Ep 204: Behind The Red Tape Of B2B Buying Decisions with Jennifer Butler

Why B2B Buying Feels Slow

0:33

Hey, hey, I am Sarah Noel Block and this is Tiny Marketing. Today I'm talking to Jennifer Butler and we are diving into the behind the scenes, the red tape that you don't actually ever hear about We're sharing how B2B companies make buying decisions and what kind of red tape that they really need to go through and how you can get around it. Stay tuned

Jennifer Butler 0:58

Hi, everybody. I'm Jennifer Butler. I'm the founder and CEO of Primrose Leadership Solutions, which is a boutique consulting firm focused on executive coaching and bespoke leadership development solutions for organizations of all sizes and coast to coast

From Corporate Safety To Entrepreneurship

Sarah Noel Block 1:18

Nice. So can you tell me how you got started?

Jennifer Butler 1:23

Yes. I think it's important to start out saying I was never one of those people dreaming of entrepreneurship. I spent most of my career saying I liked the safety and the security of a corporate world. I liked the different diversity of roles it offered. It just, it worked for me.

Sarah Noel Block 1:45

Yeah. Same girl, same.

Jennifer Butler 1:47

I loved that somebody said, "Here's a 401and we'll put money in it." yeah. That just, okay, perfect. and I did that for about 25 years, and then I found myself in a role, a position elimination situation. I had a second grader, and I was at the point where I started looking at other corporate jobs, and they kinda gave me just, they gave me the ick, to be honest. I didn't wanna jump back into it, and I had been encouraged in the past to hang my own shingle and give this a try, and I was fortunate enough through the exit from the organization and some savings I'd had to say, "Okay, let's see what could happen. Let's try this out.

Sarah Noel Block 2:36

shot.

Jennifer Butler 2:37

Give it a shot, What's the worst that could happen?" And I really did. I told myself, "I'll give it a couple months, and then if it's, if I'm not getting any bites, if nothing really seems to happen, I can start applying for jobs again, and it'll be okay."

Sarah Noel Block 2:51

Yeah, what's the worst that can happen from trying?

Jennifer Butler 2:54

Totally. and honestly, I, psychologically I needed to do something different. And it was those first couple months of building the business, it was really cool too that I felt like a different part of my brain clicked on, and I realized all those experiences I'd pulled together over 25 years, I was putting into my business. How was I working on a budget? How was I creating a pipeline of clients, et cetera? It all paid off. And so it's funny, people ask me all the time, "Don't you wish you'd done this sooner?" I don't know that I was ready. I don't know that I had the things in my toolkit until the exact moment it happened

Sarah Noel Block 3:35

That's the way universe works.

Jennifer Butler 3:38

It does. It does.

Sarah Noel Block 3:39

place when it's ri- when it's right

Jennifer Butler 3:41

Yes. In my case, the universe gave me an upset stomach looking at a job posting, and two years later I'm running a thriving business, so

Sarah Noel Block 3:49

So let's go back to that moment where you decided, "I'm gonna try it." How did you get that first client?

Landing First Clients Through Your Network

Jennifer Butler 3:59

So the first client, first of all, I-- before even the first client, I have a great peer mentor, longtime friend of mine, who he himself has a business similar. It's about seven or eight years older than mine, and he was the first person I said, "I think I'm gonna do this on my own." And he said, "Oh, great. I was hoping you'd say that." And handed me a piece of paper, and on one side of the paper was a full checklist to start my business, and the other side was how to scope out revenue streams. And it was fantastic. It was fantastic. And I've asked him a couple times, did he put the checklist in order? And I-- because I followed it, did step one, step two, step three. and so that's where I started, and, using his checklist. And the first thing I did was I mapped my whole network. I literally went through my cellphone back to the end of my text messages. I went through every LinkedIn contact, and I categorized people and said, "Who gets my friend 'Hey, I'm an-- I'm launching a business message?' Who gets my 'We used to work together, maybe we could again'? And then who gets my 'You're in a job where you control a checkbook, let's talk'

Sarah Noel Block 5:12

Yeah

Jennifer Butler 5:13

And that's how I announced the business.

Sarah Noel Block 5:15

That's so smart.

