Not long ago, a CEO in the Life Sciences space sat across from me, looking like he’d just gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. He had a brilliant product—an innovative tool that was objectively faster and more accurate than anything on the market. But he was terrified.
I paraphrase, but the conversation went something like, “Johnny-Lee, we’re up against the Goliaths. They have ten times our budget, a thousand times our headcount, and logos that have been household names for forty years. How do we even stay in the room?”
He saw his size as a terminal illness. I saw it as his greatest competitive advantage.
We didn’t try to out-spend the giants. We didn’t try to match their 50-page brochures or their bloated “strategic accounts” teams. Instead, we leaned into the one thing a billion-dollar brand can never have: Velocity.
We used their nimble size to fail fast, fail forward, and mobilize a strike team that could move ten times faster than the giants could even schedule a board meeting.
A few months later? They weren’t just “staying in the room.” They were taking the business.
If you’re the “small player” in your space, stop apologizing for it. Here is how you use your size as a weapon to out-hustle and out-maneuver the brands that dwarf you.
1. Leverage the “Velocity Gap”
Big brands are built on SOPs, committees, and “brand guidelines.” This is great for stability, but it’s a death sentence for speed. In a big company, a simple messaging pivot takes six months and fourteen levels of approval.
The Small Player Move: You can test a new tool in the morning and have it in your outbound sequences by lunch.
When my Life Sciences client saw a shift in how labs worked, we didn’t wait for a quarterly review. We updated the pitch, drafted personalized messaging for the top 500 targets, and hit the market in 48 hours. By the time the Goliaths had their first “alignment call” to discuss the trend, we had already booked three discovery calls.
2. Sell “The Specialist” vs. “The Supermarket”
Big brands try to be everything to everyone. They sell the “platform,” the “ecosystem,” and the “end-to-end solution.” They are the Walmart of your industry.
The Small Player Move: Don’t be a supermarket. Be a Specialist.
If you are smaller, you can afford to be obsessively focused on a specific niche. While the big brand is giving a generic presentation to a room full of people, you show up with a “Radical Relevance” that makes the prospect feel like you built the product just for them.
People don’t want a “one-size-fits-all” solution for their most painful problems; they want the person who lives and breathes their specific struggle.
Own the niche, and you own the deal.
3. Fail Fast, Fail Forward
In a big company, failure is a career-ender. Reps are afraid to try new tonalities or unconventional outreach because they don’t want to mess up the “brand equity.” They play it safe, which—as we know—is the riskiest move in sales.
The Small Player Move: You have a license to experiment.
With my client, we treated their sales process like a lab. We tested three different opening “hooks” in one week. Two of them bombed. In a big company, that can be a tragedy. For us, it was data. We “failed forward” into the one hook that actually resonated, and then poured gas on it. You can afford to be bold as you don’t have the “bureaucracy of fear” holding you back.
4. Mobilize the “A-Team” (Not the B-Team)
When a prospect buys from a Goliath, they get the “A-Team” during the pitch and the “C-Team” during the implementation. They are just another account number in a sea of thousands.
The Small Player Move: Make them a “Big Fish” in your pond.
When you go toe-to-toe with a big brand, your “Personal Responsibility” is your edge. Tell the prospect: “If you sign with them, you’re account #4,000. If you sign with us, you have my personal cell phone number, and my lead engineer is on your implementation call.”
Decision-makers don’t buy from logos; they buy from people they trust to solve their problems. If you show up with more conviction and more direct access than the giant, you win.
The Bottom Line
Goliath had the size, the armor, the reach, and the reputation. David had a stone and a better delivery system. David also had FAITH that could move mountains.
Stop trying to fight the big brands on their turf. Don’t out-process them; out-maneuver them. Don’t out-spend them; out-care them. Use your size to stay close to the market truth, and use your velocity to act on that truth before the giant even wakes up.
Keep it nimble. Keep it sharp. Keep it moving.
Until next time…
Johnny-Lee Reinoso