemy is the lack of capacity.

• Industry Leading: Focus is on innovation.  Their enemy is stagnation.

• Legacy:  Focus is on re-invention.  Their enemy is a loss of valuation.

B.     Size – this is how big the company is and can be based on revenue, # employees or revenue group.  This is important because company size can provide insight into how many people will be involved in the buying process, if there are multiple divisions involved and how many deal variables there are that will have to be managed.  This also is a relatively easy discovery process and should be done before serious engagement in a sales process.  Examples are:

• SMB – small, medium sized businesses.

• Lower Mid-Market

• Upper Mid-Market

• Enterprise

• Large Enterprise

• Global Enterprise

C.     Rate of Growth – this is how fast a company is growing.  This typically requires a bit more depth in your research but is a valuable element in developing a winning deal strategy.  Generally, high-growth companies are moving fast, have capital and will invest in innovative solutions that support their growth and mitigate risk. Slow growth companies require an alternative strategy to high-growth ones.  Examples are:

• Exponential

• High

• Medium

• Low or slow

• Losing Market

D.    Propensity to Buy – this is the probability that a customer will buy.  This is a very important element as it provides the best insights into how to develop a winning deal strategy that helps you navigate to a successful outcome.  This discovery process typically takes more time and effort. This process includes market research but also direct engagement with the Buyer.  During an Enterprise Sales process, doing discovery on these elements should be continuous until a sale is complete as there are almost always changes going on during an enterprise sales process that could require a change in deal strategy.  I’ve lost too many deals due to last minute events that impacting the Buyer’s propensity to buy.  Examples are:

• Companies in transition from one stage of growth to the next need help transitioning.

• Companies that have just capitalized need help investing in growth.

• Companies that had a change at the Executive level will need help with their changing business strategy.

• Companies that have new initiatives or what is called “compelling events” need to support those strategic initiatives.

• Companies that are experiencing high or exponential levels of growth need help scaling.

• Companies that face new risks to their business need help mitigating those risks.

• Segmenting companies by their industry and sub-industry help identify patterns of opportunity.  Companies in an industry are herd animals.  If one or others are investing in solving a problem, good chance the others in that segment will do so as well. 

E.     Region – this is the regional or geographical location of the business.  This is no longer as strong an opportunity identifier as the other elements, but it could have power so it’s worth evaluating.  For example, employees still tend to stay within certain regions as they change jobs so you may find some linkage with people who have a propensity to buy your offering taking on new positions.

F.     Capitalization – this is where the money for growth comes from.  Recent re-capitalization is one of the first places to look.  The Company website, Crunchbase and general search are all good sources for this data.  A terrific source of leads and deal strategy insights is to be found on the websites of VCs and PE firms. You can see their portfolio and see their investment philosophy. Follow the money!

• Private or self-funded

• Venture Capital

• Private Equity

• Public

• Debt

G.    Risk Tolerance – Companies and individuals within those companies can have different tolerances for risk.   This requires some digging to discover.  Sometimes, companies in one risk profile have an employee in a decisive position that can have a different risk profile.  Unfortunately, the majority of the companies in your Total Addressable Market (TAM) have a low tolerance for risk. However, there is sometimes an individual within the more risk adverse companies who wants to change the status quo and shake things up with new ways of doing things. They’re there. You just need to do the deep work to find them.

• Innovators:  High tolerance for risk.  Fast movers.  3-5% of your TAM.

• Early Adopters: Moderate tolerance.  Decisive. 5-10% of your TAM.

• Early Majority: Little tolerance. Defined buying process.  35% of TAM.

• Late Majority: No risk tolerance.  Rigid buying process.  35% of TAM.

• Laggards:  Seldom buy.  15% of TAM.

Summary: Some of these Profile elements are relatively easy to discover before you engage.  Others take some deep work and reveal themselves as you navigate through your deal.  That is ok.  Never stop doing discovery on these elements until a transaction has been executed.

Make sure you also do this Profile discovery on any Competitors.  That will provide clues into their deal strategy which will help you refine your own to counter theirs.  Same with potential Partners.

Navigation:  Watching the Paris Olympic games shows us how narrow the margin of victory can be.

• The women’s high jumper from Ukraine practiced thousands of hours for 13 seconds of effort to win gold by inches.

• In swimming, the margin of victory for a gold medal was thousands of a second.

• In track, the margin of victory was hundreds of a second.

• In the shot-put, the margin of victory was inches.

• In cycling, the US woman who won gold could not even see the leaders ahead of her with a few miles to go but persevered and blew past them with under a mile left to victory.

Enterprise sales is the same.  That is why the work is simple but not easy.  Do the detailed research and discovery outlined here.  It provides you a solid foundation to develop your winning deal strategy. Your margin of winning the business, or not, will come down to seconds, inches, hard work and perseverance. 

This was written while listening to Mariposa by the Rose City Band.