Here are the three things you need to know to start winning more corporate

clients. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money

mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast.

I want to let you in on a little secret, and this is something that

I train in all of my programs to my clients who are going after

corporate contracts. So this is really like a

$1000 tip that I'm giving you today, and hopefully it helps

you land some business that's worth north of $20,000. So really it's

a $20,000 tip. Do with it what you will. The

golden goose of offering a service is landing corporate

clients. But most of the time when new business

owners start out, they go about it all wrong and they actually make it

take way longer for them to land these clients. And to put it in

perspective, if you're working with clients one on one, and your coach say you

can charge anywhere from like $3,000 for a

six month contract to $30,000 for a six month contract, depending on

who your ideal client is. But if you're working in

corporate, you're typically not getting paid less than 20 grand,

especially if you're working with upper leadership. If you're running a

workshop and you're just trying to enroll one off clients into it, you have

to hope that enough people sign up to make it worth your while

versus landing a corporate workshop. They're going to

have a guaranteed audience and they're going to expect to pay a certain amount

regardless of how many people show up. When I worked for Cisco

Systems, I was talking to one of our HR people, and she shared with me

that to bring in a communications coach to work

with their engineering team, they typically spent between

30 and $40,000 a day, which

sounds absolutely insane, until you realize all the work that goes

into landing those jobs, all the pre work that is

required, and managing the account, because there are

a lot of decision makers when you go after corporate clients, and you have to

really work with all of them to make sure that you get the job. So

there are three things that you need to do to make sure you are getting

these clients and that you are moving this sales process

along as fast as possible. So we're going to talk through

who you want to get in front of to start these conversations,

how to set your own expectations that you don't go absolutely insane

waiting for an answer back from them, and also how

you get them to say yes through your sales process. And

I will say right now, if you have a friend or family member who's starting

a business, who wants to land corporate contracts, I recommend you send them this

episode because this is really valuable information and I do go deeper

into it in my build your own business group program. So if you're interested in

more information about that, then I urge you to go and book a generate income

strategy call. You can do so by going to weeniecast.com

strategycall and that link is in the show notes. But let's get into the meat

and potatoes, shall we? Trying to get

corporate contracts is rife with

rejection, both perceived and non existent and real. And for

folks with ADHD who are sensitive when they think they're being

rejected, it can really take a toll on your self

esteem. It can really make you lose faith in what you're doing. It can make

you doubt that this business is even going to work. Knowing these things

about the process to get corporate contracts is really going to help

you stay sane and not absolutely lose your

mind. These three tips will also help you move the

process along faster. You know, one of the things I'm going to talk about

is the expectations you need to have around when these deals are going to

close. And it's usually like six to twelve months. I don't know about you,

but six to twelve months is a really long time for my ADHD. Like out

of sight, out of mind. You know, if it's taking someone six to twelve months

to make this decision, like there's a really good chance I'm just going to forget

that they exist. So it's so important that you

implement these changes. You really accept what I'm telling you here because it's

going to save your sanity. There's a chance it might

not, but you know it. Like, you're in good company. If you are

insane. Welcome. You're with really cool people. We're so happy to

have you. The thing about sending your resume and your one

pager to HR, if you have ADHD, you need

consistent feedback. You need positive affirmation

that this is good. We're happy. We're excited for what

you offer. If HR is way too busy to even acknowledge your

email and you're not going to get feedback that's going to give you the

dopamine that will allow you to keep working on this, you're not going

to be able to continue doing this. You know, there's a reason why

people with ADHD get really easily addicted to social media.

Because we get addicted to the dopamine we get when we get likes and comments

and follows right. You want to be careful about that, but

we also have to be realistic with it. Setting yourself up so you'd

get positive feedback or at least helpful feedback that helps you get better is

going to help you stick with your strategy a lot longer. Squirrel.

Squirrel. The number one mistake I see coaches and consultants

making when they're going after corporate contracts is

they think that the best way to get in front of their

ideal client and start that sales process is to reach out to

HR. And while yes, this can work,

HR usually is the one who has to sign off on

anything that's learning and development related, especially if you're in the coaching

sphere. I want you to imagine how many emails and

letters you get with people's one pager of their work and how

they can help the company. HR doesn't just field these

outside people that want to land a project with this company. They

also have to deal with some internal stuff and usually stuff that's not very fun.

