Selling at C-level for Dummies - #4/12

Sorry for the delay (assuming you're gagging for the next issue in the series, which I suspect you're not).

In the previous three episodes/newsletters/editions/whatever we covered:

• Why Sell at C-Level? Heaps of reasons if you sell high value stuff, the main one being it's a lot easier, you win bmore deals and you sell higher value deals.
• What is C-level anyway? Whoever has the ultimate decision making authority & sufferes the consequences of their business issue not being resolved.
• Targeting the right companies. Identifying the characteristics of your ideal customers with one or more Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP)
• Identifying the specific companies to target. Getting a list of the companies in your region/territory that fit your Ideal Customer Profile(s).

In the last edition I suggested starting with between 50 and 100 target companies. This is because we're going to target them - or to be more specific, individuals that work in them - with personalised messages that focus on what they care about, based on the industry they're in, their role in the company, the business problem(s) you help with and their own particular concerns.

We'll look at how to take a core message and adapt if to an individual's perspective in the sections on messaging, but before that we need to look at:

Targeting the right people

Let's look at one specific (I use that word a lot, don't I?) company that's a high value target - a company that fits your Ideal Customer Profile and that you believe has lots of potential - if only you can speak to the right people.

We'll repeat this process for every company on your target list (you can get your SDRs, or an Executive Assistant, or a smart graduate, or someone else who isn't you to do this once you've set out the criteria for them to follow).

So, who are the people you want to speak to and why?

This depends on a couple of things:

• The business problem(s) you help with. Who is responsible for fixing the problem, who suffers from it operationally, strategically & financially?
• The size of the company you're targeting - relative to the business problem & what you sell. For example, if you know you can save Amazon $10 million a year you wouldn't call Jeff Bezos because that's a relatively small amount for him. But if $10 million is 5% of a company's revenue then you should certainly be talking to the CEO or equivalent
• A heap of other stuff that's specific (there's that word again) to your situation.

Let's use me as an example. I help sales leaders to access senior executives in their target prospects and to make sure when they have a meeting they get the best possible results.

The problems I help solve are:

1. We aren't selling high enough and we're losing deals because of it
2. We can't get enough meetings with executives at the right level
3. When we do get a meeting with a senior executive we aren't cutting through and finding high value sales opportunities.

The consequences of those problems are many:

1. We're not making our numbers
2. We're losing sales
3. Our sales people and sales leaders are failing so we're seeing high salesforce turnover and it's becoming a spiralling problem.
4. Our share price is tanking

I don't work with multinational companies because they're a pain in the arse (or ass if you're in the USA) to deal with and they have far too much bureaucracy & too many hoops for suppliers to jump through. Plus they're lousy payers.

If I'm talking to a big (say a billion $ plus) Australian company I'm probably going to talk to the Sales Director, the Head of Sales Enablement, maybe the Sales Manager of a business unit, maybe Director of Business Development - all depending on what the company does and how it's structured.

If I'm talking to a $50 million private company I'll probably target the CEO and the Director of Sales.

I might also target people lower down the food chain - individual salespeople, customer service managers, etc.. Not to sell to them but to get information I can use when I talk to the top brass.

I may even talk to people who used to work for the company to get a different perspective and refine my message.

But that's me. What about you?

Who do you target?

We need to look at this generically and then individually. In other words:

• What roles (you can call them personas if you want, although I'm not keen on the term) do you need to talk to. At a senior level (e.g. CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, etc.); at a managerial level (e.g. Finance Manager, Warehouse Manager, Sales Manager) and at an operational level.
• Which specific individuals perform those roles at this particular company? Remembering that different companies use different titles for the same roles.

The interesting thing is that the higher up the company structure you go the easier it is to find people. C-level executives are pretty easy to find - they're often on the company web site, usually on LinkedIn and often are referenced in the press, online or in company press releases.

It's more of a challenge lower down but it's possible to do it using a combination of AI, LinkedIn, the phone and a bit of imagination. And your CRM, with a lot of caution.

Contact discovery

Identifying the right people requires a reasonable degree of skill but anyone with half a brain and the ability to talk on the phone can do it - if they're well trained. I've worked with companies that make this a specific role - the contact discovery person's role is simply to identify people to target and confirm their title and that they're still at the company.

In my experience most CRMs are full of incorrect or outdated information which is why i advocate caution - by all means look at your CRM but don't believe what you see - check it. (The same applies to LinkedIn. People move, retire, die, tell fibs.)

Personally I prefer to have whoever identifies contacts to double up doing different levels of research - we'll cover this later.

So who should you target? I don't know. But you do.

• The highest possible person/people who are concerned with the problems you help with and who suffers the consequences of them not being fixed.
• The managerial level person/people responsible for finding a solution
• The operational person/people who have to make the solution work and who have to handle the every day issues around it.

Each of these people has a different perspective of the issue. When you contact them you do so for different reasons and with a different message that reflects their viewpoint.

If you try to talk about operational issues with people at the top you'll lose them - you need to talk about their KPIs and how you can help them achieve them.

If you talk to management they also care about their KPIs - which are different from the executives. You need to be careful about "selling" to them because they can block you or put you off, so what you say and when you say it is important.

And people at the operational level can provide valuable insights if you know how to elicit these - but you certainly shouldn't try to sell to them.

A useful tactics

People - particularly receptionists & executive assistants - are very reluctant to give out information to salespeople. If you ask who is in charge of X, or for someone's email address they will usually say they don't give out such information.

But they are much more willing to confirm something you already know or correct you if you're wrong.

If you say "who is your warehouse manager" you'll probably get nowhere. But if you say "I'm looking for George Gallop, I think he's your warehouse manager, is that right?" they'll usually say "that's right", or "he's left/moved" and you can then say - "well it's been a while since we talked, who's filling his role now?"

If they ask why you want to know just say you want to send him/her an invitation.

If you ask for an email address they will often say "we don't give out email addresses". But if you say "it's [email protected] isn't it?" they'll often correct you. And if they don't, say "could you possibly forward an email to him?" they'll often say yes - and give you their email (and therefore the likely format).

Summary

When you're sending a message to a company you're actually sending it to one, or more usually several, individuals. So you need to know who they are.

Once you know that you can start thinking about the message and your objective - they go hand in hand. We'll cover those in the issue after next.

The next edition will cover Understanding Your Prospects' Priorities.

The money shot

In case you didn't know, I specialise in helping senior sales executives & sales leaders sell more effectively (and sell more) to C-level executives and other senior decision makers.

If that's you and you want to know more just send me a message via LinkedIn (I don't tend to read my emails if I don't know the sender).

And last of all - a favour

I hope you've found at least some of this valuable and/or interesting. If you have, please click through to LinkedIn and "like" my post and also comment - it all helps get more eyeballs.

And if you have any questions and comments I promise to answer them to the best of my ability.

Cheers, Steve