Tips to Increase
Your Sales
Below C-Level
10
How to find the decision-makers
with “Juice”, not just those with
“C” in their title.
“Sell at the C-Level!”
“Always call high!”
“Get to the Big Dog!”
If you’re in sales, you’ve probably had phrases like these pounded into your head since the start of your career — if not by your boss, then by countless consultants, sales gurus, and self-help authors. Intuitively, selling at the C-level makes sense. After all, it’s usually the top executives who control the budgets and can get a project approved or veto it. And in tighter economic times, even relatively minor purchases often need approval by senior management.
The reality, however, is that — for most sales people — “selling at the C-level” is, at best, an insufficient strategy, and, at worst, a complete waste of time and resources. I know this runs against what you’ve probably been told for most of your career, so I’ll let it sink in…
If you’re only selling at C-Level, YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME!!!
The theory behind most training programs, sales methodologies, and books that espouse the benefits of selling at the C-level is that those senior executives are the only ones who can get a deal done. They control the budget; therefore, they control the decision. At the very least, the theory goes, you’ll benefit from a “trickle down” effect — an introduction from the CEO, to the CIO, to the VP, etc. — which gives you the leverage you need to get a mid-level manager to do a deal.
I’m not saying that the role of the C-level executive is irrelevant, by any means. Particularly, for big-ticket purchases, the need to get the approval of the CEO and/or other senior executives is certainly a critical part of the sales process. But selling at C-level—actually selling at C-level—is an increasingly uphill battle, for several reasons:
1. C-Level Execs Are Getting Inundated
With the accessibility to information that has been unleashed by the Internet and other online information tools, it’s easier than ever to find the names of the top executives at almost any company. Guess what that means: everyone and his brother are calling the same people you are. The chances of that C-level executive returning, forwarding, or even listening to your call is remote.
2. C-Level Execs Often Aren’t the Real Decision Makers
While a C-level executive will often stamp his or her approval on a purchase decision, it’s increasingly rare that they, themselves, are the ones making that decision. In fact, the best CEOs empower their senior- and mid-level management to collect the facts and present a cogent recommendation. Getting access to these lower-level decision makers is imperative to making sure that recommendation is for your product or service.
Steve Martin
Steve is the author of a revolutionary new book about the human nature of sales, “Heavy Hitter Selling—How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy.” To learn more about the author and his book visit http://www.heavyhitterselling.com.
3. Usually the C-Level Exec Doesn’t Feel the Pain
The surest way to get someone to engage with your pitch is if they personal-ly feel the business pain your product or service can solve. Oftentimes, the CXO doesn’t have visibility into the specific business pain enough to know how important your solution may be, and, consequently, won’t appreciate the relevance of what you’re selling.
4. Calling High Can Damage Your Mid-Level Relationships
No one likes to have a sales rep go “over their head.” Even if the C-level executive mandates that your firm receives an RFP or makes a short list, by going high too early you may alienate the mid-level decision maker who will make the final recommendation. By engaging at all levels in an organization, the key people you need to influence feel respected and involved.
5. If You Reach the C-Level Exec, You Won’t Know What to Say
Many times, the worst thing that could happen to you is the CXO you’re calling actually picks up the phone! Chances are you won’t have the faintest ability to put your product into a relevant context of business pain or opportunity that he cares about—blowing your one shot at the top. By starting lower in the organization, you can get the insight, advice, coaching, and preparation you need to make your message stick when you finally do get a C-level audience.
Going Beyond C-Level
The most successful sales people—the “Heavy Hitters”—recognize that selling is about more than cold calling the most senior person in the organization. But, as I outline in my book titled, “Heavy Hitter Selling—How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy,”you can’t just rely on the mid-level decision makers either. Understanding the power and influence of all evaluators at every level in the account is an essential prerequisite to winning any deal.
In my 20-plus years as a sales professional and advising companies and individuals on their sales process, I have developed an acute understanding for the psychological issues that underlie every sales cycle — successful or not. One model I’ve developed for assessing the decision landscape is to classify the people involved in the selection process according to the following graph.
Fig. 1 Characteristics of Evaluators
Knowledge or Position Ability to Single-handedly Bully Dud JUICE Accommodating
The left axis refers to a person’s level of insistence that things be done his or her way. Decision-makers who get their way at any and all costs I’ve described as “bullies.” Being a bully is not necessarily a negative term, nor does it mean that the person is physically intimidating. It is simply the description of people who will tenaciously fight for their cause. A bully is not necessarily the senior-most person on the evaluation team. Title is relevant, but domain expertise, personal accountability, and exposure to business pain are equally likely to drive a particular decision-maker to play the “bully” role.
