How to Sell to Executives

When you think of a “Sales Pitch” you’d probably think of opening your laptop and pitch deck and giving a presentation in front of decision-makers; bad idea. 

I’ve been selling most of my life and here in this series, I’ll share some of the best lessons I’ve learnt that they don’t teach you in school from getting the meeting to closing the deal.

Look up WHO

Social Media

Always look up the person you’re meeting on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Check out if you have any mutual connections who can introduce you or you can ask about the executive. Get some background on their personality, what’s going on in their company and life right now - you’re selling to people who have lives and emotions make sure you understand what matters to them.

I once walked into a meeting with a CEO and straight-up asked him if he played golf as I saw on LinkedIn he was connected with all my buddies who all played golf. He was shocked and immediately gave me his full undivided attention.

Org Chart

In most B2B deals there are 7+ decision-makers involved before the decision is done. Who are your champions, who are the blockers and who are the ultimate decision-makers?

Sometimes it’s best not to go to the top, talk to someone below who might have the time but can also share insights on what priorities and challenges the company are having at the moment, it will make your conversation with the CEO much more valuable.

Financial Reports

Somethings you can quote directly from the CEO and get a better understanding of where that company is going and whether they had a good year. It will make you sound much more like a trusted advisor who’s done their homework.

GET the meeting

Getting the meeting is probably the hardest thing. First thing; if you cold call or send email templates: STOP. How many of those cold calls or emails do you actually end up buying from? None.

Referrals have always been, and always will be the best way to meet new people: whether it's for a pitch or a hire. Try and identify if there are any mutual connections on LinkedIn who can refer you or CC you in an email with a recommendation.

I once met the Asia CEO of a Global Insurance Company who said to me

“Marco, I am a very busy woman, the only reason why I’m meeting you is because of Nathan. I’m doing him a huge favour”

I responded with “now imagine your sales reps could do the same thing and get referred to high-level meetings at scale” - “Marco, you have my attention”. I closed that deal :)

I get so many template emails it pisses me off; but if a friend or someone I know said “Marco you have to meet this person” - I will, sure enough, give this person some of my mindshare whether it’s over email, phone or coffee depends but I’ll respond.

Customise Cold

Now IF you have to go in cold; go CUSTOM - nothing pisses people off more than a copy-paste email template that has no relevance to them. Do your homework as I mentioned in “WHO”. You literally have 3-5 SECONDs to impress them. Use something they said in public or in a financial report in the email subject line, or something completely unrelated. Or perhaps you have some information on one of their biggest competitors - valuable to your customer.

One of the best email subject lines I wrote was:

“BEER on me”

and I had found out from one of his subordinates that he loved beer and Huddersfield Football Club. I talked about how awesome Huddlesfield were doing as they were getting promoted to the Premier League. I got a response within 2 minutes saying “Done. See you at Frites Tuesday 5 PM”. The fact that he’s agreed to have a beer with me is already 50% of the sale done.

If everything fails; FedEx or DHL your email. I open ALL the mail I get, even if it’s junk - send a custom handwritten card or note with the contents of your email. Even if you don’t get a response, at least they will open it.

PRE-GAME prep

OK REALLY DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Not like school homework but research the company and people (probably more than 1 person) you will be meeting like your job depends on it (it kinda does..). Be able to move between people and ideas in the meeting because you know them like the back of your hand, how to push their buttons and how to make them lean-in.

I’ve got a lot of job offers from clients asking if I’d been keen on working for them as I’ve impressed them with how much I knew about their company and priorities. In fact, my current job here at Wanted was because my LinkedIn client referred me! He was MBA classmates with my current boss, who asked him if he knew anyone who could grow the startup in Hong Kong.

History

Understand the history between your two companies; check the CRM and if any previous conversations have happened, then what happened. It will give you a better context as to how to approach this meeting. I’m pretty sure you’re not the first salesperson who has sold to the company…

Know your solution inside-out

This is obvious BUT the number of salespeople whom I challenge and you know when they’re making up the response as they respond - they lose all credibility. Game over. Anticipate any common objection questions they may have and have an answer prepared or better yet try and understand why they are asking that question.

PRACTICE

I once heard from an executive “Amateurs practice till they make the shot. Pros practice until they can’t miss”. That’s why I’m an amateur golfer and Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods. In terms of presentations or speeches think à la Steve Jobs or Barack Obama. How in sync and amazing are their speeches?

Just like a basketball player taking a free-throw or a golfer going through their pre-shot routine, try and visualise the meeting, how you want it to feel, how you imagine the conversation going and walking into that room with confidence. Trust me it makes a big difference.

ON THE DAY of

Google “news” the company name, and see if there are any recent pieces of news you can use as ice-breakers and check the LinkedIn profile of the person you’re about to meet and stalk their “recent activity” to see if there’s anything you can reference. You have such a powerful tool in your phone at your fingertips use it on your way to the meeting to research any current updates - if there are none just use this time as a refresher before the meeting - has that person been promoted or recently changed jobs? All helpful info for you :)

Think Compassionate

Your client didn’t wake up this morning thinking I’m so excited to hear your sales presentation! Understand they probably have had back to back meetings all day and are probably tired, especially if your meeting is in the late afternoon! Put yourself in her shoes for a minute and try and imagine what their day has been like, their mood will often play a part in how much small talk you go into or if you get straight to the point.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

The human brain is powerful and when you’re trying to be compassionate, showing how much you care; your body language, tone and manner will adapt to show empathy and relate to the person you’re speaking to. As a general rule of thumb, ask more open-ended questions and have them speak 90% of the time - people like talking about themselves, so let them. They will leave the meeting thinking wow I really enjoyed speaking with Marco - when all you did was ask open-ended questions.