So if you're sending them an email saying, hey, so and so, I'm a

leadership coach, or I do leadership development, or this or that or

the other thing, and here's my one pager, chances are

they're seeing that and they're either archiving it or deleting it

because they have bigger fish to fry. You're also just one of many who's

emailing them. So HR often isn't the

best way for you to get in with these clients. Often the best

way for you to get in with these clients is to go to the department

heads, the actual leaders, the people who are in the business, working on the

business and running into some serious problems. Let me set the stage

for you. Say you are a sales trainer. You've worked in sales for

a really long time. You've developed this incredible methodology and you want to

get out there and you want to help corporations really develop a more

successful sales process. And that incorporates you doing

some consulting on how they set up their sales funnel. You also

do sales training with their teams. You give them some scripts that are

custom to their business and their type of customer, and

you might go and also coach the sales leaders so that they know how to

best support their teams to hit their quotas each month. What an amazing

program. If anyone out there wants help building that, I would love to help you

with that. You can absolutely go to HR. But HR isn't

facing those problems every single day. HR isn't having to

have really difficult conversations with the chief revenue

officer about why so and so on. Their team didn't hit their

numbers. They're not having to talk through

all the hurdles that they're having to face every single quarter.

Who is usually the director of sales or the

president of sales, that is the person that you want to get in front of.

That is the person who is going to be hungry enough

for help that they are going to start the conversation with

you. And when they realize that you hold the

key to their life being easier, to their work being easier, and to

them hitting and exceeding their goals as a team,

they're the ones that are going to go and make the case to HR. Why

HR needs to create budget for you. And in this scenario, you're

extra lucky because this person is in sales and they can sell pretty

much anything, including working with you. So you have a really

good chance of getting the business. But this works across departments. So

if you have an engineering director who is really facing

creativity problems on his team, or maybe his team isn't collecting, collaborating really

well, you know, it makes a lot of sense. They would want to bring in

someone who could train them to do that better because it makes their life and

work so much easier, and it helps them stand up from the crowd because

they were the leader that took this team from not so great

to amazing. You were a piece of that puzzle. If systems are

breaking, if the IT department has all these antiquated

systems and they're just too busy fixing bugs that they can't update to something

better, it makes so much sense for them to bring in a

consultant who can do all that for them and help them

transition over gradually without loading

up everyone who's already in the business, already overwhelmed

with more work to do. So you want to get in front of those

people who are in charge of these kinds of things because they have the

most painful problems that they face every single day that you just

so happen to solve.

Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. So there are a few ways you can get in front

of these people. You really have to pick what works best for

you, for your business model, and for your personality. You can

absolutely start a social media campaign. I recommend doing this on LinkedIn because

that's where these people are hanging out and looking for talent

to bring in. If they're already going to LinkedIn,

scanning for potential talent, when they see you talking

about their problems in particular, you're going to get their attention. They're going to start

following you. They're going to start taking advice from you. They may not

comment on your content, but like I say to all my

clients, the money is in the lurkers. Often the people who become our

clients are not our most avid, engaged followers.

They're the people lurking in the shadows who never out themselves until they book a

sales call with you. You can become a spouse speaker and speak at

industry conferences. Now, this one takes a lot of

footwork to do, but once you do it, you become

the ipso facto expert in front of whatever

crowd you're speaking to. And what's even better is if you're at an

event in person and you're speaking to a crowd, you get

immediate networking after the fact because folks who really need your

help are going to come seek you out. They're going to try to stalk you

at the bar and ask if they, they can pick your brain about something and

you're going to set a call with them. And of course, there's always networking and

asking for referrals. If you've been a professional for 15

years, you know, people who work at companies, and those people who work at companies

probably need know someone on the sales team, and that person on the sales team

probably knows their manager, right? It'd be very weird if they didn't.

And so asking your own network to help you get introductions

to these folks is going to be incredibly helpful. If you have no idea how

to do any of this. Like I said, these are all things that I cover

in my BYOB. Build your own business program. So again, if you're curious and want

some guidance, go and book that strategy call. And really, when you're marketing to

them, you want to remember two things. Follow the money and follow the ego.

Businesses care about the bottom line. So if this person is

either going over budget or not hitting quota, they're not getting

the accolades they would if they were doing those things. You coming in

and saying, hey, I can help you do these things better for, you

know, less money in less time, with less effort,

they're going to connect the dots that, okay, cool. This is going to help the

business immeasurably, which means I will get attention

for this. I'm probably going to get more attention for that next promotion

that I want. The thing that we forget about when we're going after corporate clients

is, honestly that we think this is a business and it's going to be

really formal and professional and

they're going to want you to be the blandest version of yourself. Right? We

forget that every purchase that we make is an

emotional purchase. There's a person behind that

decision who wants things for themselves. If you

don't acknowledge how working with you is going to make their life better, make their

work better. You're probably not going to get the sale. They're probably going to go

with someone who understands the greater impact that

that doing this work will have because it connects with them. It makes this

a much more urgent decision because they see it as something that'll make their life

better. Okay, so that's, number one, find your decision makers and get in front

of them any way you know how. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Number

two, you're probably gonna wanna punch me. No one likes hearing this.