At the other end of the spectrum, are people who are accommodating. They are apathetic to whatever solution is purchased. The degree to which people are a bully or accommodating depends on the effect the purchase decision has on their span of control, position in the company, or ability to perform their job.
On the horizontal axis, is the concept of “juice” vs. “dud.” Simply put, juice is charisma. But even this definition is too simple. Some people are natural-born leaders. They have an aura that can motivate and instill confidence. That’s juice. Juice is fairly hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.
Again, having juice is not necessarily a trait only held by the highest-ranking person in an organization. Oftentimes, it is the mid-level champion who has the juice to get a deal done. He or she imparts his or her own will on the selection process by single-handedly selecting the vendor, pushing the purchase through the procurement process, finalizing the purchase terms, and, ultimately, getting the deal through whatever C-level approvals are necessary. While there may be several bullies there will only be one that has juice. It is the bully who occupies the highest position farthest to the right that is the ultimate decision-maker.
“Duds” are named after the ineffective firework they represent. Sometimes the fuse of a firework will burn down, but nothing will happen. Some fireworks may be very big but produce disappointing results. Duds have a lot of big talk but little action. “Accommodating duds” are people who do not take an active role in the sales process. Even worse are “dud bullies” who try to pretend they have juice, but they don’t. For the salesperson, the realization of this may not come until too late.
Finding the “Bully” with “Juice”
For all of the people involved in the sales selection process, Heavy Hitters calculate their amount of juice and their propensity to be a bully. Heavy Hitters naturally gravitate to bullies with juice—the people who can get the deal done. And Heavy Hitters recognize that this role is not only the purview of C-level executives.
A person with juice may be apathetic to the purchase of your product. For example, a Chief Information Officer who has juice probably doesn’t care what toner cartridges are purchased for the laser printers. For that procurement process, he or she will be accommodating and support the decision of the people who have been tasked to make that recommendation. Someone else has the juice for the procurement of toner cartridges.
The most powerful position in all of sales is when your coach (internal advocate within the customer’s company) has the “juice.” If your coach has the juice, you win! The next best scenario is when your coach can influence the person with juice.
Some people believe that the economy has changed the way products are purchased. People will argue that some purchases are truly made by committee without a bully with the juice. While a committee does put more fingerprints of accountability on the product selection, behind every committee (and its creation) is a bully who has the juice.
There are three important rules regarding the bully who has the juice: 1. If you cannot accurately determine who the bully with juice is in your deal
and none exists, be prepared for no decision to be made. It takes a bully with the juice to make every purchase happen. And it’s your job to engage with an account at all levels, in order to fully understand the people involved in the decision and whether they can play this critical role.
2. When there is a bully with the juice in your deal and this person is not helping you, always assume they are helping someone else. Therefore, the deal is lost. You have to get to the bully with juice first, or you will be fighting from behind the entire time — ultimately, only to lose.
3. If a bully with the juice does exist but you aren’t able to identify the person, be prepared to lose as you are in a position of extreme risk. If this person doesn’t know your company or product exist, you might as well not waste your time.
Remember, it is a mistake to assume the bully with juice is always the C-level executive. And, even in cases where the C-level executive is playing that role, the earlier you engage with multiple players in the decision process, the sooner you will be able to determine who the bully with juice is in your deal.
Tips for Selling Below C-Level
So how do you figure out the decision landscape without an org chart? Too often, sales reps find themselves flying without a map. Their only visibility into the players who will make a decision on their product is the CEO they found on the web site and the person who issued the RFP. And that’s only if you’re lucky enough that there’s a formal procurement process. More often in today’s economy, you need to create opportunities by finding the people within an organization who feel a business pain your solution can address. In such an un-structured decision process, it’s even more imperative that you find the bully with juice early.
To help sales reps plot out their plan of attack below the C-level, I have developed the following 10 tips for engaging with new accounts. By following these simple steps, you can ensure you gain visibility into all the decision makers—enabling you to quickly identify your bully with juice, or qualify yourself out early.
1. Find the person who feels the pain
Understand your solution well enough to characterize the business pain it solves, and focus on finding that person who can identify with that pain— even if it requires many calls to multiple people at the account. Even a junior manager can be that bully with juice if they are properly motivated by their day-to-day suffering.
