Of Elves, Innocents & Line Dances

Oh dear. The wheels are quite falling off the cart for one of my suppliers. It’s a small company we’ve used for a few years on a number of marketing projects. It’s owned and run by an incredibly bright, young and utterly fearless entrepreneur, who is dealing with a family emergency.

Since family emergencies can be counted on to show up when it’s least convenient, this one has hit his business very hard. Like many entrepreneurs he is a control freak who keeps pretty much everything he knows and needs to do in his head. So when his head, and the body that moves it about, are engaged elsewhere, his business stalls. His staff is paralyzed, the project we are executing is spinning and calls and emails are going unanswered, which is doing little to help put things right.

All of which is precisely why the P-Cube is about to do the I-Told-You-So Line Dance in my office. Turns out the P-Cube is very, very nervous about small companies selling to big companies.

So while I sit here watching my poor supplier implode, I am forced to consider the matter of big companies hiring small ones and to offer some hints on how small companies might get past some of these objections:

Getting Past the P-Cube’s Fear of Your Small Business:

You’re only one person

Which is not, inherently, a problem unless your whole business depends on your physical presence and/or undivided attention. Even in businesses with two or three principals and several dozen staff, availability can be an issue.
Getting Past It: Make sure you can reassure the P-Cube and the customer that you have a contingency plan in case of family emergency, natural disaster or other distraction. Demonstrate that you can not only document things but delegate effectively.

You can’t scale

I hear this excuse more than any other. It’s rooted in this terrible fear that we might actually succeed with our project and you will be required to scale faster and more radically than you can reasonably handle.
Getting Past It: Not every small business wants to become a big business. If this is you and you’re bidding on work that might go nuclear on you, perhaps reconsider. If growth isn’t a problem, make sure you can produce scenario plans that will live up to even the most horrific fears of the P-Cube.

You don’t scale properly

Another supplier I once used was succeeding beyond all expectations. Good news for them, but as a long-time customer it had a big impact on the level of service we were getting and the supplier ultimately changed its direction away from the services we really wanted from them. The P-Cube was not so impressed when we had to terminate our contract early and replace the supplier.
Getting Past It: You’ll need to make all the right noises to assure the P-Cube that you have strong management practices in place to handle growth but mostly you will need to make sure you are honest with your customers about how you plan to scale and be prepared to cut customers loose when your business model and their needs diverge.

You want to be paid

Well who doesn’t? But if you’re like many small businesses and enjoy a chronic cash flow crisis you really, really want your money. Not in the 30 or 60 or 90 days the Keebler Elves in the hollow tree of accounts payable find convenient, you want it now. And you aren’t afraid to call and call and call and call to get your money.
Getting Past It: You will probably need to put up with this one. Or set up your contract to be paid some money up front and the rest on delivery. Even if you put payment terms in the contract, you can bet the Elves really could care less and will pay you when they’re good and ready.

You hire your relatives

The P-Cube isn’t all that interested in DNA per se but they have this sense that all the competent people already have jobs in big companies (in the procurement department) and the not-so-bright ones work in other places. Which is, of course, complete nonsense but it doesn’t stop them from flinging steaming piles of due diligence in the way of your contract negotiation.
Getting Past It: Make sure you present the credentials of your people as loudly and as often as possible to the P-Cube. A liberal sprinkling of letters after surnames is very reassuring. They are especially fond of CA, CMA, CPA and CGA.  I think the “A” must stand for adult.

You are inconvenient

Probably due to the lack of Adults (see above) there is sometimes a lack of basic stuff in smaller companies. Things like processes, forms, lawyers and account managers are taken very much for granted by larger companies and when they’re lacking it’s quite exasperating. One poor supplier I’ve used had a problem with their federal tax number and nobody who had time to work it out with Revenue Canada.  Our Keebler Elves can’t pay things without a federal tax number and the company waited more than three months to be paid.

Another supplier doesn’t accept the credit card I’m supposed to use for small purchases. So each month their invoice is hauled out of the pile by our Elves and put in the Special File, which begets a Nasty-Gram which begets a form and, following a consultation with some chicken entrails the supplier is finally paid. Another contract waited months to be signed because the supplier’s standard non-disclosure agreement wasn’t up to snuff and they didn’t have anyone with time to rewrite it.
Getting Past It: Suck it up, princess. If you are serious about doing business with big companies you are going to need to play by their rules. Figure out what those rules are and get on with it. This means taking credit cards you don’t like, remembering to quote purchase order numbers on everything and resisting the urge to courier cat feces to the people who are holding up your payments.

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BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
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