Are your dealings with big companies taking way too long?

I recently met a great little business (let’s call it Rouge) that had spent the best part of the last three years negotiating an alliance with a big well-known Australian company. Apparently the negotiations were going “fine”, just a bit of paperwork and a few sign offs needed and then the deal would be done.

Trouble is, that had been the story for about 18 months.

Rouge was reluctant to start forcing a deadline in case the big business decided the whole deal was too much bother. While this alliance had the potential to be very beneficial to both businesses, its impact would certainly be felt more significantly by Rouge.

Frustrated with the delays Rouge started to question why it was taking so long to get the deal signed off. Having been told that it was “in the bag” by James, their contact at the big business, surely it was in everyone’s interest to just get the job done?

The CEO of Rouge made some long overdue enquiries about the inner workings of the large business and in particular where James stood in the complex hierarchy.

To cut a long story short, the delays were essentially due to the fact that while Rouge thought that James was empowered to make a decision on the deal, he wasn’t. Yes, James was expected to identify and explore potential new alliances and yes, James was expected to pull together a solid business case and recommendation for bringing new alliances on board. But ultimately the decision to proceed with the deal was not in his power. In truth it needed to be signed off by someone many layers higher in the large organisation.

Not only was James not the actual decision maker, two more facts were compounding the delay. First up, James was working on lots of ‘deals’ so the potential alliance with Rouge only rose to the top of his inbox periodically. Secondly – and this was probably very telling – was that while James completely supported the alliance proposed by Rouge it, wasn’t a matter of life and death to him. If it got through the system, great, if it didn’t, so be it.

After discovering this information Rouge, went back to James with two requests. The first was that Rouge be given the opportunity to present their proposal to the ultimate decision maker. The second was that they be given a binding yes/no to the alliance by a certain date.

These two requests finally resulted in purposeful action from James. Rouge did meet with the ultimate decision maker but the alliance wasn’t given the green light. Frustratingly, the reasons given by the decison maker for turning down the opportunity were known by the big business (although not specifically by James) three years ago. Rouge had been unwittingly strung along.

This story is by no means a one off. It happens with alarming regularity. So if you are dealing with a large corporate right now ask yourself “Are we dealing with the real decision maker?”

And here are three tips for saving your time and protecting your sanity when dealing with a big company:

1. 1. Ask your contact for the name of the person who will make the ultimate decision on the deal. If you ask for the name specifically your contact will be less inclined to let you assume it is himself!
2. 2. Give a deadline for when you need a decision. The big business won’t need a lot of time to make the decision but they will happily take as much time as you give them to procrastinate.
3. 3. Be very certain to let your contact know that a decision means a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the deal, not just passing through another milestone on the way to making a decision.

Finally, remember when you are the little guy the deal always means more to you than it does the big guy. So it’s up to you to keep the momentum going and drive for an answer.

Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses:Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business”  and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).