Jennifer Butler 5:17

My... Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Sarah Noel Block 5:19

I was gonna say, I ask that question to most of my guests, and the ones that really became successful from the beginning, that's what they did, is they mapped out their network

Jennifer Butler 5:32

I-- It is the first piece of advice I give to other people in networking groups or when folks reach out and say, "I'm thinking about doing this," is you really have to know who is in your network already and what role can they play for you. So my best friend's a middle school teacher. She's more than likely not referring me any business, but she's a great cheerleader, and she's a great person to say, "Oh, I love that you sent that video out to folks," right? All the way up to, "Hey, so and you're a CEO. Remember when we did this project?" And having to be, very deliberate and intentional about those relationships you've built and not to take anything away from the human connection, but to really say who could make a purchasing decision and who couldn't, or who could influence someone else. So my first two clients, I can't quite remember. I'd have to go back and look at which one signed first, but the first two were people I had worked with before who were

Sarah Noel Block 6:35

Same.

Jennifer Butler 6:36

s- Yep And I was not one of those people that left my corporate job and then went back straight to contracting for my corporate job. That wasn't in the cards. but I had folks who w- had moved to other companies and had a list of 15 priorities they needed to get done, and

Targeting Role Changes And Big Shifts

Jennifer Butler 6:54

they had the human resources or the internal capabilities to maybe get through 10 of them.

Sarah Noel Block 7:00

Okay. Can we pause right there for one second? Because I really wanna emphasize that when people are changing roles and they have a new position within an organization, that's the easiest time to get hired on as a contractor because they have a lot of things that they need to accomplish.

Jennifer Butler 7:17

100%. They have big, audacious goals and a lot of ambition and momentum behind them to get there. Also, what a lot of people don't know is the budget for vendors or for contract help inside a corporate setting sits in a different budget than hiring an employee. There are, we would call it, I've called it, we called it loaded cost. So if you're paying an employee $50,000 in their salary, it actually costs the organization, say 75,000 to hire them when you get benefits and all that stuff. So you as a contractor in a totally different budget that probably goes through some different approvals for 35 or $40,000, you are a bargain and you can work at a faster pace. You remove the risk of having a bad hire. you just can move through things quicker for that person that's coming in and saying, "Here's my list of 100 things I want to accomplish." So 100%, those folks that have moved or whose organizations are or have recently transformed in some way, that's the best place to get your foot in, I've

Sarah Noel Block 8:35

Yes, I agree. So look for anyone in your network who recently changed positions, and you can find that on Sales Navigator too. Um, companies that are going through mergers or acquisitions, need some help. Those are great signals to look for

Jennifer Butler 8:52

The other one I would say is, CEO or senior-most leader transitions. If a company has had... I've got, I think, two clients right now where their previous CEO was in role for 20 years, and when usually a company is gonna replace that kind of a CEO with someone very different, looking to bring in different technology and innovation and make changes, that's gonna usually come through in my space to the HR space or to the HR world as well, and it's a great time to just stay connected with your people in there, in that space

Approval Thresholds Legal And Procurement

Sarah Noel Block 9:32

So I want to pause right there and talk about one thing that you mentioned earlier, which was, like, your-- the budgets come from different places. So the hiring budget comes from one place, and most of the people listening to this don't have to w-worry about that 'cause that's not what you're going for. You're going for the other budget, which is usually for some sort of project or, aligned strategy within their bigger mission. And, what does the typical process look like that you've seen within a B2B that... the approval process?

Jennifer Butler 11:04

So they're gonna be tiered usually based on the amount that you're looking to spend. So a lot of times $10,000 could e- could easily just be approved by a manager or a director level, and possibly even just processed on a credit card. for most organizations, once you get above 15, then you're at least going through one level higher. And then once you get over 50 is where I see most organizations wanting procurement involved or, and/or legal to some extent. And so-- And those are kinda two different processes, right? Legal is gonna wanna look at your contract, your statement of work, and, usually add in language that protects their information, their data, what you as a consultant are doing with the data. legal's also gonna wanna make sure that you as the consultant have insurance so that if something goes wrong, they're covered. Whereas procurement is wanting to make sure, are there any vendors that are already in the system that they think can do what you do? And I would tell you, procurement departments are of varying degrees of engagement and involvement. usually where I have worked close, more closely with procurement departments is when it is an active competitive bid situation.

