Selling to higher education
How services firms sell to colleges and universities, who really decides, what pressures campus leaders face and which buying signals matter most.
3 min read
Blog
The Stage 1 blog Page 12
How services firms find accounts getting ready to buy, get in through people they know, and open conversations worth having. Written by Kevin French.
Your delivery team knows more buyers than your sales team
Your engineers and architects know more future buyers than your sellers do. Here's how to find those paths and ask for intros without it getting awkward.
3 min readThe binary exit question
Why the last line of your opener should be a question a senior buyer can answer in five words, and how to write one that invites correction.
4 min readA consent order comes with a deadline
When a regulator fines or settles with one company, the fix has a date the company didn't choose. Here's how services firms read that signal.
4 min readSelling to a CMO
What a CMO owns, what they're measured on, which signals matter and how a services firm should open with a hypothesis instead of another agency pitch.
3 min readQualifying in the first conversation
How to qualify a services deal in the first conversation by testing the problem, the owner and the cost of doing nothing, not by running a checklist.
3 min readWhy your website loses the first meeting
A senior buyer checks your website before saying yes to a first meeting. Here's why most services firm sites lose that moment, and what to change.
3 min readWriting for the CFO
How to write a Hypothesis Opening a CFO will read, built on their own filings and the numbers they answer for, with no ROI claims or buzzwords.
3 min readThe quiet signal in a LinkedIn job change
New CIOs are the loud job changes. Quiet ones, like a new title one level down or an internal promotion, often say more about where budget is going.
3 min readWhen they ask how you got their name
What it means when a senior buyer asks how you got their name, and how to answer honestly so the question becomes the start of a real conversation.
3 min readFollowing your champion to a new company
A former champion landing at a new company is the warmest signal in services sales. Here's when to reach out, what to say and what to leave out.
3 min readIntros through alumni networks
How to use school and former-employer alumni networks for warm intros to senior buyers, and how to ask without sounding like you're cashing in.
3 min readThought leadership without the ego
Thought leadership for services firms works when it helps a buyer think through their problem, not when it tells them how smart your partners are.
3 min readWriting for the technical lead
How to write an opener for the technical lead, the person on the committee who judges whether your firm can do the work and quietly vetoes it if not.
3 min readYour champion just left. Now what?
When your champion leaves, you get two buying signals at once. How to hold the account they left and open the company they just joined.
3 min readSelling to federal agencies as a small firm
How a small services firm wins federal work by reading the market early, partnering with primes and reaching program owners before the solicitation.
3 min readThe first meeting is not a demo
Why the first meeting with a senior services buyer should test your hypothesis about their problem instead of walking through slides and case studies.
3 min readWhen they ask who else you work with
When a buyer asks who else you work with, they're checking whether you're safe to bet on. Here's what it means, how to answer and what to avoid.
3 min read