And thankfully, like, you can't punch me through the podcast.

Damn. Damn. When you're going after corporate clients,

it's really important to have patience.

I know that's the most annoying advice ever. I know you don't want to hear

it, but the reality about corporate contracts is

that they can take anywhere from six to twelve months to close,

and sometimes longer. There are a few factors that go into this,

you know, number one, you have a lot of decision makers. You know, the one

person who is the head of the department, who really wants to bring you in,

they have to make the case to their C suite, to HR,

to other people who are going to be impacted by bringing you in. They have

to get all these people on board. I don't know if you've ever worked in

corporate, but do you know how hard that is? Sometimes

people like having opinions and they like

sharing their opinions, and if something confronts those opinions,

they're going to slow it down, even if it makes perfect sense. So you have

a lot of decision makers that you have to bring on board. Now, of course,

this is something I train all my clients on. How do you get them to

be part of the conversation so they feel like a collaborator and not

like someone who's threatened by you coming in? That takes time.

For my clients with ADHD, six to twelve months is a long time to try

to like, follow up with someone. So to help you manage it, what

I recommend you do is set up calls with this individual.

If you know that the decision making process is going to take several months.

Set up calls just to touch base on where they're at and

if they need more information, and if they need to make any changes based on

new developments within their company. It feels really pushy to do that,

but what it actually is, is amazing. Account management.

You're making sure that the proposal you sent to them in February is still going

to be relevant to them in December. So that way when they get to the

budget conversation, that they need to do in November, December, they're

going to be able to accurately gauge how much money they

need to put aside to work with you, and they'll do so knowing that what

they're going to be doing with you is absolutely relevant to what the company is

going through. Right then how much easier is it going to be for them to

sell it to their boss when they can say, yeah, we got this initial proposal

back in February, touch base with them in September. After this thing happened within the

company, they updated the proposal. Here's the new pricing. It hits

everything that we need. It also makes sure that you don't forget about

them, which is key because we know it's

really easy to forget about things that are out of sight, out of mind. Now

that you know who you need to get in front of to get these contracts,

you understand the timeline and what it's going to take, patients wise and

faith wise, to get to actually bring these to a yes.

Let's talk about the number one most impactful thing that

I teach my clients that I'm giving to you for free. In this

episode,

let's talk about the number one most impactful thing that

I teach my clients that I'm giving to you for free. So number

three, people share proposals all wrong. The

typical way to do a sales process that most people do, because this is

what they learned, is to have a meeting with someone, get the information of what

they're looking for, and say, okay, great, love to work with. You can absolutely cover

all this. Let me do this. I'm going to go and create a proposal, and

I'll send it over to you, and you just let me know what you think.

And so then they go away, they write up the proposal. They probably spend, you

know, a good couple hours writing it, if not more, because they really

want it to sell this person on saying yes, then they send it

over, and then they wait. It's the worst because you're just refreshing

your email, like, hoping that they're gonna get back to you, and then you get

weird because you're like, well, I haven't heard back from them in a while. Should

I follow up? And then you follow up and you don't hear back immediately,

like, oh, my God, was that weird? Was I too pushy? Did I not make

sense? Was there something I did in the sales call that made them hate

me? Maybe they hate me. Maybe they don't want to ever work with me.

And then before you know it, it's six months later. You've never heard back from

them. You're probably not going to hear back from them, and

you feel like garbage because you think you did something wrong,

when in reality, if we were to go over to their side, they have

the sales call with you. They're really excited about what working with

you could look like and what it could do for them and for their company.

You say you're going to send the proposal. They're like, amazing. I can't wait to

look at this. You send the proposal over, they get

it in between a few meetings. They have, like, ten minutes in between meetings, and

they're like, oh, my God, this is the proposal. They open it. They kind of

scan it. Cool. Looks great. I'm gonna come back to this. They go to their

meeting. In the meeting, they're given a few to dos

and a few more deadlines, and then they have another meeting, and more stuff is

piled on their plate. One of their team members comes to them to complain about

something or say that they need help with something, and their week just

gets completed out of control. Oh, sh. I still have to review that

proposal. Great. Okay, I'm gonna do that. Mental note. And then the next

week comes, and more stuff gets piled on in the back of their mind. They're

like, I have to get to that proposal after a while. It's

been so long that they haven't gotten back to you about the proposal.

