Spotlight on the Founder and Chief Sales Officer of Selling to Big Companies, Jill Konrath

 By Cara Whedbee, Ph.D.

This “Spotlight” interview features successful entrepreneur, Jill Konrath, who founded Selling to Big Companies. Konrath, a leading-edge sales strategist and business advisor, is a popular speaker at annual sales meetings and association events. She helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, speed up their sales cycle and achieve their revenue growth goals.

Konrath is the author of the instant sales classic, Selling to Big Companies, an Amazon.com Top 25 sales book for three years. Recently, Fortune magazine selected it as one of eight "must read" sales books, along with classics such as "How to Win Friends & Influence People" and "Getting to Yes." She also publishes an industry-leading newsletter and hosts an award-winning blog. 

Konrath has written hundreds of articles on sales strategies and is frequently quoted in top business media, including: Entrepreneur, New York Times, Business Journal, Selling Power, Sales & Marketing Management, as well as countless online publications and radio shows. Her expertise has also been cited in many books written about the sales industry, including the New York Times bestseller, Master of Sales.

Last year, Konrath launched the Sales SheBang conference and community for women in sales. In addition to her work in the sales field, Konrath is a Founding Mother of Awesome Women, a nonprofit focused on creating a world in which "every woman's voice makes a difference." She's also an active member of the National Speakers Association.

For more information on Konrath and her business, visit: www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com.

HRT: Thanks, Jill, for talking to me and our HRTools.com readers today.

JK: It is my pleasure, Cara.

HRT: The first thing I would like to know is: How did you come up with the idea for your business, Selling to Big Companies?

JK: I'd already been in the consulting business for 15 years. Selling to Big Companies is an offshoot of my main business, which at that time was called Leapfrog Strategies. Anyway, what happened is that a woman I knew approached me about reviewing the media kit for Ventures - a magazine for the small and emerging business community. They didn’t have any money to pay me but she was hoping I could help her out.

I asked her to send me some information about the businesses for which her magazine was writing. She sent me a stack of information almost a foot high about the entrepreneurial community. I became absolutely enamored with its spirit, the jobs it was creating and how it was responsible for the majority of revolutionary technologies and ideas.

I also ran into statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau that said that 75 percent of business owners shut their doors because they’re working too darn hard for the amount of money coming in the door. As somebody who specializes in marketing, my antennas started to quiver—you know my flags went up and fireworks were shooting—and I kept thinking, “Oh my goodness, they have a sales and marketing problem!" There are really good, talented people who are running these businesses, but they don’t know how to land corporate clients. It's not their skill.

So then I went on a journey to find out what kind of information was available to them online and it was terrible! It was a mish-mash; a little here and a little there. Then I realized that these business owners didn’t even understand enough about selling to know if this information would be effective or not. So, without knowing it, they were buying books, CDs and tapes that taught them skills that actually hurt their ability to get their foot in the door.

For three months I kept thinking, “How can I help these people? I can’t make a living selling to the small business community because they don’t have deep enough pockets.” Finally I woke up in the middle of a January night with a voice in my head that said, “You will create a Web site called ‘Selling to Big Companies’ and your tag line will be ‘Helping small businesses win big contracts.’” So that’s how I came up with the idea - and it took me almost a full year to implement it.

HRT: Wow! So once you knew that you wanted to start your company how did you get it going?

JK: It took me a couple months to free my schedule up to create this Web site because I was in the midst of some consulting projects. But starting in March of that year I literally shut down my business and I wrote. I didn’t do any work from March until August. And this was, by the way, just going to be a side business. It was not intended to be my business, but the concept took me over and I had to do it. I was intent on providing good information to the smaller businesses who sold into the B2B (Business-to-Business) sector.

The first thing I did was write nine e-books on what it takes to “Sell to Big Companies.” I wrote about targeting accounts, creating elevator speeches, developing strong value propositions, planning first client meetings, asking good questions and more.

After I finished with the e-books, then I had to create the Web site. I hired people to design and build it, but I ended up writing all of the copy on the Web site myself. Finally, after many revisions, it went live in August. On the day it launched, I thought, “Oh my goodness I've created an incredible resource for entrepreneurs and nobody knows it exists!” So then I spent until the end of the year doing PR activities to help people realize that SellingtoBigCompanies.com was a place that they could go to get really good information on how to sell to the corporate market. So that’s how I got it going.

HRT: Great! So what’s the most important thing that you have learned so far about being a business owner?

JK: Here’s the two pronged answer to that question since I can’t narrow it down to just one!

1. You have to love what you’re doing. If you’re running your own small business, you better love what you’re doing because it’s a lot of work. If you don’t love it your life is miserable. So don’t start a business just for the money—start it because it’s something that you’re passionate about and you care about because then you can stay in there through the tough times and you bring it your best. In other words, if you love what it is that you’re doing, then you bring it your best ideas, thoughts and inspiration.
2. Once you get things up-and-running and business is good, don’t get complacent. If you get complacent, you’re not moving forward, you’re actually moving backward, and it’s going to come and bite you in the end.

