Leaders at the highest corporate levels don’t always avoid sales pitches—in fact, research shows that executives welcome them- provided the salesperson approaches them in the right way.
What is the correct way to approach a senior-level sales pitch?
Please join presenter Dr. Steve Bistritz, co-author of Selling to the C-Suite and President of SellXL, as he brings to life over 10 years of research revealing what C-Suite leaders in 500 diverse companies and government bodies said about their relationships with professional salespeople. This ground breaking research has been presented to thousands of salespeople at the SellXL workshop and in other venues, and has been used by sales professionals around the world to help close top dollar deals.
How to Crack the C-Suite Code in 2010: Secrets for Selling to the Top
1. How to Crack the C-Suite Code in 2010: Secrets for Selling to the Top Selling to the C-Suite The Groundbreaking New Book for Professional Salespeople Stephen J. Bistritz, Ed.D. [email_address] www.sellxl.com Linked to
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4. Executive Involvement in the Buying Cycle Executive Involvement Steps in the Buying Cycle Early Middle Late A When and why do senior executives get involved in the decision process for major purchases? Q Measure Results Plan Implemen-tation Examine Alternatives Set Vendor Criteria Explore Options Set Strategy Establish Objectives Understand Current Issues
5. Executive Involvement in the Buying Cycle Executive Involvement Steps in the Buying Cycle Measure Results Plan Implemen-tation Examine Alternatives Set Vendor Criteria Explore Options Set Strategy Establish Objectives Understand Current Issues
6. Selling to the C-Suite “ I meet with professional salespeople because often they can offer me solutions that even people within my own organization can’t develop. They’ve seen these problems in other organizations and I want the benefit of their experience.” — CXO-Level Executive
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13. Four Approaches to Gaining Access Implement an overt approach via the telephone or using a phone call, preceded by a letter Overt Use a credible sponsor within the client’s organization to help secure access Sponsor Treat the gatekeeper (AA, secretary or the like) as a resource and use them to help secure access Gatekeeper Use a referral (someone outside the client’s organization), such as a consultant, business associate or friend Referral
14. Research on Selling to Executives A Assuming your company was considering a major purchase, how likely would you be to schedule a meeting with a salesperson if the request came from… Q A recommendation from someone 16% 68% 16% 0% inside your company A referral from outside the company 8 36 44 12 A letter from a salesperson followed 4 20 40 36 by a direct call A direct telephone call from a 0 20 36 44 salesperson Always Usually Occasionally Never
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16. Components of Credibility Adapted from: Clients for Life . Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel. Simon and Schuster, 2000. Integrity Capability
19. Different Perspectives Executive Management Operations Project View Department/Function View Company Wide View Other Uses of Funds Solution Fit Price/ Discounts
20. Research on Selling to Executives 1. Demonstrated responsibility 2. Understood my business goals 3. Listened before proposing a solution Selling to the C-Suite . By Nicholas A.C. Read and Stephen J. Bistritz, Ed.D. McGraw Hill, 2009. A What has to happen in meetings with salespeople for the executive to feel it was effective? Q 4. Displayed knowledge of my industry
21. Research on Selling to Executives 1. Ability to marshal resources 2. Understands my business goals/objectives 3. Responsive to my requests 4. Willing to be held accountable A How does a salesperson establish credibility and trust with a high-level executive? Q 5. Knows company’s products
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25. Creating a Value Proposition You, Your Company and Your Solution Client’s Key Business Initiative Your Specific Business Value
26. Creating a Value Proposition Key Elements of a Value Proposition Addresses the client’s issue(s) and focuses on payback or consequences as it relates to the client’s breakthrough initiative What’s important to them? Describes how we can help, in both a qualitative and quantitative form How does our solution create value for them? Might include an example of how we addressed a similar problem at another company How can we demonstrate our capability?
27. Format of a Value Proposition You should be capable of ______________ by _________ through the ability to ___________________________ . This will require an investment of _________________ , which will be returned within _____________________. describe the impact monetary units or % describe the new situation state the cost of the solution estimate the time frame for return
28. Value Proposition Example You should be capable of reducing repeat customer service calls by 20% , resulting in a monthly savings of $250,000 , by implementing our Call Tracker system . This will require an investment of $2 million , which will be returned in 8 months. We implemented a similar solution at Acme Transfer Company , who began achieving a monthly savings of $500,000 within 90 days of installation.
35. Selling to the C-Suite The Groundbreaking New Book for Professional Salespeople Stephen J. Bistritz, Ed.D. [email_address] www.sellxl.com Linked to
Hinweis der Redaktion
LEAH: Thanks a lot, Stephen. You’ve done a great job of showing us key best practices on what to do to reach out to and engage C-level executives; the focus of our few of slides will be on showing how you can get entire sales teams and not just your ‘A” players to adopt these practices consistently in all the deals they work on. NEXT SLIDE
LEAH: Today sales teams have access to technologies and applications such as Landslide’s Sales Production System that are designed from the ground up with the objective of building best-practices based sales teams – what we also call world class sales organizations. You can use Landslide to very easily present the best-practices and useful tips we just learnt to your sales team so that they don’t even need to think about or remember these steps. These best practices along with the relevant job aids are presented to them 24/7 and the sales team can just follow them. Let me quickly show you how. NEXT SLIDE
LEAH: This is a screenshot of the sales process as it can be depicted in Landslide. Landslide is the only CRM that allows a three-tier definition of the sales process. Tier I relates to defining the phases of your complete sales cycle. This is the level at which other CRM systems usually stop - they show the salesperson various phases of the sales cycle but not how to complete them successfully. Landslide takes each phase and then shows the sales person the exact set of activities to complete that phase effectively. So in this example, every salesperson on your team will know the exact activities required to do a ‘discovery’ of the your prospects needs effectively. Not only that, we provide the right tools right within the process to complete these activities. The items in blue represent job aids that help the salesperson complete the activity. For example, here, to determine the fit for Landslide, we have embedded a conversation guide that contains the right questions to ask. NEXT SLIDE
LEAH: This is an example of the conversation guide embedded within the process. The salesperson does not have to search for it. It is built into the process at the right stage of the sales cycle and the questions are clearly defined. With Landslide, everyone on your sales team knows what to do next and how to do it. NEXT SLIDE
LEAH: This is is primary difference between Landslide and traditional CRM Systems. While traditional systems focus on sales reporting and data entry, the focus of Landslide is on supporting sales by giving them a complete playbook for closing deals. And this playbook or sales process is completely customizable to reflect your unique sales cycle phases, activities, tools and durations. Let me hand it back to Steve to wrap up. NEXT SLIDE
Thanks everyone. If you’re interested, here are some useful links where you can download slides for today’s presentation, purchase Stephen’s book and download very useful free tools and toolkits for defining your sales process. Thanks a lot for attending.