Hey, there.
Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor,
and creator of SAAS Academy.
In this video, I'm going to share with you how
to navigate an enterprise deal.
If you're trying to work on that,
I'm going to lay down the framework.
And be sure to stay at the end, where
I'm going to share an exclusive resource called the Rocket Demo
Builder to help you actually do your product demos, to close
deals twice as fast, and get them way bigger.
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So the other day, I had one of my coaching clients call
from local line posts in our Facebook group
about how he should approach navigating
some of the kind of mid-market enterprise deals
he was working on-- things that are around 30 to 50k
in size when, typically, most of the deals he's working on
were 5 to 6k annual contract value.
So I kind of laid out the framework for him,
and everybody jumped in and said it was amazing.
And I thought, you know what?
I'm going to shoot a video on this for my crew.
The reality is I've been selling enterprise deal since I was 24.
I've sold tens of millions of dollars of software
in my career.
And at 24, when I started Spheric Technologies,
I decided I'm going to sell to Fortune 500 companies,
so Procter and Gamble, Dole Foods, Johnson and Johnson,
American Express, incredibly huge companies
that can frustrate the crap out of any entrepreneur.
I'm going to teach you how to reduce your sales cycles
and get the customer or the potential customer
to navigate you through that sale in this video.
Here we go.
So number one, get multi-threaded.
When you're selling to an enterprise,
you're not selling to one individual making the decision.
You've got to navigate your way through the different org
chart and people that are going to be part of that,
and there's many different folks.
You could reach out to who's going
to help you close that deal, but there's
three I want you to focus on.
Number one is the economic buyer.
This is the person that's actually
responsible for writing the check
or signing off on the purchase order to make your deal happen.
So figure out early in the process
who that person is so that you can connect with them.
Make sure you get them on board in the decision process.
Number two is the technical buyer.
Essentially, if you're deploying software in an enterprise,
you're probably going to want to minimum
integrate with their account system, their SSO, their
[? ldot, ?] whatever they call it, whatever they have.
And somebody technically is also going
to want to know how secure you are,
what is your development process,
are you even solvent as a startup.
Maybe you're just getting going.
They don't want to be on the receiving end of somebody that
built all this technology only to find out
that it gets hacked, or it doesn't last forever.
And then the third person, and why
you've got to get multi-threaded through the org chart,
is the champion.
This person, sometimes called the coach--
they're going to actually coach you through the process to buy.
They're going to be back channeling with you.
The good ones are back channeling,
letting you know what the internal meetings,
the consensus was, potentially the other competitors
in the evaluation process, and help you navigate that sale.
So number one, you've got to get multi-threaded in your approach
to the deal.
You've got to talk to multiple people involved,
but focus on those three.
Number two, virtual close.
One of my favorite things to do, especially using
the Rocket Demo framework, is to ask the person
when's the last time they bought software like ours in the past.
And using that as an anchor, I'll
then try to understand from their point of view what
were the different steps involved
in buying that software.
So I want to understand was there a procurement involved,
was there security, is there going to be legal,
do we need to do contract reviews,
do we need to do a security audit.
Whatever is involved, you want to get that upfront.
And this is why deals take 12, 16 months, because first time
entrepreneurs or really non-sophisticated enterprise
buyers don't bother mapping out that buying process.
And understanding who do I need to friend,
who I need to have a conversation,
and maybe front load some of those activities
in those meetings so that when the customer that you're
dealing with finally pulls the trigger and says,
hey, we want to get this done this quarter,
those conversations have already happened.
So for me, virtual close is getting
the customer in the mindset that the software is already
bought--
they can kind of see it working--
and using that to kind of understand the whole
process that you're going to need to go through to get them
on board as a customer.
Number three, move metric.
Here's what I've learned, especially at the enterprise
level.
They're not buying software to just help make things better.
They need to peg your product to some key internal metric
that they have on their strategic roadmap
to improve in that quarter or that year.
