Catherine McQuaid, a Toronto-based business-development consultant (#B2BsalesYouTube), has a theory. She calls it “Big-Game Hunters in the Urban Jungle.” I think a better name is “Off-Target Marketing.” Either way, it’s an approach to prospecting that might help you build stronger relationships with hard-to-reach executives.

1. INNOVATION
Off-target marketing
ProfitGuide
With the rise of the Internet, the phrase “permission marketing” has become
the buzzword for a kinder, gentler form of cut-through-the-clutter marketing.
The idea, popularized by business guru Seth Godin, is that you stop intruding
on your prospects (as with, say, TV commercials) and start giving them
reasons (such as contests or e-newsletters) to “raise their hands” and invite
you to tell them about your product.
But how do you practise this marketing mantra when you’re an entrepreneur
selling to corporate executives — flinty-eyed recluses who would rather
wrestle a water buffalo than offer you any kind of encouragement?
Catherine McQuaid, a Toronto-based business-development consultant
(#B2BsalesYouTube), has a theory. She calls it “Big-Game Hunters in the
Urban Jungle.” I think a better name is “Off-Target Marketing.” Either way, it’s
an approach to prospecting that might help you build stronger relationships
with hard-to-reach executives.
Warning: Big-game hunting is a complex affair that requires preparation,
process and patience. Done properly, however, it could transform your
business. McQuaid tells of one client who sells training services to banks.

2. When she met them, they had just one customer in Canada. Now they work
with 12 of the top 20 U.S. banks. “You may be small,” she says, “but you can
win big.”
A former literature student at the University of Alberta, McQuaid never aimed
to get into sales or consulting. But she abandoned her PhD to study corporate
space planning (like architecture, but without the math), and then opened her
own business in Edmonton. When Ottawa’s National Energy Program shut
down Alberta’s real estate market in the early ’80s, she learned how little she
knew about selling and took a series of jobs in executive search and financial
services. While selling investments in limited partnerships to doctors over the

3. phone, she discovered that the best way to market to people who are too busy
to talk with you is to seek permission-based conversations, not appointments.
With that, she developed an executive outreach playbook serving smaller
businesses trying to get big.
McQuaid’s process is simple: get prospects to agree to meet with you by
getting a high-quality digital sampling of your proposition BEFORE you ask for
the meeting. McQuaid says too many marketers try for face-to-face meetings,
which many prospects avoid. By offering a phone call, you’re respecting their
space.
“From the outset, the whole approach must be: ‘We’re going to be your
provider’,” says McQuaid. “‘We’re going to know your business from the inside
out’.” Even then, your proposition will likely get kicked downstairs. But don’t
look at this as passing the buck, she says. It’s a hot referral from the most
senior employee to the group most likely to buy from you.
Before you make a sale, expect to meet five or six decision-makers per deal:
champion, influencer, implementer, user and cheque signer. Each person is
looking for different benefits, so you will tailor the business value to different
stakeholders. Keep track of your conversations with each person along the
way, notes McQuaid. That means maintaining a CRM account development
record, “organization maps” and contact histories, reporting everything
everyone on your team has discussed with anyone on the client side.

4. CRM documentation helps salespeople refer to conversations with other
stakeholders and helps convince corporate buyers that you understand their
needs. “If you’re small, you have to behave like the big guys,” McQuaid notes.
Many businesses consist of silos-parallel bureaucracies administering
complementary markets. Common sense suggests you tackle one silo at a
time, but McQuaid recommends pursuing all these niches simultaneously.
When you get a breakthrough in one silo, you can immediately brag about it to
the rest, creating a stronger impression of momentum and success.
Even if you research target accounts, prepare a killer presentation, generate
referrals and shore up your processes and documentation, McQuaid can’t
guarantee success. In her experience, however, every 30 contacts you make
should net eight to 10 agreements to receive your case studies and sales
collateral, which should generate three or four “qualifying conversations” with
genuinely interested prospects.
It’s a lot of effort, but McQuaid says it works better than spending big bucks
developing "brochure" websites. “They're not conversations. You get into show
& tell with sales materials. You don’t have a chance to talk about the other
person’s stuff.”