Enterprise Procurement Navigation
Do procurement's work for them, define exactly what you do, and split contracts so deals don't die on the vine
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 92%
A playbook for getting an enterprise deal through professional buyers and to signature. Procurement can kill a deal by redirecting you to an existing preferred vendor, classifying you as high-risk, or letting you sit at the bottom of a priority queue. The counter is to differentiate sharply, remove all friction by doing their paperwork, precisely define what you do and don't do, split contracts to create momentum, and pre-brief the actual signatory.
Origin
Jen Abel, JJELLYFISH, drawing on enterprise deals including a pharmaceutical-company deal where a mis-handled CFO signature step cost a month.
Core principles
- 01Procurement are professional buyers — smart, doing this for a living — so they must be sold too, in plain, jargon-free terms
- 02You're usually a tiny line in very large deals, so you'll get sidelined unless you do the work for them
- 03Enterprises know the process and effort to close costs more than the technology itself — that's why they'll pay so much
- 04Once you're in, you're in: a preferred-vendor slot is a temporary moat with compounding expansion
How to run it
- 1
Differentiate so you can't be swapped
Make it feel genuinely different from anything else, or procurement will point to 17 existing preferred vendors doing similar-ish work and tell the buyer to use one of them.
Pro tip Simplify and de-jargon your description so procurement can wrap their head around it quickly.
Watch out Deals die on the vine when procurement suggests an existing vendor the buyer didn't even know about, because you were positioned as merely 'slightly better.'
- 2
Do their paperwork for them
Say 'I want to make this as easy as possible — give me the forms you need filled out and I'll fill them out for you to edit.' Carry the entire administrative lift.
Pro tip Making their job easy keeps you from being sidelined as a small buy among their large deals.
Watch out If you don't do the lift, it's very easy for the deal to go there and die.
- 3
Define exactly what you do and don't do
State your scope precisely so procurement can classify you correctly.
Watch out If they can't place you, they default to classifying you as high-risk — triggering a kitchen-sink MSA demanding ~$5M insurance, book access, and more.
- 4
Truncate into service + technology contracts
Split the deal into a service contract (onboarding, prepping, educating users) and a technology contract. The service contract creates an incentive and momentum to push the tech piece through due diligence.
Pro tip Ask directly how long due diligence takes — 90/60/30-day backup or none — and use contract structure to keep it moving.
- 5
Pre-brief the real signatory
Find out exactly who signs — CFO, chief legal officer, business-unit head, or head of procurement — and offer procurement a few tight bullets that tell the signer exactly what they're signing and why.
Pro tip Ask 'can I give you a few bullets to share so they know exactly what they're looking at?'
Watch out If the signer doesn't understand what they're signing they'll kick it back, and you lose your queue spot — one founder's unplanned CFO step added a month to the deal.
In the wild
After a long process, a pharmaceutical deal reached the CFO signature stage. The CFO replied up the chain 'what am I signing? I don't understand what these people are doing.' The procurement lead scrambled for defending bullets that hadn't been prepared, and the deal fell back to the bottom of the priority queue.
→ The lack of a pre-briefing for the signatory elongated the deal by roughly another month.
Common mistakes
Positioning as 'slightly better'
Undifferentiated positioning lets procurement redirect the buyer to an existing preferred vendor, and the deal dies during the 3-4 month procurement window.
Starting work before a signature and PO
You don't get paid until finance approves and there's a signature on the contract; the business unit can't just pay you — it flows through a purchase order paid by finance, so never rely on that money early.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders closing enterprise deals (buyers of ~500-1000+ employees) where user and buyer differ and procurement is involved
Not ideal for
SMB or lower-mid-market deals where the user and buyer are the same person and there is no procurement function
From the transcript
“do the work for them literally say I want to make this as easy as possible for you give me the forms that you need…”
“because they can't classify you so they just the easiest thing to do is classify you as high risk”
“this is when you want to truncate contracts to a technology contract and a service contract”
“you want to know who that person is so that you can literally say to the head of procurement Hey listen I want to make…”
“you do not get paid until you are approved by finance and procurement has a signature on the contract”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to founder-led sales
Jen Abel (co-founder of JJELLYFISH)