Seven Common Sales Challenges that Prevent Executive Level Access
By Jeff Thull
 With
the complexity of today’s business solutions and their
organization-wide impact, many senior level executives are
actively involved in the sales process. Yet many companies
are finding that their sales professionals are not connecting
to the power in the executive suite.
Gaining access and connecting to executive decision makers
can mean the difference between winning and losing sales.
Here are seven common challenges that sales professionals
must overcome to effectively engage those in the executive
suite:
1. The salesperson doesn’t connect to the
executive’s critical business issues and gets delegated
to a lower-level person.
Brilliant ideas and valuable products and services elicit
indifference if you can’t immediately establish credibility
about and connect to the executive’s most pressing
issues. Your credibility comes via the relevancy you establish
in your introduction by connecting your solutions or capabilities
to the business drivers. If you reference challenges the
industry is facing or the company’s objectives in
a substantive way, executives will recognize that they couldn’t
have this conversation with anyone else.
2. Your strongest contact in the client’s
organization no longer holds the power to make the buying
decision.
In today’s highly competitive and volatile marketplace,
globalization, consolidation, and centralization are some
of the reasons that decisions move to higher levels of power
and influence. This movement is forcing even the most experienced
sales professionals to expand their expertise and compete
at new levels in organizations.
Expecting that a single contact in your client’s
organization can and will carry your message effectively
is hanging on to thin threads of hope. It is critical that
we translate the value we can create at the technical, operational,
or clinical level to the impact it has on the client’s
business. That’s a conversation most executives want
to have.
3. Your competition is in the executive suite and
you aren’t.
Can the competition get into the executive suite and take
your account while you believe your relationship is strong
at the operations level? Absolutely! Salespeople typically
spend more time preparing for a prospect visit than for
a current client visit. Don’t let over-familiarity
lull you into understanding less about your client than
your competitor does. Gain advantage and pull ahead of competitive
threats by establishing a broad base of relationships that
will preempt and neutralize competitive moves.
4. You have bought into, “I make the final
decision,” when, in fact, you are hung up with someone
who barely influences the decision.
Understand how your solution affects each level of responsibility
within your client’s organization. It is only natural
that you will interact at all levels to understand the full
potential of your solution, and after the sale to assure
that the full value of your solution is being achieved.
Building these relationships as you gather information will
ensure you are firmly grounded with those who are both impacted
and influenced by the decision.
5. You reach the person who holds the checkbook,
but you can’t build the financial case that person
needs to make the buying decision.
The financial executive plays an increasingly central role
in setting the strategy of the organization and how to fund
the implementation of that strategy. Do not place the burden
on your clients to translate your technical advantages into
the financial impact of your solution. Involve them in your
calculations; have them collaborate, and then adjust your
assumptions. In the end, the client must “own”
the justification. Be an advisor, not a sales rep. Position
your solution as a strategic asset.
6. Third-party consultants are forcing you to compete
on price when you know that the information on the value
you would create for the client is not reaching the executive
level in the client’s organization.
Recognize that you and the third-party consultants have
the same client. Build the case for mutual gains with them
by asking the questions they have not thought of asking.
They will recognize the value you add to their position
and invite you into the executive suite. Help third-party
consultants manage a quality buying process that builds
successful outcomes for them, for you, and for your clients.
7. Your convincing proposal wins the first round
of approvals, but you find that the executive buy-in never
happens. The executive had criteria on the table that you
never tapped into, or even knew existed.
Engage executives early in the decision process to establish
the criteria that create senior-level ownership. Build winning
proposals that connect the business drivers at all levels
of influence and decision. Ask the in-depth questions that
have not occurred to your client. You should ask the questions
that expose the risks inherent in a successful implementation
of your solution.
Executives are concerned about working with suppliers who
truly understand their business, their customers’
demands, and their competitive landscape, as well as the
challenges associated with the implementation. If you cannot
speak to these issues, your time in the executive suite
will be brief.
To help you get started in gaining access and communicating
with credibility, here are three suggestions:
- Understand the executive mindset.
Gain insight into how they think, what they expect, what
makes them move forward, and how they drive management
support. They are looking for ideas and resources to execute
their strategy, and how to reduce risk and increase the
probability of success.
- Create compelling relevancy.
Build a value assumption that will connect your capabilities
to the executive agenda and ensure you have strong executive-level
sponsorship to prove or disprove the hypothesis.
- Establish exceptional credibility.
Expected credibility is what you know about your solution.
Exceptional credibility is what you know about your client’s
business. Look at your words and your documents. Are they
about you and your solution, or are they about your clients
and their businesses?
When you understand the mindset of executives, connect
to their agenda, and establish exceptional credibility,
you will have meaningful conversations that often result
in long-term and mutually beneficial relationships.
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Jeff Thull is President and CEO of Prime Resource Group,
and a thought leader in the area of sales and marketing
strategies for companies involved in complex sales. He’s
the author of the bestselling books Mastering
the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes
are High and The
Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and
Win the Complex Sale. Thull’s new
book, Exceptional Selling: How the Best Connect
and Win in High Stakes Sales, will be released
September 2006.
For more information contact: Prime Resource Group, support@primeresource.com,
www.primeresource.com.
Read our other articles by Jeff Thull, How
to Prevent Unpaid Consulting and The
Best Kept Secret of the Selling World.
Also, read two Management Consulting News
interviews with Jeff Thull:
Jeff Thull
discusses why solution selling fails
Jeff
Thull on the sales strategies of top-performing consultants.
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