Okay so you have designed sites for the grandma next door trying to sell her recipes online, Joe’s band trying to connect with people who saw them performing at Billy’s Bar and James’ Cycle Repair telling why they are the best cycle stand in the town!

Now you want bigger clients. Clients which can help you buy your first car from the profits.

When we are talking about big guys here, we are talking of established businesses. Sure there are other categories of big-boys too, but for the sake of simplicity (and time constraints) I am going to talk about corporations and mid-sized companies.

Unlike small businesses and individuals, here you will be dealing with professional managers rather than owners. And, if you don’t already know, it really helps knowing how to play golf.

Let’s get one thing very clear from the starting. The people you will be dealing in these companies have put in lot of effort and taken risks to achieve what they have achieved. To make sure that they don’t screw up things, they become extremely risk averse and tend to avoid it wherever they can.

Boy! That was already ’nuff to make my head hurt. Let’s get down to business.

Tip #1 - Sneak Into Old Boys Network. Like I said, people in these positions try to be risk averse so that they don’t screw up their own career prospects and their company’s performance. But risk is something which is invariable if they are doing something new and, probably, hiring someone to work on their website is one of them.

So what do they do? If they can’t totally remove the risk, they try to minimize it. And the best way to do it is to take recommendations from their insider network — people they trust to give them the best advice and recommendation from their experience.

If you want to be the one being recommended, you better be known to and trusted by this insider group. And here’s a fact for you — people who are already successful and powerful are surely part of one insider groups or more for different people. After all, this world is made up of people and trust.

So your job now is to build contact with people which will get you referrals.

How to do it? Should you attend those networking events which keep taking place? Erm. Not really. People who attend these networking events are usually just jobless blokes rather than hot shots. The best places to meet the power-group are Golf Courses, High Class Parties, Important Trade Shows etc. How exactly you sneak into these places is essentially your headache — I just had to tell where to find them.

Tip #2 - Act Like the Big Boys. People will trust you with their success if you already are successful. They would want you to have enough infrastructure and experience to handle a project as large as theirs. They would essentially want you to be a big guy yourself.

So what do you do? Fake it till you make it. But be sure that you actually can pull off that project and fake it just enough to give them an impression that yes you will be able to handle their project easily without a hitch.

Tip #3 - Bribe Them. No Seriously. There is a principle of psychology that if you do someone a favor or give them something, they will try to return it to you in way or another. So, why not gift them something?

The Bribe we are talking here can be anything from a lavish lunch or dinner or a bottle of wine or anything good. Now — make sure that it doesn’t blatantly look like bribe. Try to give it under some other pretext.

Tip #4 - Fuck the Funny Money. Yeah, absolutely no Google AdSense or “Hit the Monkey and Win a Million Bucks” advertisements on your website. Make your website professional. If you have absolutely no idea what I am taking about, go take a look at the sites of the big agencies and you will get an idea.

Tip #5 - Consulting is the Word. These companies are not really looking for services but rather solutions. So your job here is to provide complete solutions to solve a particular problem. Rather than being a service provider, be a consultant!

Now stop reading this blog and start going out and making contacts which will help you get big clients.

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One Response to “The Art of Getting BIG Clients - 5 Exact Tactics.”

1. Glen Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 6:36 am

   This is a really great article full of helpful advice!
   A few years ago I startedon a quest for the big clients and know exactly what your talking about.

   keep up the great work!

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