Executive Selling Training Tips to Get an Executive to Meet You

Selling to Executives is Different
And executive selling training tips are different from the business sales training tips that prepare you to sell at other levels in an organization.  CEO’s are busy people.  They need you to get right to the heart of what matters most TO THEM.

Why should executives meet with you?

How to Connect with C-Level Buyers
To make meaningful connections with executives during the sales process, executive selling training experts know you need to adopt a different approach. In general, executives will be ready to take action as a result of your meeting together if you can show them a clear and compelling way to help with the most important and pressing parts of their job.

That means that you must clearly show that you can do it better, easier, faster, or cheaper than their other available alternatives.

What You Need to Understand
To do this, your sales force needs to understand what drives the most important decisions of their executive clients and be ready to offer relevant outside perspectives and insights that will help them do at least one of the following executive selling training tips better than an alternative approach:

• Increase revenues or decrease costs
• Do the job better or faster
• Execute a key strategic imperative
• Improve their internal organization and deployment of resources
• Manage risks and reduce threats to the business
• Enhance and grow their customer base
• Stay ahead of market trends and plan for future challenges
• Meet potential new business partners
• Stay compliant as regulations change and tighten

How to Prepare
So before you meet with an executive make sure that you are prepared for the sales call by reviewing the company website to understand executive backgrounds, strategic initiatives, financial trends, and customers.  Pay special attention to annual reports, the letter from the CEO, their 10K, and press releases.  Then update yourself on recent news to be aware of market trends and competition.

Lastly use whatever tools you have at your disposal to network and learn more about the company and its major players.  Do not expect your executive buyers to have the same patience with standard sales discovery questions as non-executive buyers.  Research from gong across 400,000 sales calls found that CEO’s will tolerate four effective sales questions — half as many as lower level buyers.

The Bottom Line
Sales management training experts know that the salesperson who can provide meaningful value with fresh insights and industry expertise is the salesperson who will be welcomed time and again into the C-suite. Is your sales team focused on what matters most to your clients and their business?

To learn more about creating a high performance sales environment to take your sales force to the next level, download The Keys to Creating a High Performance Sales Culture.