They're gonna start getting weird. They're gonna start wondering, oh, my

God, I'm so irresponsible and rude. I didn't get back to this person

in time. They probably think I'm an, they probably don't want to work

with me. If I get back to them now, they're probably so

annoyed with me that they spent all this time with me and I didn't give

them an answer. God, I can't go back to them. Or I should, what should

I say? Oh, God. Like, this is gonna be weird. And then they're gonna get

a follow up message from you, and then they're gonna feel even worse, because

here you are following up with them, and they're the, and

people don't like being the. There's a reason why. There's a whole bunch of Reddit

threads. Am I the asshole? Because people want to be reassured that they're not

the asshole, but our brains are not very kind to us.

You know, in a lot of scenarios, we make ourselves the

ass. We assume a whole bunch of stuff about

what the other person's thinking, and so they get really weird. And then

six months later, they're like, I can't work with this person because they probably hate

me because I completely dropped the ball in this. And then they start the process

with someone else all over again. So here's the critical mistake

that the business owner made. They

didn't make sure the ball stayed in their court. And yes, that was a

sports metaphor. If you're playing our bingo game, you can

cross that one off. And if you don't know about the bingo game, there is

actually a bingo card for the Weenie cast. One of our listeners made it up.

It's hysterical. You can go and play bingo. If you want to check out the

bingo card, you can go to weeniecast.com bingo.

We have yet to have anyone message us that they got bingo. But I cannot

wait for that day. What do you do if that whole process that you've been

taught or that you've figured out and you've been doing for a while, if

that's not actually the best way to get clients, what do you change?

And it's really simple. Instead of saying,

I'm going to send you a proposal and you just get back to me, you

set a follow up call. The

beautiful thing about setting this proposal presentation

call and making sure that you're both blocking off time

to sit down and look through it is you're not just saving yourself

from that perceived rejection, that that rejection sensitivity

dysphoria getting activated, you're actually protecting them

too, because they're going to start perceiving or making up the story

that you hate them. They're going to start thinking that you're going to reject them.

If they come back to you, you're actually being so

kind in helping them go through this,

be accountable to it, and have more structure around when they need

to give you an answer. There's also that element that there may actually be

something in your proposal that they do not understand. And I want you to think

about any corporate situation. Are people in corporate

situations likely to feel comfortable admitting they don't know something?

No. So even if they do set aside time to go through your

proposal. If there's stuff in there that they're like, oh, I don't know what that

word means, or I'm not sure what they're talking about here, there's a

big chance they're actually not going to ask about it. They're just going to like,

say, okay, cool, I'll get to this later. But then the idea of

admitting that they don't know the thing can be like, too shame

inducing. So you get to protect them from that. You get to hold their

hand and say, is there anything in here that doesn't make sense? You want more

clarity on? And they have full permission in that moment to admit

they need more clarity. The number one thing I want you to know is that

this is possible for you. If you're consistent, if you have

an actual sales process that works, then you

can absolutely get consistent corporate clients. And you say,

cool, you know, I'm going to go. I'm going to go and set up this

proposal. Why don't we do this? I want to make sure this proposal

covers absolutely everything that you need and that there's no questions you

have when you get it. So let's book a time for a proposal

presentation call. On this call, we'll go through

line by line all the parts of the proposal. If there's anything missing, I can

add them in. If you have any questions, I can answer them then. And also

if there's anyone else who's involved in this project who needs to be on that

call, bring them in so they can see what we're talking about. You're holding them

accountable. You're making them actually block off time in their

calendar where they're going to sit down, look

over the proposal with you holding their hand and explaining every

bit. They're going to be able to ask questions. They're going to be able to

process the information, and if any changes need to be made, they're

going to feel like you are super responsive. Because, you know, if they're like, oh,

well, we actually wanted there to be a workshop included in the company retreat that

we have in February. Can you add that you're going to be like, oh,

yeah, absolutely. I'll add in here. Do you have dates? Because I can go and

block those off right now. Because also that's another thing. If you're blocking

off time in the future, they're going to feel extra responsible to get back

to you and it gives you a reason to follow up with them because

you have the time blocked off and you can create some urgency around that. I've

had people make this one change and double their yes

rate. Just scheduling a proposal presentation

call now. Of course, you have to have a proposal that's worth

presenting if you don't know how to do that. That's one of the things I

train in my programs. Happy to talk to you about what those look

like to help you really create proposals that convert.

I love that saying meat and potatoes, because it completely jumps over

vegetables. It's like whoever made that

saying was like, yes, meat. And I love potatoes.

And that is what we should be focusing on. They didn't bring up

dessert, so that's kind of disappointing. I appreciate their appreciation

of potatoes, and maybe they're considering potatoes vegetables, which technically,

they are. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel,

squirrel.