We are told to sell to decision makers and not waste your time with those minions who hold no budget authority. Well selling top-down versus bottom-up is very much one of those religious arguments in sales only overshadowed by the Social-Selling vs. Cold Calling debate.
What we all can agree on is that having a relationship with the CEO is helpful in selling. In a recent interview with Nudge.ai's CEO Paul Teshima we dug into the top of how he is open to working with sales people. The results of the interview are surprising and counterintuitive.
Here are the Top 3 takeaways:
1) Do Not Call, Email or Pitch. What? CEO's are Called, Emailed and Pitched all day every day and they are immune to them. So what am I suppose to do? Don't act like a salesperson, meaning you objective is not to sell the CEO on you or your product. The objective is to establish communication with the CEO. What Paul suggests is to engage with him on his content or his company's content. What does that mean? Commenting, liking and sharing gets you noticed. Asking an authentic question builds rapport, and you go from being a stranger to being known or a giver.
2) Don't talk about your product, talk about what your client get as an outcome from your product. Paul shared that he wants to know how other companies like his would gain from working with you. CEO's do not care about what it does but rather what it does for their team and customers. For Paul, if it drove increased product use or make his team's morale higher you would get his attention. So we need to talk about what a CEO cares about, and it is not just higher profits and lower expenses.
3) Do Not Ask for a meeting. Unless the CEO is the direct and sole end user of your product what you want is an introduction to the right person. The right person is dependent on what you sell, but it is usually the person who will use and want/need your product. The days of CEO's mandating products and approaches are over, and every CEO know that getting buy-in and consensus is required.
If you would like to hear the entire interview just click HERE.
If you have any other approaches that you would like to share, please comment below.
Thanks for stop by and I welcome new connections,
Brian