That’s the voice of experience talking, too, by the way!

HRT: Very good advice. So what should small and growing businesses know about selling to big companies?

JK: The first thing they should know is that landing a large corporate client, even for a medium-sized company, can totally transform their business.  They don't have to be constantly scurrying around trying to get new clients or always on the brink of financial ruin. Having one anchor client allows you to grow your business in many other ways because you know you have a revenue stream coming in.

Plus, it gives you an incredible prestige value and is a major validation source. Other prospects will immediately assume you're a credible resource if you have large companies on your client roster.

Also, if you get into a big company your first sale may be small, but you have so many opportunities to grow your business. Once you’re inside a big company you can sell to other business units and other divisions within the enterprise and so it can become a hugely profitable endeavor.

Another thing I think small and growing businesses need to know about selling to big companies is that corporate decision makers are totally swamped and overwhelmed with work. They’ve been in the midst of right-sizing and downsizing for quite a while and in many cases, they’re doing the work of at least two people. With the economy the way it is, I think their workload will be even more overwhelming in the upcoming year.

What happens, then, is that corporate decision makers start protecting their time. It's their most precious commodity. That means they don't take phone calls from outsiders. Instead, they roll all calls to voicemail and then never call anybody back (and that’s standard operating procedure—it’s not personal one little bit).

Another thing that small and growing businesses need to know about selling to big companies is that big companies do business with small firms all of the time. A lot of people don’t know it and they think, “Why should I call bigger companies because they’ve clearly got the expertise within their organization.” Whereas large corporations will hire people for many different reasons, for example, sometimes they have one-off projects that they're only doing in a particular moment of time. Sometimes they need some specialized expertise. Sometimes they just need extra bodies because they don’t have the staff.

So there are many reasons that big companies buy from small organizations. Yet I see way too many small business owners, sales people and entrepreneurs who are afraid of calling on the corporate market.

Those are the things I think small and growing businesses need to know about selling to big companies.

HRT: Alright so what advice do you have for businesses when it comes to hiring sales people?

JK: Well, I’ve seen entrepreneurs do one of two things. The first thing is they abdicate sales entirely by saying, “Well, I’m not a sales person,” and they hope that they can hire somebody that can totally take over that function for them. Unfortunately, because they're an upstart firm who can't offer a competitive compensation program, they can't attract top-notch sales pros. So they end up betting their company's future on the ability of a less experienced or less successful salesperson – hoping that this person can create miracles.

But the reality of it is salespeople can’t sell unless you have figured out your value proposition before you send them out making calls. They need to be able to clearly articulate the business results clients realize when they use your company's product or service. Without this information, it's very difficult for them to position your firm, know how to identify prospects, create interest, uncover needs and continually advance toward the logical next step.

I see all too many entrepreneurs train their salespeople by bringing them onboard and then saying, “Here’s our product line. Let me show you what our company does. Here are a few brochures. Now go out and make calls.”

So if you hire somebody and then you throw the ball into their court and expect them to run with it, you’re setting this person up for failure. Sure they'll be out in the field quickly making calls for you. But by the end of three months they're going to be totally discouraged. And six months later you’ll probably lose the person or you’ll be really upset with him or her because they didn’t bring in the business.

Ultimately, you've spent a whole lot of time and money and ended up with virtually nothing to show for it. Plus you’ll have lost many opportunities with prospective clients who just disappeared or chose one of your competitors.

So don’t abdicate the sales process and the sales methodology. Get your hands around it first and then hire people who can implement the strategies.

Also, it's absolutely imperative to do testing on potential salespeople using one of the many different assessments that are available in the marketplace. This can provide entrepreneurs with unbiased feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the person that you’re thinking about hiring.

The reason I say that is because many entrepreneurs have a perception of what makes a good sales person. They think that top sellers have a high schmooze factor, are really good at meeting people and have the guts to make hundreds of phone calls. But that’s not necessarily the template of a good sales person - especially if you’re selling to the corporate market.

People who are successful in B2B sales don't have short attention spans and aren't continually rushing to the next opportunity. You need someone who researches big companies, perhaps investing two-to-three hours doing this, prior to initiating contact. You need somebody who has the ability to self-assess and make changes in their approach when they find out it’s not working.

So there are many things that you need to look for and it’s certainly way beyond the, “I really like her. She can just make the calls and open doors for us. Then I can come in and close the deal.” That mentality doesn’t work and it’s not sustainable.

HRT: Excellent. So last question. If you could give one piece of advice to your fellow entrepreneurs what would it be?

JK: To go after business with big companies. It changes the game. Absolutely there’s no better way to say it than that.

HRT: Great! Thank you so much for sharing this information with our readers! I know they will get a lot out of it.

JK: My pleasure, Cara, thank you.

<p>Konrath, a leading-edge sales strategist and business advisor,<b> </b>is a popular speaker at annual sales meetings and association events. She helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, speed up their sales cycle and achieve their revenue growth goals.</p>

Spotlight on the Founder and Chief Sales Officer of Selling to Big Companies, Jill Konrath

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