A is for Access

This is a companion piece to Early Stage Enterprise Deal Qualification and Management.

As early-stage B2B technology startups align to discrete markets, a cast of unique characters will likely emerge. One key character is the Early Adopter Champion. There are lots of books and articles on this topic (link).

If you are doing something truly unique in the market that has a big potential impact, you will need someone who is excited about the risk and the reward to shepherd your solution into the organization . . . even if your solution is free. This person could be the individual who receives the benefit of your solution, or they could see your solution as a way to propel their career forward. Whomever it is, look for tough, organized, ambitious, persuasive, and effective communicators. They have a hard job ahead. The Early Adopter Champion is actually the one who closes your deal; you are there to support.

Standard Cast Members

In larger organizations, the below positions will be filled by individuals or even groups of people (e.g., a legal team). In smaller organizations, one person can represent all positions (e.g., sole proprietor, sole employee). Nonetheless, most of the positions are represented in all procurements.

Early Adopter Champion: Convinces the prospect’s organization that they should take a chance with your solution. Will likely shepherd you from today through successful implementation.

Budget Authority: Can allocate direct and indirect funds for the first year of your solution.

Signing Authority: Can sign or authorize someone to sign your contract.

Legal: Keeps an eye on the legal process you are going through. Are you working with outside counsel or a non-lawyer (e.g., CFOs)? Create a legal process that works well for the individuals on the other end. For example, in some instances, it will make more sense to use your customer’s contract with your non-negotiable contract snippets included. In others, you will want web-based terms of use.

Technical: Someone who is well-versed in the details associated with your solution’s success; not always related to information technology. Sometimes this is a process within the prospect’s organization (e.g., underwriting). This could even be someone who is an expert on the prospect’s bureaucracy. Usually, this person has the power to veto a deal.

Procurement: Will usher you through the last steps of your prospect’s buying process. Their job is to ensure compliance with controls, and sometimes to negotiate better rates. Early stage technology startups can explain that they are not a commodity and there is no room to negotiate price further. You can get your early adopter champion involved to explain that they have negotiated a best and final offer that is already highly tailored. Since procurement managers can be managed on their ability to get an extra 5% discount, you can engineer this into your pricing or get good at helping them demonstrate that negotiating is not appropriate.

Compliance: Compliance staff have the ability to slow things down or veto your solution. If your deals consistently involve sign-off from a compliance group, there is an opportunity to reduce your cycle time and increase your probability of close by creating resources that make demonstrating compliance easy. Treat compliance staff well. They have a tough job and greatly appreciate when you can make their lives easier.

Influencer: Anyone you come into contact with who is associated with your prospect. It can be a vendor of your prospect, the person at reception, or a client of your prospect. Always be on the lookout for influencers and use them wisely.

Implementation: After your prospect buys, someone will have to make your solution a success on the customer side. This person can veto your deal. This person can give the organization confidence or fear with regard to the risk associated with your solution. Be sure to get good at making them feel confident your solution will be a success.

Concepts Related to Access

Power to Power: Leveraging levels within your organization and the prospect’s organization to gain access to seniority. For example, a VP of Sales offers a meeting with their CEO in exchange for access to the prospect’s Signing Authority. If you are an early stage CEO doing sales, you can leverage a board member. Before offering the time of more senior members of your organization (e.g., CTO), examine your Access and determine if you should trade your power’s participation for access to the prospect’s power.

Avoid Single Points of Failure: A noticeable percentage of deals fall apart because the Champion retired, quit, was fired, or changed positions. If a deal is important enough, ensure that you don’t have a single point of failure. Ask yourself what would happen if your Champion vanished. Having multiple points of contact can also help with intelligence gathering, gaining multiple perspectives, and identifying more Need/Budget/Mandates. However, be careful not to upset your current Champion in pursuit of new points of contact.

Start High and Get Referred Down: When new vendors, new concepts, or new job candidates come in from “the top,” everyone looks at them differently. Often the attitude is more “How do we make this work?” vs. “How is this going to fail?”. Pointing your lead generation at the Signing and Budget Authority figures can shrink your cycles, increase your probability of close, and increase your deal size. The purpose of your initial prospect touchpoint can be to get referred down.

“Who Needs to Get Involved?”: Seems like a pretty benign question, but this is a powerful one. Ask this question as you navigate your deal. You may want to ask it multiple times and to multiple people within your prospect’s organization. As your prospect answers, inquire about technical sign-offs, budgetary approvals, implementation POCs, political checkpoints, etc. In a perfect world, you know all the key people who will need to get involved in the deal from today until contract execution.

“Access” in the BMANTR framework

Can be as simple as documenting all of the people that will come into contact with your deal from today until contract execution. It sometimes makes sense to engage with the contacts that will be responsible for the implementation and ongoing relationship prior to contract execution.

Recommended Structure: Full Name, Title, Role in the Deal

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Successfully operationalizing around your unique cast of characters can become a key ingredient to your secret sauce.