How To Crack Into Fortune 100 Accounts in Record Time:
5 Steps to Breaking the Code
by Patricia Gardner
Author
Every salesperson wants to routinely close million dollar deals. It's good for business, it's good for the bank account, and it's good for a little R&R. The question is, how can it be done on a regular basis?
The answer is a sales strategy called "code-breakers."
A code-breaker is someone, usually a sales rep outside of your company, who is already writing millions of dollars' worth of business annually with one of your potential clients.
My first code-breaker was a former Xerox colleague who had moved to a leading computer company. He was now selling tens of millions of dollars of hardware each year to select pharmaceutical companies. I was working for an IT consulting firm, and when I found out his company did not sell consulting services, I offered to team up with him. If he would help me crack a pharmaceutical account, I would get him into one of our clients. The first one was so successful, we just kept rolling. We did more than $4 million in deals together in a 12-month period.
After this, I realized that partnering with an established vendor on a specific project is the surest means to the first big deal with a new client. You're trading on his or her reputation to get in the door, and adding to it when your job comes in on time and on budget and does even more than you promised.
The concept is simple. Develop a strategic alliance with a business-person, usually a top sales rep, who already has established relationships with a fortune 100 client and whose products complement your own. This is your code-breaker, someone who is already inside the corporations you are pursuing and is interested in the corporations you have established relationships with.
By working together, you will both crack into major corporations and build new accounts while finding ways to develop your established business.
Here are 5 steps to closing a million dollar deal in two sales calls:
- Meet a Code-breaker
Research a company and find a sales rep that is connected to some of the major corporations that you are interested in approaching. Contact them with your idea to work together to get into some of the major accounts you are both interested in.
Be able to discuss your product candidly and understand how it will complement or enhance the code-breaker's product. You don't have to share a lot of details, just arrange to discuss specific details.
- Get the Details
If you both agree that you there is a mutually beneficial relationship, build a pipeline where the code-breaker gets you into 3 accounts and you agree to get him into 3 accounts, and set specific dates for each one within the next 90 days. Share any information about your respective accounts, any interesting projects, how your products will work together, and how you could move forward to build an alliance during the second meeting.
Do your homework on the new accounts and then meet again one week before the sales call to talk specifically about the strategy to use with the client, any pertinent news from the company that might influence their needs, and any problems they are encountering within the organization.
- Make it Happen
Meet with the code-breaker's decision-maker and make that deal happen. Have your code-breaker set up the meeting and introduce your product to them. This will give the decision-maker a chance to invite his project manager or technical person to the meeting, if appropriate.
Ease your way into the meeting by taking a back seat to the code-breaker while they follow up on old business; then introduce your new business.
- Seal the Deal
After you make the deal, put together a meeting or conference call about your product with the technical people. This is a traditional sales meeting where you will pitch your product, answer questions, and discuss the details. You don't need the code-breaker for this meeting, depending on how involved their product will be with yours, but it would be a good idea to let them see you in action the first time.
Because you have entered at an exceptional level on the solid reputation of your code-breaker, you will get the commitment and close the deal in this sales call.
- Keep Moving
Revel in your success and move on to the next account. Make as many appointments as you can and create a tag team. Refine your pitches together, see where the products are working together, and consider any news or developments. Then create a technical team to handle the pricing, proposal, and smaller details so you don't get slowed down. Hand the details off to the project manager and move on to close other deals with your code-breaker.
These 5 steps crack the code on closing a million dollar deal. Once I consciously made it part of my approach, I started finding code-breakers for every major account I was trying to penetrate. As you can probably imagine, though, code-breakers aren't just hanging out at the water cooler waiting to be pitched. These are supremely busy people who have achieved their high status by proving their value to clients again and again.
Before you even think of trying to enlist a code-breaker's help, you have to know your product and market and be ready to demonstrate how you're going to bring something fresh to his client.
It is essential to research each company and their products, forming a plan before contacting the code-breaker. When armed with this knowledge, it will be simple to form alliances with several code-breakers and even become one yourself. With preparation and teamwork, success is unlimited.
2004 © Patricia Gardner. All rights reserved.
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About the Author:
Patricia Gardner has closed million-dollar sales deals in two sales calls, and has trained others to do it, in a career that spans 30 years.
She is now President of Maximum Sales, an executive management and sales training consulting firm, and has now written a new book The Million Dollar Sales Call designed to help sales professionals unlock the five secrets of strategic sales.
For more information on her services or her book, visit www.maximumsales.com.
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