Sarah Noel Block 12:31

Like they put out an RFP type of thing

Jennifer Butler 12:33

Yes. Yes. So I'm working with a client right now where we are launching an RFP, and so that's, that procurement's helping walk us through all of that. Whereas for most of my clients, my point of contact has gone to their supplier diversity or their procurement groups and just said, "We wanna work with Primrose Leadership. Here's the statement of work, their, their, tax forms," et cetera. But there are varying degrees of time to get through that process. So if I meet with a client, and just a little tip I've picked up, and I saw this when I was in the corporate side, if I meet with a client and they're talking about a fairly quick turnaround for something, I will usually, when I send them a proposal, I will send them a statement of work so that they can go ahead and get the signatures on that.

Sarah Noel Block 13:29

boop.

Jennifer Butler 13:30

Yep, I will send them, "Here's the info to set me up in your payment system." I'll get all of that, especially because usually if you're a learning and development or a talent management and HR leader, you might not have really navigated in that space very often. So I would rather... I always liked it when I was sitting in the other seat, that I had everything, and I could go to my procurement or my finance person and say, "Okay, what do I do with this?" I really try to set my clients up with that same thing because there's nothing more stressful than feeling like, "Oh my gosh, I've made this commitment and I don't know if I can actually follow through." And I just wanna take that off the plate of my, my clients.

Sarah Noel Block 14:12

Let's talk a bit about those different thresholds. So don't be afraid to ask either what those thresholds are. When I was working corporate,

Jennifer Butler 14:24

Ja

Sarah Noel Block 14:24

would, we would say, "Look, this is my credit card limit that I'm allowed to approve. I need to get it under that if you want it approved at my level."

Jennifer Butler 14:33

Right. Yes.

Sarah Noel Block 14:34

up with you.

Jennifer Butler 14:35

what are the levels? Who are the approvers? what's your fiscal year? Look, if you're talking to someone, we're-- you and I are talking right now in September, if you're talking to somebody that's on a standard calendar year for a big project, it might be worthwhile for you to say, why don't we do 50% now and 50% on January 5th?" And, understand where they're at and how they can get it over the finish line. And if they say, "Oh, I'm making the decision, but my leader has to sign the contract," awesome. Still ask, would you like me to meet with the leader? How are we gonna keep them in the loop?" because sometimes they don't quite understand if it's their first time working through something like this, they don't understand what questions they might get asked behind the scenes.

Sarah Noel Block 15:27

Mm-hmm. almost like sales enablement that you're creating for them. "Here, this is how you sell this internally for me."

Jennifer Butler 15:34

100%. And again, I go back to, I supported sales and marketing teams for years. I had no idea how much it was sinking in until I had to market and sell my own business.

Sarah Noel Block 15:45

Yeah

Jennifer Butler 15:46

I also like to ask, "Who's gonna be your most challenging internal stakeholder?"

Sarah Noel Block 15:51

That's a good question.

Jennifer Butler 15:53

And when-- and depending on what they say, "Oh, you might notice there's things in the proposal that specifically speak to what that person cares about." It just makes it easier

Sarah Noel Block 16:05

one thing we talked about on our pre-call that I wanna make sure that we hit for the pod is that

Make Internal Selling Easier For Buyers

Sarah Noel Block 16:13

when you have a larger contract, let's say the 50,000 that you mentioned in your example, you can break it down into smaller projects based off of milestones so you can get approved at a smaller level so you don't have to go through the lawyers

Jennifer Butler 16:27

Yes. And look, sometimes the procurement teams are like, no, we're onto you." This... You've got, here's one vendor, and you've got three $25,000 contracts. But it, sometimes it just also, it allows the approval team and the folks looking at the budget to feel less... It feels less risky if they say, "Okay, we're gonna give you 25,000 to start, 25,000 when we sign off, and then 25,000 when we wrap up." and I try to go out with a standard approach of how I wanna break down invoicing, but I'm not super rigid on that. So if there's something that the client needs, as long as it's not gonna put me in a bad spot, or as long as it makes sense in the scope of the deal, I'm, I usually don't get too worked up about that.

