It is the life-long dream of every small business to market to big brands ranked among Fortune 500 companies. Selling to these prestigious companies positively impacts your business in terms of elevating your revenues. It can also enhance your business prospects as doing business with them makes you more credible. Likewise, it could ultimately sky-rocket your reputation, thereby attracting more customers.
It is not an easy thing for small businesses to market to big companies since grabbing their attention is itself a difficult task, let alone selling them. Here let us share with you some strategies curated through our research that could lead to deals with big players in the market.
3 Steps to Market to Big Brands
Going through the work of various researchers, we have summed up these three steps by which you could land on the impressive clientele of Fortune 500 companies.
Throw Sales Pitches at the Right Target
In pursuit of your dream to land clientele ranked amongst the Fortune 500, you need to find the right contact to pitch in. The Fortune 500 companies, on average employ, 60,000 employees — so getting noticed by this many people is a challenge in itself. Besides, employees roles at Fortune 500 companies may not be similar to small businesses. They can be pretty complex as each company has its unique organizational structure. So reaching the right people at Fortune 500 companies can be an overwhelming process due to their vast size.
To throw your pitch to the right person, you need to know the roles one performs on the job. Ryan Robinson, in his article at Forbes, suggested conducting a prior background check of potential clients using Linkedln and other online research tools. With this background information, you can better customize your pitch and reach out to the right person with confidence.
Once you have figured out who to reach, it is now time for you to develop a strategy to convey your offer. Use the background information to tailor your pitch to stand out. Go for a more customized and creative pitch to catch attention. You can incorporate ideas like custom videos, handwritten letters, or branded sample packages to grab your prospective client’s attention. Do not lose hope even if you do not win the contract or nobody replies. Remember to always follow up since 80% of deals are booked during the follow-ups.
And if you manage to sell to the big brands, don’t limit yourself to just these initial contacts. Always try to expand your contacts in the company with the help of your initial contact, which will help you when one of your contacts finds a job elsewhere.
Make a Strong First Impression
You must have heard thousands of times that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so work on it. In the case of Fortune 500, the competition is fierce. They get bombarded with sales pitches all the time. Here your first impression can make it or break it for you. Even your mere presentation and value proposition are not enough to seal the deal for you. You need to differentiate yourself from all the other sales pitches by showing your value upfront even before your sales pitch.
Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service – Brian Tracy
Fortune 500 brands consider relationships more important than anything else. They want to see that you have their best interests at heart and are willing to go a long way to help them succeed (beyond just your offerings). To help your prospects, you should go the extra mile even beyond your offering to help them achieve their goals.
You can also add value by providing things like market insights, referrals, or savings ideas within the company. Showing that you genuinely care for them will capture their attention. Besides, it will also help you win their trust, thereby building long-lasting relationships with them.
Let Them Play Safe
If you want to market to big brands, you need to remember one thing — big brands are risk-averse. The employees you are reaching with your proposition at big brands would only take low-risk decisions to protect their jobs. So, to do business with big brands, it is better to demonstrate that your offering is a low-risk investment.
To make your offering look low-risk investment and demonstrate how much your product has helped your customers in the past, it may be helpful to use testimonials, case studies, press clips, references, or any accolade, reviews, and awards.
Furthermore, you can also offer service guarantees, money-back, follow-up maintenance, and concierge setup to show that you value customers.
Market to Big Brands – The Conclusion
Landing a client among the Fortune 500 companies is not an easy thing to achieve. It involves making the right pitch to the right person. Once you have landed even one client from big brands, this could transform your company for good. It would enhance not only your credibility and revenues but also the future prospects of your company. So choosing the right strategy to approach big brands is imperative for achieving your goal to do business with them.
