Two weeks ago I met with an old acquittance of mine. He runs a truly great social impact startup. We found out, we both had approached some of the same blue chip companies with our impact startups, but with totally different results.
He had gotten stuck with little results, while I had great results with my social impact tailoring startup The Tailor Network.
The difference between our approaches?
He approached the CSR responsible while I directly approached the c-level executives.
Yes, you sell through impact - but not to CSR
He was smart to understand that being an impact startup meant that he shouldn't go the normal route of approaching the operational buyer for his service, but rather someone who cares about his impact.
His impact meant that it was a bit more difficult to work with him and it also meant that he would be slightly more expensive than direct competition with no impact.
In some organisations, Corporate Social Responsibility is such a strong core value, that every line manager is committed to it, so even lower management levels would value impact over pure efficiency and cost impact.
But he had made the experience that you can't always judge the extend to which these value permeate the entire organisation from their corporate communication. He had to learn the hard way before that line managers just didn't care for impact despite corporate value statements.
So addressing somebody vested in social impact was right - but he should have aimed higher.
It's not the deal size that counts - it's your impact
Yes, the size of your contract will very likely be way too small to even show up in any line report the c-suite receives. But your value to the c-suite is not the value of the service you provide.
Your value is in how attractive your impact story is.
There is considerable reputational impact for c-level managers in engaging with an impact startup with a great story.
The secret is just to identify:
a.) who is the right c-level executive to approach?
b.) or is there someone one level down who can help you get to c-level?
c.) how to prepare your impact story to ensure it is strong enough to get them excited
d.) how to help your sponsors to get the rest of the organisation on board, especially your operational buyer and end users.
Do you have an impact story that is strong enough? Do you know how to get to your c-level targets?
If not, feel free to reach out and let's see whether I can help you to ensure your impact story is strong enough and you know whom to target and how.
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