There was one gap in the team Darren had failed to recognize – sales. The technical team at his old company had referred to the salespeople as “overheads” – basically leeches that lived off the hard work the consultants put in and the hours of sweat and tears they invested. Luckily, one of the partners in STS had been part of the core team at the other firm and understood sales is the engine that drives the whole operation. He suggested I be hired to help, since I had a background in IT (albeit as a business consultant), and in sales (although not in IT). Darren agreed, but on the condition that his partner manages and work with me.
Coming in I was confident I could sell whatever they had. It was unclear in talking to them what they had, though. In response to the question, I was given a full page with multiple columns of acronyms of all the technologies they were competent in. I knew from my past sales and marketing efforts and training this would never work. There’s no elevator ride in the world long enough for that elevator pitch.
The process of asking “what do we do? How are we unique?” and the struggles to answer that question led us to a business plan writing class. The class was aimed at minority-owned small businesses and promised to connect us with the large corporations in the area who could hire lots of consultants.
By that time we’d already had our operations guy leave the company to work with a friend who had a construction business in Atlanta’s booming real estate market. Majority ownership was transferred to me and to the wife of the co-owner, making us a women-owned business.
While the business class was invaluable in helping us focus in on our highest bill rate, most unique services, and our target clients, the promised contracts we’d get as a woman-owned business never did materialize. Maybe they were real, and we just didn’t work that angle enough. Or maybe it was always lip service from the big corporations, who believed they should be making an effort to work with diverse suppliers but didn’t really believe it was worth the effort to switch from the companies they were accustomed to working with. Either way, it didn’t matter for us. With our new found focus and plan, we were able to network our way into what has been a long-term stream of clients and projects.
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