Sarah Noel Block 17:21

Yeah. So you mentioned it's September right now when we're talking, and I just wanted to make sure that the audience knew, this is the easiest time of the year to sell because of budgets. Budgets usually have, a use it or lose it within a corporation. So if they have leftover budget, they need to use it or they won't get that budget for next year.

Jennifer Butler 17:46

And that is, yes, been there. I remember there was in a corporate job, I think in the span of four hours once in November, I spent like $650,000. Yes

Sarah Noel Block 18:01

where I'm like, "Shoot, we still have 50,000 in our budget on vacation in two weeks."

Jennifer Butler 18:08

Okay. We need to... And you end up pre-buying, in my space that means prepaying for assessments or prepaying for coaching hours or things like that. And so

Sarah Noel Block 18:18

pay for your memberships for the next year

Jennifer Butler 18:21

Yes. Yes. And so an easy time to float some of those ideas out to folks. it's an easy time to push an idea across the finish line and just say, hey, why don't we just do the scoping of the project now, and then we can talk about a new contract for the execution next year?" that is something if people can be aware of what that budget cycle looks like, it is-- it's usually advantageous. It does usually then mean you're probably processing a bunch of really quick SOWs and invoices in November and December, but it's okay

Sarah Noel Block 19:00

Yeah, like there's worse things that can happen.

Jennifer Butler 19:03

problems to c- to have, yes. And I remember when I was sitting in the corporate seat, I called one of my vendors and said, "Hey, I need to take this 250,000 we were gonna do next year. Can we move it up to this year?" And he worked through it and I said, "I'm really sorry. I, here's what I'm trying to solve for. Is that a, is that gonna cause you tax issues or what's that mean," right? And I remember his comment was, "I have to pay taxes on it if it's this year or next year." And so that's stuck with me as an entrepreneur, too. It's like I'm gonna pay for it on one side,

Sarah Noel Block 19:35

Yeah.

Jennifer Butler 19:36

doesn't matter,

Sarah Noel Block 19:37

other thing about, this final quarter of the year is that usually it's late August or September when they're creating the budgets for the next year, and they're starting to develop what that strategy is gonna look like for the next year. So there's a lot of strategic projects that are getting planned

Budget Season Use It Or Lose It

Sarah Noel Block 19:53

out that can be paid for this year and take place next year.

Jennifer Butler 19:58

Especially, big event type things. beginning of the year sales meetings, sales kickoffs, things like that, that usually have a really big budget in the fiscal year. You could be there. I could show up and say, here, I'll do, I'll do three keynotes across your different meetings, and we can take care of that this year." It's those little pieces of big events that make it easy for internal teams

Sarah Noel Block 20:24

Yeah. They're like, "Thank God, I just wanted to check that off my list."

Jennifer Butler 20:29

And you don't have to plan it. It's almost, it's like, okay, I, it's getting services on layaway. We pay for it now, I'll call you back in April and we'll work on the script. Take it off your brain right now, though

Sarah Noel Block 20:40

Yeah. So do you think that there's anything that we are missing that consultants should understand about, internal procurement within or selling into a B2B?

Jennifer Butler 20:54

So I would say a couple things. If you've never worked in a corporate setting, the first thing I would say is

When To Pause Work Until Signed

Jennifer Butler 21:00

just know that your point of contact doesn't get to necessarily always decide what the process is. They are working within a bigger structure, so they have, they probably have a finance person or a pr- and a procurement person that have their own processes and their own SOPs that you have to follow or that they have to follow. If you're working with someone, too, that's newer to even using outside help, nudging them and encouraging them to ask those questions early, they might not know to ask. So there's that piece. And then the other piece is usually when you're talking about the procurement teams, the finance teams, and the legal teams, the learning and development or some of the marketing contracts, those are lower priority for those internal teams. They're also looking at the contracts for, all the janitorial services of all 27 floors of their headquarters. So you've gotta understand where you're gonna fall in the you're not a multimillion-dollar contract

Sarah Noel Block 22:12

Yeah

Jennifer Butler 22:13

and just give everybody a little grace and understand, but work that into your process. The other thing I would say, and this one's hard for some folks, is be ready to also stop working if the process isn't moving forward. And again, I experienced that when I was on the corporate side. I was not able to get the signatures that were needed from... for a contract, and my vendors had started working, and

Sarah Noel Block 22:44

hard position to be in for you.

