Small businesses usually like working with other small businesses.
Similarly, large businesses working with other large businesses.
During the sales process, small businesses tell me things like, “All the decision-makers are on this call” and “Let’s move forward with this right now. What do we need to do to start tomorrow?”
Large businesses are more likely to say, “Please fill out this 26-page PDF to be eligible for a bidding process that will start in three months.”
I’ve long believed in this as a kinda-sorta unwritten rule, but I got an email (and a bunch of paperwork) from a prospective customer that opened my eyes about just how seriously large companies take this. The technical folks were already sold and selected me as their vendor – but then they hit a brick wall when they tried to talk to their internal purchasing team. There was a lengthy internal discussion on a separate email thread, but someone accidentally (?) forwarded me that thread. It included this gem from their purchasing team:
Typically we would like to ensure we issue out this questionnaire at the outset, to make sure we’re dealing with serious vendors and to set the tone.
The attached “questionnaire” required our credit records – okay, sure – then diagrams of our quality management process, explanations of how we administer our health and safety policies, and more things that would have taken me days to produce.
That’s how some large companies see independents and small businesses, dear reader: someone who has no choice but to fill out paperwork to jump through hoops so they can “set the tone.”
I didn’t realize that back when I first started consulting. The technical teams at Ginormous Corporation would get all excited to work with me, and then they’d contact their purchasing team, and suddenly the avalanche of paperwork would start. I kept thinking, “If I just fill out this one last form, I’ll be past all the hurdles, and I’ll be in for life!” It does indeed work – but just be aware that sometimes it’s a lot more paperwork than it looks like at first glance, and some companies even have ongoing vendor certification renewal processes.
With that in mind, I try to be a great customer for other small businesses too, like our artist, print shops, accountant, etc. I try to make their lives as easy as possible – because after all, they’re making my life easier, too.
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I’m always surprised how much you put up with the paperwork and back and forth with the bigger companies. I couldn’t do it. I have next to no patience.
I DO THIS FOR YOU, TARA
I DO THIS SO YOU CAN HAVE NICE THINGS
Just kidding. I do it because my wife makes me do it.
I had one prospective client who actually volunteered to sit down with me in person and help me fill out the paperwork (regulatory stuff, not of their making).
That said, I avoid huge customers like the plague. That feeling seems oddly mutual. 😉
Especially the comment “set the tone” is like a huge red flag for me. From this, I read that they probably require lots of paperwork on an ongoing basis. They require a lot of paperwork up front to “set the tone” – i.e. so the gets vendor accustomed to all the red tape, and they get to weed out the vendors that are not willing or able to comply.
I wouldn’t say it’s /always/ a company size issue. Some industries require more paperwork than others. Compliance with applicable laws (HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI DSS, FINRA, FIPS, the list goes on) often requires this stuff, probably even more if the company wants to claim some kind of ISO certification. I recall being at a previous job helping assemble RFPs, answer questions from auditors on any topic they could come up with, and help the security team answer the pages of annual questionnaires they always got from our clients. I always wrote it off as part of the cost of doing business, and thought most people had to do the same.
Chuck – right, but you rarely see 5-20-person companies who are able to comply with HIPAA, PCI, FIPS, etc. The compliance requirements alone dictate a whole department dedicated to auditing and compliance.