How To Get Your Small Foot In the Big Door of Brands and Agencies

How To Get Your Foot In The Door At Agencies and

Big Brands

Thursday, September 12, 13

By Brandon Kleinman


Who I Am

• Ex Director Of Digital/Social Strategy TBWA/Chiat/Day (Nissan, Gatorade, Pepsi, Apple, Visa and a few more)

• Current CEO of mobile start-up

• Ran my own creative agency that serviced Turner Communications (TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network) and Unilever.


The Small Company’s Sales Cycle


7 Stages Of Small

1. Everyone is Going To Love Our Product!

2. I Know Company X Would Buy Our Product If They Knew It Existed

3. Get back a combination of “now is not a good time responses” or worse silence

4. Have 1 or 2 friend leads that don’t pan out quickly

5. Get one client who says yes, but keeps putting off executing and paying

6. Started look to hire a “sales guy” and realize you don’t know any good ones and don’t even know what a good one

looks like7. Focus on the product again and convince yourself that

with better features this thing will sell itself. Then back to step 1!


What To Expect

• Help Understand the day-to-day realities of a buyer at a large company or big agency

• What People CAN buy your product inside

• How to find these people

• How to get a meeting

• Meeting Prep (How to insure the right people show up)

• How to Pitch

• How Follow Up

• Relationship Maintenance

• Quick hacks to improve persuasion or get bigger companies attention


THE MOST IMPORTANT TRUTH:

Large Companies Are A Collection Of

Groups of People, Not One Cohesive Unit



• Often too busy to worry about first on-boarding new vendors. (Deal size makes this point vary.

• Will delegate to “Just Ballin”.

• Extremely busy both with current work and future work

• Understand the day-to-day but dont work directly on it

The Life Of An Agency Employee

Soon To Be BallinJust Ballin EnoughToo Ballin

• Own the highest level of day-to-day

• This is your person

• They are synthesizers to upper management for all the work that gets done.

• Need to know the details, but also need a sound-byte to justify spending on things.

(C-Level, V.P.)(Senior, Associate Director, Director, Manager, Media

Buyer, Planner, Supervisor)

(Associate, Assistant, )

• Hardest day to day existence

• Responsible for all grunt level tasks and organization

• Will be the ones physically setting up EVERYTHING about the meeting

• Really appreciate personal touch as they are often a bit abused


How To Find Them

1. Get a friend/acquaintance to introduce you. (More on that later)

2. If you work with a one company, email all their competitors and tell them you are working with company X

3. Last resort: find them on LinkedIN and send a short email that references something specific they did and how you can help. Dont EVER pitch in a message.


Intro Hacks

1. Never more than 1-2 paragraphs on who you are, and why you think you can help.

2. NEVER pitch over the phone, always get a time in person

3. Tools: Rapportitive, MailTester.com, Emails4Corporations.com and SnapBird


How to Ask

Hi X,

I was looking to get introduced to Johnny Dealmaker from Project X and saw you were connected to him. Not sure how well you’re connected to him, but if the relationship is strong, I’d really appreciate an intro to chat about ways to work with my Project Y. Please let me know if you feel comfortable doing this and I’ll forward over a proper request for introduction that you can forward to him.

Thanks!Scott

Thanks to Lifelong-Learner.com


Email Hacks For In Person Meeting

1. Always suggest 2-3 time/dates when asking for a meeting. NEVER ASK WHEN IS GOOD FOR YOU?

2. Know the decision makers and bring CUSTOM FOOD OR COFFEE FOR EACH PERSON.

3. Always establish that you work with someone of credibility if possible early on


If All Else Fails(The 2-Way Meeting)

If all else fails, offer a FREE 1-on-1 service.

Example: “You guys do a ton of Twitter buying” Let me come in and show you some contextually specific twitter tricks (NO PITCHING).

The key here is to offer a gift of expertise that they can use in their day to day.


Pre-meeting prep

• Have questions prepared that allow customers to talk about their day.

• NEVER add someone on LinkedIN before your meeting.

• Be prepared with a specific low and high commitment plan BEFORE the meeting


Have Roles

• Always have a chosen Leader who runs the presentation.

• Give roles to team (tech guy, customer management guy, contact..etc)

• Your Leader should Quarterback questions.


Pitch Rules

• Don’t present slides for more than 20 minutes.

• Don’t present sitting down and ask question through the whole pitch

• Aim to connect your leader on a personal level with one decision maker in the meeting


• Don’t start by going into full on sales mode

• Casually talk about what makes you guys special and the specific value you deliver.

• Learn about what they need and how they do business. (Empathy is huge)

The PITCH!


The 1-Sheet

• Should explain what you do like you are talking to a 5year old

• This sheet will be shared with clients and decision makers at least 10 times

• Think of it as a script for your services, that empowers other to sell you while you are not there


The Follow Up• Follow up the NEXT DAY at the

absolute latest. Same day if you can.

• This is NOT a re-sell opportunity, its a recap and offer more value opportunity.

•Offer something cool

• Show Value!


Bonus: Relationship Maintenance

• Take the team to dinner or drinks. Personal relationships are everything

• After meeting, or email conclusion

• Follow up with a confirmation of the outcome

• Make a calendar note 8 weeks in the future to follow up and deliver more value


Resources

@[email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

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Business

How To Get Your Small Foot In the Big Door of Brands and Agencies