Jennifer Butler 22:47

hard,

Sarah Noel Block 22:48

You're like, "I'm sorry, I'm trying."

Jennifer Butler 22:50

I-- Right short of, printing out the paper and showing up in front of somebody's car, I didn't know what I was gonna do. There had been some leadership changes. There were some interim leaders in place. It was really hard. And I-- It was a gift that my vendor gave me at the time to just say, "We're stopping work on this." And they wrote it in a very, direct way, and called me on the side and said, "We're sending you a very direct message. We're hoping this helps." and it did. I was able to say, "I'm not gonna hit the deadline that the CEO has been promised if I don't get this signature."

Sarah Noel Block 23:32

Oh, see, that went in a totally different direction. I was taken on a jersey, on a journey,

Jennifer Butler 23:38

Oh,

Sarah Noel Block 23:38

like, that went in a different direction than I thought. I assumed that they were like, "No, I'm not working with you anymore," but really they knew what was happening and that it was just a delay

Jennifer Butler 23:49

Yes. Now, they knew what was happening because I'd been really transparent. So I bring that same thing to my seat now sitting as the partner, the external partner. What might you be working against? What does the approval chain look like? If they say, "Oh yeah, we're in HR, but this has to actually get approved by the legal counsel," that tells me something about what's gonna be asked or what's gonna be looked at. and I've had to once or twice do that with my own clients because their procurement, their accounts payable has, something's fallen off a desk and I've had to go back and say, "Until we get this moved forward, I'm gonna stop." And again, it just gives everybody that incentive they need. I'm, not trying to take my ball and go home, but I also, I still have to manage my business.

Sarah Noel Block 24:40

Yeah, totally valid.

Jennifer Butler 24:42

Yes. So it's, again, I go back to had I not had those corporate experiences, it'd be a lot harder to navigate some of this stuff

Sarah Noel Block 24:50

Yeah, I feel the same for my own background. I worked in a lot of different sizes of corporations, but the one that I worked in directly before starting my consultancy, it had the most corporate structure 'cause we had, an HQ in Switzerland, so everything was very regimen. And that experience and being the person who often was the one hiring and, and vetting the contractors, that helped me understand, oh, so this is what I n- need to do for, to get these, these jobs done, closed

Jennifer Butler 25:30

I also had a Swiss... I have experience working for a Swiss-based company. I currently have a Swiss-based client, and so I fully understand that

Sarah Noel Block 25:39

The structure?

Jennifer Butler 25:41

the structure and the process. And then I also work with, I ha- came from a large, Fortune 20 with large government presence, so I understand kinda what that regulatory space looks like. And then it just feels nice when you work with a local nonprofit and stuff,

Sarah Noel Block 25:58

Yeah. and everything's easy breezy.

Jennifer Butler 26:00

Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block 26:01

the knowledge of the most strict procurement guidelines allows you to be able to be ready for Everything. like everything below that.

Jennifer Butler 26:11

Yes. Yes. And it, the biggest thing is just remember it's not your point of contact. It's not that person you're working with that's purposely adding these processes. It's the system in which they work

Sarah Noel Block 26:25

Yeah. This was incredibly insightful.

Jennifer Butler 26:28

Good. Yay

Sarah Noel Block 26:30

always nice hearing, like chatting with another, corporate girly who understands that side of things.

Jennifer Butler 26:37

Yes. Yes. And I just think there's so much about that corporate, it, it was 25 years of a working master's degree, right? It's all practical, applicable information that I'm able to bring to what I do now

Sarah Noel Block 26:52

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So before we wrap up, can you tell people how they can find you and work with you?

Jennifer Butler 26:59

Oh, of course.

Where To Find Jennifer Butler

Jennifer Butler 27:01

So Primrose Leadership Solutions is the name of my firm, and that is our website as well, Primrose Leadership Solutions. And then, we're on LinkedIn, and then also just I'm Jennifer Butler on LinkedIn as well. and if anybody wanted to reach out, jennifer@primroseleadershipsolutions.com is my email and an easy way to get in touch

Sarah Noel Block 27:26

Amazing. Thank you

Jennifer Butler 27:28

Thank you