A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with the fellow founder of a social impact startup.
We talked about our lives and how his startup was doing. He told me that they were struggling. He kept getting small orders from some smaller customers, but nothing to drive growth.
Then he told me he had recently approached some of the blue chip companies in the city and I was curious.
They were exactly the same two companies I had approached first with my own social impact startup and both had been instrumental in getting us off the ground.
I had a fantastic experience their leadership teams and found them to be highly interest in supporting impact startups. So I was looking forward to hear about his positive experience.
Instead he told me, how frustrating it had been. How he had been talking with both companies for months with no progress and no deal in sight.
I couldn’t believe it.
Founder and social impact startup had everything going for them
A.) He is a highly respected member of the startup community with lots of credibility. I was a non-entity when I reached out to those companies.
B.) His social impact startup was more established when he approached them. We hadn’t even delivered a single product by the time I started talking to the first of those companies.
C.) His product corresponded with an actual business need of those companies. We were trying to sell their employee’s suits.
D.) His immediate social impact was stronger than ours.
So why ...
Did it take me and The Tailor Network less then two months with those companies to partner up?
One of them even financed our charity. And the c-level management of both of them to spread the word for us among their peers in other companies.
All while he got no-where? Despite him having super enthusiastic sponsors in form of the respective CSR managers at both companies?
That's why – his point of entry!
His sponsors were the CSR managers. They were supposed to be his guides through the buyer journey. And that didn't work.
I barely met them during their buyer journey with my social impact startup.
I met directly with the CEO of one and the COO of the other company. Yes, both companies are two of the biggest global names in the finance industries and their leaders usually meet with other heads of multi-national companies, government officials etc.
But both took several meetings with me. Inside their offices or even inviting me for a business breakfast to discuss our cooperation. And they became our power sponsors, making sure on every level our cooperation was happening.
So what caused the difference in approach?
Two things were different between me and my fellow impact founder:
1.) I knew why and how to get directly to the c-level executives instead of getting stuck with a manager several hierarchy levels below. A manager who is enthusiastic, but has limited direct decision power and unfortunately also limited access to decision power.
2.) I had what these c-level executives wanted. The right impact story for a c-level executive. My fellow impact founder also has a great impact vision. But not only did he not know why and how to go directly to c-level. He also didn’t know how to package his impact vision to win a c-level support.
Those two factors make the difference between winning large corporate partners for your impact startup or getting bogged down in corporate bureaucracy.
Do you have what it takes to promote your impact startup at c-level?
If you feel you could use some support to sharpen your impact story to attract c-level attention or how to find and reach out to c-level executives, feel free to reach out and we see whether I can help you.
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