FIRST IMPRESSION

Create a powerful first impression; a firm handshake, smile with eye contact. It will show you are confident, respectful and it’s a rehearsal of when you close the deal :) Remember you’re here to earn their trust and achieve the next steps you want to achieve. 

Start with ice-breakers think of something to comment on at the office or something personal to them, something to get the conversation going, don’t walk to the meeting room in silence, but remember not to drag on for too long, you’re serious and here to talk business.

The subconscious mind

They say 70% of communication is body language (watch this). Ever study NLP? Whether you realise it or not you’re communicating with your prospect with your body language more so than what you say. Before you sit down, try and sit in an “L” shape on the corner of the table. Most people sit across the table from each other, subconsciously you are automatically saying you’re on the other side of the table, it’s me VS you. Have you ever seen those presidential conversations between Donald Trump and Xi Jing Ping? They are always sitting on chairs, shoulder-to-shoulder with each other when negotiating, never face to face. Similarly, in a sales meeting, sit shoulder to shoulder or even on the same side, never across the boardroom table.

THE MEETING

DONT OPEN YOUR LAPTOP

When you open your laptop and load up that pitch deck your company gave you, automatically your client’s brain is going “uh-oh, here we go, I’m going to get a long presentation where I’m going to be sold to” - bye-bye attention. 

Leave your laptop and documents in your bag; when executives meet they’re having a conversation, not a pitch or presentation. Unless you’re on Shark Tank or Dragon’s Den and you have 5 minutes to pitch an idea for funding dollars, leave your laptop in your bag. Bring it out only if you need. Also, by going through your pitch deck, you’re going through YOUR agenda, not your client’s agenda. 

At the start of the meetings set the objectives of the meeting, and confirm with your client what they want to get out of the meeting. Most conversations between executives are exactly that, conversations so keep it like a conversation, always engaging and asking questions and it’s a two-way dance. 

DON’T thank them for their time

The number of times I’ve seen sales reps say “Thank you so much for your time, I know you’re so busy” it automatically says that you're not worth their time and elevates them to a pedal stool. Your time is precious too, you’re an expert in your field or solution and you know the time spent together is going to be worth it.

Teach and Learn

Think of your pitch as you teach them something but also ask open-ended questions so you can learn more about their problems and pain points. As a matter of fact, the less you talk the better - the more you’ll know and the more you can tailor your conversation. People like talking about themselves so let them talk about themselves. If by the end of your meeting your client enjoys the conversation and walks out not feeling like they’ve been sold to and just had an enjoyable conversation, learning and sharing their frustrations, they’ll like you!

Try and quantify the problem - paint a picture

Everyone is a data company now, however, most pieces of data don’t mean anything to anyone unless you can paint a picture or put it into context.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod it had 30GB and 60GBs of memory; that doesn’t mean much for most people, but when he said “That’s 1000 songs in your pocket” - which put things into context as CD players at that time could only fit 20 or so songs and it wouldn’t fit in any pocket! When I was selling LinkedIn; most of my colleagues would say we have 1 million members in Hong Kong - so what? I asked “have you ever been to Hong Kong Stadium? Imagine 7 full stadiums of C-Level Executives who you could InMail like a Whatsapp message, straight into their pockets.” Mic-drop moment. 

If you need to use some visual aids, try and use a whiteboard and marker instead of a laptop - subconsciously it puts a teacher-student mentality into your client’s mind, where you are the teacher teaching them something valuable.

CLOSE THE DEAL

Always try and close the deal during that first meeting, it’s hard enough getting time in front of an executive and most of the time if they are the decision-maker they’ll be able to make a decision on the spot. If not, make sure you get concrete next steps.

10 mins left

In the last 10 minutes, bring them back to check if you met the meeting objectives; recap what the objectives were and try and see if there was anything else they needed before trying to close the deal. Oftentimes conversations can get off-topic but if you’ve built so much trust and rapport by now you should be in a position to ask for the deal.

5 WHYS

You can verbally propose the deal and ask “how does that sound to you?”. If there are any concerns this is where it usually arises. When you ask why 5 times you can often get to the bottom of the real reason behind an objection. Try it with a friend. Ask them a question, then regardless of what they answer, ask why. It’s pretty fun!

In a sales meeting when faced with an objection like “we have no budget” or “let me think about it and get back to you” - ask 5 WHYs and you’ll figure out the real reason, either they are not the decision-maker or there’s another objection as to why they’re not buying. Handle that objection and go close the deal! 

NEXT STEPS

You have the most of client’s mindshare NOW. Right after the meeting; send a note that you’re on the action items and send a thank you note. Strike while the iron is hot. Keep your executive up to date on what you discussed; sometimes days or weeks go by without any touchpoint. By updating your client it re-inforces your credibility and keeps them up to date.

Connect on LinkedIn

Always connect with someone on LinkedIn after you’ve met them. You can share periodic value-adding content on LinkedIn and your connections (including your prospects) will see these updates to keep you top of mind. Sometimes they’re just not ready to buy yet, but because you’re top of mind, when they’re ready - they’ll reach out. I’m connected to a chef at my local sports club and he always comes over to my table and talks about stuff I shared on my LinkedIn! I had no idea he was even reading it or cared! 

These are just some basic tips where I tried to be as concise and to the point as possible. If you’d like to learn more or get more information, subscribe/follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn and drop me a personalised and custom message, I’ll respond - and if not, send me a FedEx, I’ll open it :)