Four Common Mistakes Startups Make When Selling to Large Companies

For the typical early stage startup, closing a deal with a Fortune 500 company can provide a huge boost in morale and momentum (and hopefully cash). Enterprise deals are a signal for investors to indicate traction, a common source of free media attention, and a key factor when potential employees will weigh your offer against other opportunities.

Over the past several years, I’ve sat on the corporate side in my role building the External Innovation group at The Estee Lauder Companies, where I’ve worked on 200+ deals with startups of all sizes. Before that, I sat on the startup side of the table and led growth at several venture-backed companies; closing enterprise deals with companies like Proctor & Gamble, LinkedIn, Spotify, and Honda.

With this dual background, I’ve seen (and made) my fair share of mistakes in building startup-corporate interactions. Avoiding the mistakes below just might be the difference between celebrating a deal with a new enterprise customer and sitting on the sidelines wondering what happened. To paraphrase the classic sales quote from Glengarry Glen Ross: champagne is for closers.

Mistake #1: Assuming Large Companies Have Limitless Cash

Yes, you may be pitching to a billion-dollar company but the person you’re pitching to doesn’t have a billion-dollar budget. While corporate budgets may (keyword: may) have more wiggle room than startup budgets, your corporate counterparts are still dealing with many demands on a limited budget. On top of day-to-day budget concerns, large companies, even successful ones, may implement spending freezes for specific departments. It’s entirely possible that your potential customer will be comparing your product with something in a completely different industry, simply because you’re competing for the same budget dollars.
Have some empathy for the budget concerns of your corporate counterparts and it’ll pay off by differentiating you from other salespeople they encounter.

Mistake #2: Trivializing Deep Corporate Knowledge

While it is possible that your startup is “changing the world”, the Fortune 500 companies you’re pitching to have already changed the world and know a thing or two about how things work. There’s nothing more annoying to your corporate counterpart than trivializing the deep knowledge they have of their industry.
You can also run the risk of shooting yourself in the foot by extrapolating current trends in your presentation. Do you really think you’re the first person to tell a corporate innovation director with twenty years of experience that artificial intelligence is going to take over every industry by 2030? Whether you’re right or not, the point is they’ve heard that story before and may view it as a sign of arrogance. Showing some humility and using phrases like ‘our hypothesis’ go a long way towards establishing your honesty and credibility.

Mistake #3: Using Too Much Startup Jargon

True story: the first time I mentioned the word “accelerator” in a corporate R&D lab I was consulting for, a senior scientist gave me a confused look and said he “didn’t realize particle accelerators were funding startups now”. While this may initially make you facepalm, it was a great reminder that those of us in “startup world” truly live in a bubble that most of America, and the world, are not part of. Taking the startup jargon down a notch will help you get your point across.

It sounds cliché but knowing your audience is the key to effective communication. When pitching to individuals who’ve spent their entire careers in large companies, avoid using startup words that they won’t understand and connect with. It’s not the job of the audience to figure out the presenter – but it is the job of the salesperson to make sure their pitch isn’t going over the audience’s head.

Mistake #4: Ignoring Implementation Costs

In the omnichannel world we live in, any large company with a physical retail presence is constantly pitched new in-store technology concepts. While the startups offering these technologies are charging reasonable prices (often as low as $30/location/month), what is often ignored is the cost a company must incur to implement a new technology. For example, a technology that provides customer intelligence via iPad to in-store sales staff so they can sell better requires an extensive training program, troubleshooting, and potentially even in-store hardware upgrades. So even though a technology like this may only cost a total of $6,000 per month (200 locations x $30/location/month), the implementation costs (for things like hardware and training) across 200 locations could easily exceed $100,000.

Implementation costs are difficult to avoid entirely but there are steps startups can take to help their clients reduce costs and get themselves closer to signing a deal. These steps include negotiating reduced hardware pricing with manufacturers, assisting with or even providing free training, and offering to troubleshoot software issues for sales staff. Whatever you do, the important thing is to make it feasible and simple for the large company to say yes to working with you – and that doesn’t always involve the price of your actual product.

*****

Once you’re able to snag a meeting with a decision-maker at a large company, it means you’ve got their attention. They are interested (albeit at a very high level) in what your product can do. That said, these decision-makers are looking at dozens of other companies who are competing for the same budget. The easiest thing for a decision-maker to do is say no and any of the mistakes above give them an easy out. By always keeping your audience in mind, being empathetic to their concerns, and avoiding critical mistakes, your probability of closing a deal goes way up. And that’s ultimately the outcome that both large companies and startup salespeople are after.

This post originally appeared on the Global Accelerator Network blog. Thanks to Joe Benun for feedback on an earlier version of this post.