“Calling at the top” is not a new concept. With decision processes more complex than ever, finding involvement from a COO or CFO during the sales process is becoming increasingly prevalent.
There are several traps that traditional sales reps can fall into here. First, they flat out call too low in the organization, and have conversations with people who have enough power to say no and not enough power to say yes. Even though they know they should be calling higher, they don’t. If you are actually asking for referrals from your clients, are you asking CEO’s to refer you to other CEO’s? Or are you asking mid-level managers to refer you to other mid-level managers? For referrals, get to the top of the organization, and don’t let yourself get pushed back down.
The second major trap is that when many salespeople actually speak to someone in the C-suite, the first questions they ask are too specific or “in the trenches." Things like, “What is the latest version of the software that you're running?” Or “how many shipping errors have you experienced recently?”
Questions for the C-suite need to be more strategic or compelling in nature. Ask what type of board pressures the executive is facing, or what their overall 2014 strategy is. If reps ask the more specific, lower-level questions to the C-suite early, you can plan on being passed down a few levels to the person who takes care of those problems for the executive. And that’s not the person you need making these decisions.
When selling to the C-suite remind yourself to think like they do. They typically don’t know what latest software version they are on, but they will know what results they want at the end of the year. Keep in mind the different motives for each branch of the C-suite. When selling to CEO’s, they may be more drawn to the idea of something newer or bigger or better, where the CFO is going to behave differently and judge your product or service more on what return it will provide. And the COO may look at things in terms of how it will change their organizational procedures.
Are you adapting your sales team's selling style to the C-suite – or more specifically, to each person within the C-suite? If you are treating everyone the same, you will get treated like everyone else. It is time to be different and stand out from your competition. You'll be glad you did.
