Fortune 1xxx Vendor Managers aren’t that bad?

Hello Savages,


Today my question comes to you from off the cuff, but for real realz, I was shocked.


I just went back and forth with the commercial-terms/vendor-manager for Enterprise solutions at an F200 organization. Now, granted I had my decision-maker walk me in the door to meet with this guy (not literally- it’s all virtual) but he and I went back and forth on about 20 emails in less than 3 days. His response time was sub-2 hours and we hammered out a contract from raw, to redlined, to ready to roll in less than a calendar week.


I’ve spoken about this deal before, on paper it’s the biggest I’ve ever closed. 5.4M over 5 years and likely to far exceed that if they like the product and fast-track rollout. It could very easily become a 11-12M opp for our company. We signed on the trial phase of 250 units for 1-year to start, but with the exception of an escape clause for the 1st year, the deal structure is identical to what we’ll be using for the rest of this partnership, and they’re not limiting the first year to 250 either, so I don’t have to wait for my chedda


My question, for those with experience working F2000, are they usually this easy? My experience working typically mid-market is that VM/Contracts are usually the most painful people on the planet. Miserable people usually choose a miserable job, but this guy was as light and refreshing as an ice tea.


Can I go ahead and get used to this, or was he just a the diamond in the cesspool?

💵 Finance
⚖️ Legal
🙂 Rapport
15
UrAssIsSaaS
Arsonist
7
SaaS Eater
This isnt the world I run in but my general understanding is that large established companies like that have well defined buying processes whereas the smaller to medium have more dick kickers sitting in procurement then they know what to do with.

Glad you hammered it out quickly and congrats on an awesome deal! 
TheNegotiator
Arsonist
2
VP of Sales
This is probably the right answer. Every time I made progress on the deal they had the next step of the process clearly laid out.  Tbh it’s so refreshing after years of grinding through bullshit.
UrAssIsSaaS
Arsonist
2
SaaS Eater
For sure - it sounds like you may have been tossed into this one mid sales cycle but could be an interesting learning opportunity to go back and look at how you ran discovery and outlined their buying process. And thus matched your sales process. Either way good shit man! Anomaly or not.
Sunbunny31
Politicker
3
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
First of all, congratulations.  For all the painful processes out there, you earned a nice, straightforward deal.   It's a real bonus that it's so large.   

Even with bigger companies, they aren't always that easy, but if I were you, I'd do a personal analysis of the deal from start to finish and the steps taken along the way, and do your best to match those moving forward.  
CuriousFox
WR Officer
2
🦊
It can go either way. I've been in deals where the meetings flowed smoothly but would get held up waiting for board approval. 
TennisandSales
Politicker
1
Head Of Sales
This seems unsual....i have not closed a deal THAT large but I have never seen something like this. 

I would consider it to be blue bird deal, but also go into the next one with this expectation haha and see what happens. 

nice work 
hocktony
Big Shot
1
smileNdial
Work in that space, closed a couple f50 companies and my sweet spot is f1000.

Procurement can mean so many different things; can be a few folks working to get it/legal/vendor onboarding checked off, in which case they want you out of their hair asap and depends on how quickly their teams revert. Could mean that your dm brought them a solution, and they have to vet it further against their own DD (hate this; just when you thought you won, you gotta start all over again). Could mean they want a slight discount and don’t care about it/legal etc.

Then each of the sub-steps can be a challenge, or can be super simple. I got a sig from a f50 in 93 days with an international team. Spent 8 months in legal hell going back and forth on every term.

Again, it depends, but on average I’d say (considering you have c-level buy in); procurement is around 3-4 weeks start to on-boarded; they vet your company, get you set up in the system, collect company info, go through IT review (quick in my case, seen it take over 3 months for review in some cases) then another couple days for a standard legal review process.

^^ this is perfect world… IN WHICH WE DONT AND NEVER WILL LIVE

GOOD LUCK
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
Even with bigger companies, they aren't always that easy, but if I were you, I'd do a personal analysis of the deal from start to finish and the steps taken along the way, and do your best to match those moving forward.  
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
1
ISR
This isnt the world I run in but my general understanding is that large established companies like that have well defined buying processes whereas the smaller to medium have more dick kickers sitting in procurement then they know what to do with.
MR.StretchISR
Politicker
0
ISR
This isnt the world I run in but my general understanding is that large established companies like that have well defined buying processes whereas the smaller to medium have more dick kickers sitting in procurement then they know what to do with.
Mr.Floaty
Politicker
0
BDR
Thanks everyone. The multitude of suggestions in here has made it really difficult to choose.
Cyberjarre
Politicker
0
BDR
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