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SMB-Speak: Getting your Foot in the Door

Guest post by: Pat Taylor

Article Overview: As we all know, small businesses believe that differentiation is a strategic advantage when competing with large corporations for a customer's business. Talking about differentiation is one thing; demonstrating it is another altogether.

SMB-Speak: Getting your Foot in the Door

As we all know, small businesses believe that differentiation is a strategic advantage when competing with large corporations for a customer's business. Our ability to do more and be more for our customers is, in fact, a big part of our "value add". Talking about differentiation is one thing; demonstrating it is another altogether.

Many years ago, Kenny Kremm (my business partner) and I were competing for a Storage Area Network sale being tendered by an international printing company. Two well known mega-companies were involved in the tender, and it appeared unlikely a company of our size would be able to compete at all. Fortunately, the plant manager responsible for making the purchase decision felt it important to at least consider a small business for the job. We had the expertise (and had won several industry awards validating that claim) and we had the service record, but we did not have the size to make the customer comfortable with our ability to deliver and support such infrastructure. As the day neared for the sale to be awarded, only Dell, Compaq, and our company remained. We called to get updated on the status of the order but were unable to reach the plant manager. Another day passed, and we began to worry. On the third day, we decided to take action before the sale was lost.

Kenny and I drove down to the local boot store; since we lived in Texas, it wasn't much of a drive. We picked out a nice but inexpensive pair of black cowboy boots. We took one boot from the pair (so the plant manager would not mistake the offering for a gift) and put it in a box with a note that said...

"We have the technology. We have the expertise. We are the right team for the job. Just let us get our foot in the door and we promise we won't let you down."

We FedEx’d the box to the plant manager to arrive the next day. Before noon he called and, laughing, gave us one shot to get our "foot in the door". He instructed us to be there by lunchtime the next day. We won the sale and kept the customer for many years to follow.

Customers will buy what small businesses have to sell, but we have to sell them on the fact that we, in fact, do more for them. Be bold. Be confident. Be different.

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Article Tags: differentiation, prospecting, sales training, strategic advantage



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