Stepping into the big league of enterprise sales is no walk in the park, especially for start-ups. With over five years under my belt managing a Data & Tools department at a leading CPG company and juggling a seven figure budget, I’ve seen my fair share of pitches from start-ups in the Marketing Tech and Research Tech spaces. From these encounters, I’ve picked up a mix of winning moves and common slip-ups when it comes to winning over enterprise clients. In this blog post I will share my experience of how the best startups nail enterprise deals.

1. The Maze of Enterprise Decision-Making: Don’t underestimate how complex the decision-making is in big companies. You’ve got loads of people to win over, each with their own agenda. It’s a game of patience. From your first pitch to the final nod, it can take ages to seek alignment amongst multiple internal stakeholders, so stick with it and keep nudging them along.

I want to share a bit of my journey in the world of business and work – a journey that has been shaped by a fundamental choice we all face: the mindset we choose to embrace. As I reflect on the ups and downs, it’s become clear to me that the decision between an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset is like choosing the right path in a dense forest. And opting for a mindset of abundance isn’t just a feel-good mantra; it’s an approach that has helped me in the past.

So, what’s this buzz about abundance versus scarcity? An abundance mindset is all about believing there’s more than enough success, opportunities, and resources for everyone. On the flip side, a scarcity mindset is like thinking we’re all fighting over crumbs in a shrinking pie. I’ve come to realise that choosing abundance isn’t just about being a perpetual optimist; it’s about adopting a mindset that opens doors to opportunities we might not even see with scarcity-tinted glasses.