Major Leagues

Once you know whom to sell to, find out how the company buys. Are supplies bought nationally, regionally or both? One way to find out is to get a copy of the company's annual report, which usually provides substantial information about what and how the corporation buys.

Another avenue is contacting the company directly. "If companies want to do business with Sprint, they start by calling the Supplier Diversity program, and based on their product, commodity or service, they are referred to a supplier diversity administrator," explains Terry Smelcer, manager of supplier diversity at the telecommunications giant. The administrator will make a determination about suitability by phone or, if necessary, ask the entrepreneur to send more information.

Some companies use The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers (Thomas Publishing Co.) to find suppliers. Being listed in The Thomas Register could give your firm an edge because the directory allows companies to search for suppliers by name, product type or geographic location. While manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, exporters and importers must operate on a national or global scale to be featured in TheThomas Register, firms selling statewide or locally can be listed in the Register's sister publication, the Regional Industrial Buying Guide.

While all this research may help put your company in front of contractors--or at least get your name in a few databases--it might not necessarily net you an order because of the sheer volume of suppliers you are likely to be competing against. Sprint, for instance, has 13,000 to 20,000 companies in its database. Of course, smaller companies have a smaller pool of suppliers and subcontractors, but it still takes a lot of work to get on the A list.

So how do you stand out in a crowd and get the attention of buyers and people who make the subcontracting decisions? Dupont's Blue says one key is learning to succinctly describe your company so that when buyers read your literature, they know immediately what you do. "Come up with some key descriptive words so that if it goes in our database and we do a key-word search, we could find your description," he advises.

Persistence is also crucial. If the company doesn't buy your product or doesn't need it when you first approach it, contacting the buyer every three months or so will keep you in his or her mind.

Perhaps most important is your attitude. "You've got to be willing to invest a lot of time and be committed to the process," says Gasper Mir, co-founder of Mir Fox & Rodriguez, a Houston-based company that provides accounting, tax, consulting, strategic planning and training services to government and the private sector. "You have to communicate how committed you are to promoting your community, developing your staff, and providing opportunities to others."

In addition to his commitment to helping others, Mir is active in the Houston business community and serves on the boards of various private and nonprofit organizations. This brings him in contact with Fortune 500 CEOs and gives them a chance to get to know his personal capabilities, which may pique their interest in hearing or seeing what he can do professionally.

Understanding and meeting a company's needs helped put Salt Lake City-based Galapagos Software Inc. ahead of its competition. Started in November 1995, the three-person firm has a subcontracting agreement with Wave Systems Corp., a 30-employee company in New York City that develops electronic commerce models for firms such as Simon & Schuster and the William Morris Agency. Galapagos is incorporating one of its software designs into technology Wave Systems is creating.

"We approached Wave Systems because we knew they were going to need a better way [for people] to find information," explains Galapagos' president, Scott McCarty. He was able to secure the contract because he had a working relationship with people at Wave Systems who knew his and vice president of technology Shaili Jain's reputations as programmers. "Yes, we knew these people, and that was a foot in the door, but that was secondary," says McCarty. "The most important thing was that we had a solution they really needed."

This article was originally published in the January 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Major Leagues.