FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT just to get the meeting!

Breakthrough: 27 touches. 3 months. 3 continents.

It started in the CRM and progressed to the dialer. The company had been contacting this lead for 6 years via drip campaigns in marketing automation to no avail.

"Please stop calling, I told you we are cool; we're good!" I was amused. Bring it!

I kept going... I saw an article in WIRED magazine where the CMO was talking about innovation. I had the "use case." I had the "business case." It hit me like a bolt out of the blue.

So I wrote her an InMail. Then I wrote her an email with her quotes in the top script. I then called her direct line. Amazingly, there was no EA and it rang right to her voicemail.

So I tracked the email in Cirrus Insight and noticed she forwarded it 25 times: to Britain, to the West Coast of the States, to the East Coast.

2 Days later data driven by the opens and forwards analytics, I called her office and left a message again. I sent another email. It was opened 6 times. Forwarded to some more far off destinations.

At last on a Friday night, a response:

"My team has informed me that we're already using a solution like yours but you'd have to talk to my colleague in the UK who vets everything like this."

I thanked the CMO profusely and felt pretty jazzed I broke through with a COMBO after the company could never engage this Fortune 1,000 after 6 years.

Next step was to start dialing on the UK. I finally pinned down a response using TRIPLES: Call, email, vmail. The problem was that UK confirmed the incumbent was already deep in there, in fact just installed plus they were very satisfied.

But it didn't matter because I sold a complex solution so I pivoted to another pillar. I found the CEO of the Problem in the Midwest and referenced the vetter in UK and the CMO. I called them for 3 weeks straight, 5 COMBOs: call, vmail, email - each time. Never a response.

But then he took the meeting. We demoed and he vetted the stack. He loved it and figured out we could replace the incumbent, lower TCO and in time (once contracts expired) provided a single holistic view of the data. This was a bonanza; David vs Goliath.

Was it 27 touches, was it 63. Maybe it was 100. It was COMBOs all the way. Grit, tenacity, vision and a relevant business case.

The person who asked to stop being called left the business and that's a good thing because they were the blocker. I didn't give up. I saw that departure as a trigger. I got in the air and I pitched to the team and gained consensus as part of helping them craete the business case with all the complex funding issues covered. I got a deal.

I got punched in the face from day one. I heard crickets. The account was radio silent. The competitor was embedded. But I got in high at the C-level and made the case for a solution sale where I could plug in my technology as a turbocharger for a multi-vendor approach but with the ultimate outcome of "far greater value from fewer supplier relationships"... their CFO loved it. Best of breed initially from us and, over time, integrated single view of everything they needed all in one place and with one system.

This is what it's going to take to succeed in sales. The CMO gets 1,700 emails a month. They get 200 InMails a week. They have a full-time EA blocking.

But like Dale Carnegie said, "nothing in the English language is as beautiful as the sound of the prospect's own name." And nothing is more relevant than their own quotes in leading publications or the annual shareholder call. Look, they're putting themselves out there on the world stage to build their brand. They MUST know what the competition is doing in your sector to stay 50 steps ahead. Cialdini's social proof.

The apex predator's competitive instinct is to kill or be killed. That's how they got into the corner office. Can you? Apply COMBO and you will. CEOs come from top sellers.

"Visualize the goal, germinate the seed, plan for success," I thought to myself.

You don't have to bite their ear off with rudeness or bluntness. Be the honey badger and cultivate finesse while being wildly persistent. Progress, enable, educate and multi-thread the organization worldwide.

This is how you FIGHT for the meeting. Once you open, you're in the clear.

Assemble the A-Team. Your CTO, your CEO, your Solutions Consultants. Scramble a jet on the tarmac. Parachute in and make sure it's a brainstorming or whiteboarding session where they're talking 80% of the time. Sell a multiplier not "rip and replace."

Build consensus in a place that used to be broken. Harmonize.

Sell in. Land and expand. If you build it, they will come.

The concepts in this article will be in my new book, COMBO Prospecting, being published by AMACOM New York, Christmas 2017. If you valued this article, please hit the ‘like' button and also share via your Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook social media platforms. I encourage you to join the conversation or ask questions so feel free to add a comment on this post. Please follow my LinkedIn post page for all my articles and visit me at www.tonyhughes.com.au if you are looking for a keynote speaker. Go to www.RSVPselling.com for sales methodologies that generate pipeline and manage complex opportunities.