By complex I mean:
- Handles sensitive data
- It is intrusive in many areas within the company
- Implementation can be long
- Payback comes in the long run
- High investment
Consulting services, information technology infrastructure, structured legal services, structured financial services, capital goods for industry, real estate, among others, are products and services that somehow fall into the category of complex solutions.
To get new business for complex solutions we do not escape the following drivers:
- Brand/name recognition
- Network
- Customer Portfolio
If you have a very well-known brand on the card many people will know what you are about, but even then very few will have the window of opportunity open for a complex service.
If you have an extensive network, many people will be in a position to refer you, but this also does not happen at scale.
And if you have a good portfolio, you can look for new business from customers and former customers, since your calls will be answered. Again the space is rarefied, since if the window had been open, these companies would probably have called you sooner.
Well, then what to do to get customers if:
"I work with complex solutions, I have no notorious brand, no network, and no client portfolio."
First you'll create a product/solution to "eat by the edges."
Complex solutions are usually needed in acute situations, and acute situations give signals that they will occur. You need to be positioned within companies to see these signals and propose your solutions at the right time.
Okay, how do we get in then?
Eating from the edges. With a low-friction product/solution and covering areas that the big and notorious don't give a damn anymore.
This is your competitive advantage. Big brands don't take small jobs, they don't like it. And many clients need small jobs. All the time.
Well then we have the strategy. Create a non-complex product that is a solution to small, frequent problems that are a harbinger of large problems that will soon require a complex solution.
The goal is to get in.
I have seen this movie occur and always with a happy sign.
This is the case of Delaware, a technology company for SAP solutions, which started from absolutely zero here in Brazil, with three executives who quit their decades-long jobs in a multinational company to become entrepreneurs, starting out, with no client portfolio, and today are a case study.
They started by serving companies and jobs that their competitors didn't want or didn't even know existed.
I had the honor of participating in the very beginning of the enterprise, in its training for client search.
Well, all this takes time. This is a strategy that may take 2 to 4 years to pay off, but eventually you will be sitting on big, fat accounts, putting in all kinds of solutions, including the most complex ones.
No matter the product, its brand, its logo.
The only thing that matters, as it always has, is whether you solve problems in companies.
And the problems start small.
Start with them.