If you can not demonstrate that your solution is going
to be able to make an impact, move a number down, reduce
costs, increase revenue, et cetera,
then you're going to have a really hard time dealing,
because all of a sudden, you're competing
against the must have stuff in the organization and party
versus the nice to have.
So make sure that, in the early conversations,
you understand the metric that's important, ideally,
across all the different contacts at the company
so that you continuously remind them
how your solution is actually going
to help them get that outcome over the competitor.
And always remind them, because sometimes they forget, and they
start looking down into the weeds
around the features and the integrations.
But the end of the day, it's all about moving a metric.
Number four, face to face.
This is probably the number one mistake
that first time founders executing an enterprise deal
will make.
They will not invest in getting on a plane
and getting face to face with the potential customer.
At the enterprise level, people want to know that you're real.
Yes, Zoom, videos-- those are all great things
that allow people to build connections in a distributed
world.
But at some point, showing up, having a meeting in person,
even having a breakfast, or a coffee,
et cetera will show so much more interest and motivation
to the customer that you want to get the deal done
that they're going to--
I mean, at the end of the day, business
is all about know, like, and trust.
And if you think that you can pull that
off exclusively through video, I think it's a huge mistake.
If you feel like there's a real opportunity with a customer,
especially if you can get a few of them in the same city,
get on a plane, invest that time,
invest that budget to make sure that you get face to face.
Now, everything after the fact can be on video,
but in that moment, you want to make sure that you build.
There's something that happens when you connect with somebody,
biologically speaking, in a room, face to face,
pressing hands, doing a good handshake,
looking them in the eyes, explaining them
your passion for your product.
But you want to make sure that you do that early in the buying
process, and then you can use the video to keep that going.
Number five, ask for a POC.
So a POC stands for a Proof Of Concept.
One of the things that I've seen help navigate and really get
enterprise deals done faster is, instead
of trying to go for a six figure, a seven figure deal,
five figure even, you want to go for a POC.
Most department leads have a budget for around $5,000
to spend discretionary, without needing to go to their CFO,
or to their department lead, or their executive vice president
to get budget approval.
So going for a proof of concept to get your technology deployed
to a department, to a group of people
is probably the fastest way to get your foot in the door
to then expand the account.
There's something that happens when somebody makes a decision
to go down a path and work or trial
your software that kind of-- mentally,
they stop looking at the competitive sets,
stop looking at other companies that might solve that problem,
and I want you to offer that and go for the ask.
Actually ask for the friggin deal.
I don't know why, but some people are just like,
they don't want to scare the customer,
or they don't want to cause the person to say no.
I don't want to hear no, but they avoid going for the ask.
For me, it's like, what are we doing next?
What's next steps?
Are you ready to move forward?
When can we get this started?
Who do you think should be part of that POC?
Here's how the price point works.
We're going to do this.
We can process it on your corporate credit card.
And then in the future, we can renegotiate a larger
deployment, and here's how that will look.
When do you want to get started?
Go for the ask.
So a quick review of the strategies
to navigate an enterprise deal.
Number one, you got to get multi-threaded and focus
on the economic, technical, and champion contacts.
Number two, go for the virtual close.
Ask them what it's like to buy software in their organization.
Understand that buying process.
Number three, move the metric.
Always peg every conversation to a metric
that you're going to move with your software
and your solution.
Number four, get face to face.
Number five, ask for the sale or the POC,
Proof Of Concept, lower price point.
It'll be easier for you.
As I mentioned earlier, I want to share with you
an exclusive resource called the Rocket Demo Builder.
It's my nine box model that's going
to allow you to close deals twice as fast
and get more deals done.
So you can click the link below to download your copy
of the Rocket Demo framework.
And if you like this video, be sure to smash the Like buttons.
Subscribe to my channel.
If there's anybody that you care about
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feel free to share it with them directly.
And as per usual, I want to challenge
you to live your life at a bigger business,
and I'll see you next Monday.
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