Can Thought Leaders Run the Marathon of Enterprise Sales?

Getting your content into an enterprise level client at scale takes time. Typically, a good deal of time. Plan for 6 to 18 months. While this may be discouraging, it is actually an opportunity. Use that time to your advantage. Deepen the relationships you have with as many folks as you can inside the organization. Follow your client in the media, learn more about their culture, their business, and their industry. The mere fact that it takes such a long time is an advantage because most authors and thought leaders simply don’t have the patience to endure the lengthy process and move on to other things.

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The number of folks involved in the buying decision is growing. In a recent article in HBR they noted that on average there are now 5.4 buyers involved in an enterprise engagement. There are a lot of reasons for this—from blurred lines between functions (training and IT, sales and marketing,) to companies doing what they can to insure they are making wise decisions. This is very different from using the “Old Boy’s Network” or getting a client to sign off on smaller deals that don’t have as much visibility or can come from a discretionary budget. You’ll be dealing with more and more people that represent various constituencies in the client’s organization.

Let’s face it, getting a speaking engagement to contract is very straightforward. The standard agreements rarely run more than a couple of pages and the buyers and sellers are well versed in the process. Not so when it comes to contracting large scale engagements. Clients often don’t understand IP rights, or they will ask for onerous restrictions relative to non-competes, or their payment terms inadvertently put you in the banking business. There’s no easy way through this process; it’s messy and complex, but again this is an opportunity. Many authors and thought leaders bow out at this phase of the race due to frustration or lack of understanding of what the client actually needs to see in an agreement.

So you’ve put in the necessary time, developed some great relationships, and got your second wind during the contracting phase, congratulations. But wait, there’s more. Just as you are about to move forward the client has a terrible quarter, they get acquired or acquire their largest competitor, a new regulation is passed that impacts them greatly, the CEO leaves, there’s a product recall, bad press, or a crisis of some sort. Lots of things can happen that are beyond your control that can kill a deal that you’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into. Sorry; it happens.