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Seeking corporate clients
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April 10, 2000: 1:13 p.m. ET
Hire employees or contract for help before trying to land the big clients
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Dear Jane: I have a small consulting firm that teaches safety classes for employees. All of my business comes from word-of-mouth referrals. How can I get big companies to hire me instead of the mega-training firms? I'm a one-person business, by the way.
Being small may work to your advantage because you can keep yourself busy, but you won't be able to serve bigger clients until you are ready to hire or contract for more help. When a bigger company hires an outside firm to conduct a company-wide safety training program, they usually need to teach hundreds of employees quickly and cost-effectively.
That's why they probably wouldn't be willing to hire one person who would only be able to teach a few people at a time. One solution is to team up with another independent safety consultant and jointly pitch the potential corporate clients. You could divide up the group and then change places to teach the rest of the class.
Once you've put together your talent and materials, your challenge is to target the decision maker inside the big company. I'd start with the head of personnel or human resources. First, send them a slick brochure outlining your services. Include testimonials from happy clients and all the details.
Follow up with a phone call and try to get an appointment to sell your training services. Once you land one big client, your credibility will increase and you'll be playing in a different league.
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ApplegateWay
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