2. Initiate your attack at multiple levels simultaneously
If you can establish points of contact and some awareness of your offering at several levels, from C-level down to mid-management, you help ensure that your are reaching the appropriate influencers and preserving your ability to re-initiate communication as you understand better who has the juice.
3. Cross functional boundaries
Frequently, particularly with technology products and services, a decision will cross organizational boundaries. For example, the IT department may run the evaluation, the CIO may write the check, but it may be a VP in a line of business who has the juice to get the deal done. Never assume a vertical decision-making environment.
4. Build off every point of contact
As you engage with various decision makers, you can wield amazing power by referencing those conversations with others. A phrase to a CXO such as “I’m talking to Joe, and I assume he’s the right person to be talking to about this” or to a mid-manager that “I left a message for your CEO, but thought I’d call you as well” will give the impression of an “insider”—and open up people at various levels to share more information.
5. Triangulate the decision makers
Another advantage of engaging with multiple decision makers is you can piece together insights that give you a complete view of the decision process and who really has the juice. If three people mention, “I need to talk to Joe about that” then Joe has the juice!
6. Cross-check everything you hear
If you’re only getting your information from one person, you are particularly susceptible to getting boxed out, often by a bully with no juice. Corroborate everything you hear by establishing multiple sources and cross-checking your information. This process also helps you uncover the real juice—whether people tell you who that person is or not.
7. Understand and accept your level of relevance
It may sound obvious, but if you’re trying to sell toner cartridges to the CIO, you’re calling on the wrong person! Each purchase has a natural level of diminishing C-level interest. A mid-level manager who actually cares about your offering and has the juice to get it done, is more advantageous than a disinterested CEO any day.
8. Leverage every relationship you have into an account
Every sales rep understands the power of a senior-level relationship into a target account. But lower-level relationships can be equally valuable. Frequently, it’s a person at a different level in a different department, who is not involved in the decision at all, who may be willing to give you the most candid insights into the decision process and who has juice. So find the engineer at your company who happens to be dating a marketing person at your target account—that person can be a wealth of information.
9. Research the organization
Who has the juice and how an organization makes decisions varies greatly by company. By factoring in attributes such as employee size, revenue, industry, and even geography, you’ll get a better sense of how they likely operate. Also, how have they made decisions like this before? Who made the decision? Is the process formal or informal? The person with the juice at a particular organization for a particular decision may vary. By answering these questions, you’ll gain a better understanding of who you need to win over.
10. Build an influence chart
Who reports to whom? Which departments are affected by this decision? Who is talking? Who is listening? Who gets people to stop talking when he or she speaks up? These are the insights that lead to understanding the influencers for a deal. By mapping these out, you can get closer and closer to finding your bully with juice.
By following these account engagement tips, you can ensure that your attack plan into an account is sound. You can reduce your dependence on C-level cold calls. And you can find that bully with juice—regardless of his or her function, level or role—to get access to the account, make the short list and win the deal.
About Steve Martin
In roles ranging from salesperson to vice president, Steve Martin has been personally respon-sible for over a quarter billion dollars of high technology sales while working for leading edge Silicon Valley companies over the past twenty years. As a top sales producer for a billion dollar software company, Steve began to develop several neurolinguistic models for creating successful relationships based upon a customer’s language, personality, and thought process. As vice president of sales, Steve successfully trained his salespeople on these principles. Steve is the author of “Heavy Hitter Selling—How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy”and just released a new book titled, “The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White”which chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of Informix Software. As a sales trainer, Steve has helped thousands of salespeople become Heavy Hitters. To learn more about the author and his book visit http://www.heavyhitterselling.com.
About Spoke Software
Spoke delivers an on-demand sales prospecting application for sales professionals looking to quickly identify prospects and gain access to buyers. Unmatched in scope, Spoke’s subscription service provides information on nearly 30 million people across more than 500,000 companies, giving sales and marketing professionals the ability to profile target accounts, develop prospect lists, and gain access to decision makers. With direct integration to Salesforce.com™
and Siebel CRM OnDemand™
, as well as the ability to download leads to a spreadsheet, Spoke allows companies to instantly develop a highly-targeted sales pipeline. Based in San Mateo, California, Spoke Software is a privately-held company with investment from US Venture Partners, Sierra Ventures, Partech International and DCM— Doll Capital Management. For more information visithttp://www.spoke.comor email us at [email protected].
