CHAPTER 10
Selling to the C-Suite
HIGH-PROFIT SELLING means finding ways to increase the profit potential of each customer or prospect. One surefire way to sell at a higher level of profit is by selling to those who bring a distinctive view to prices and margins. These people tend to occupy the C-suite and carry titles like CEO, COO, president, and vice president. They are the leaders of the company—the ones who look at things strategically first and tactically second. When customers view things strategically, they are much more concerned about the end result and the big picture of what the end result can create.
Understanding how C-suite occupants think is the first step in developing a strategy to sell to them. The problem many salespeople have is that they can get excited to meet with the occupants of the C-suite, but they don’t know how to adequately prepare for the meeting. More important, they do not know the key things the C-suite executives want when meeting with people from outside of their company. When you understand the process and are able to develop a plan, you will be in a position to use the C-suite to not just close more sales, but to do so at a higher margin.
What Language Do They Speak?
Imagine you show up for a sales presentation speaking English and discover that your potential customer speaks only French (and the extent of the French you know is “bonjour”). It is crazy to expect much success would come out of such a meeting, and yet this is exactly what happens when many salespeople try to communicate with somebody from the C-suite. The salesperson and the executive are not speaking the same language.
As uncomfortable as this scenario may seem to you, the salesperson, it can be equally uncomfortable for the other person, regardless of the person’s title of CEO, COO, or senior vice president. If you are going to develop a relationship with anyone, you better know how to communicate with that person.
When dealing with the C-suite or, for that matter, any high-level person at a large corporation, you need to first understand where the executive is coming from. Yes, executives are human beings just like you and me, and yes, they have physical and emotional needs just like everyone else. Beyond that, the similarities begin to diminish. Senior-level people are driven by a different set of norms and expectations than other people in the company. The way they value time and information, and their ability to leverage both of them, is what allows them to occupy the C-suite.
When dealing with the C-suite, you need to take several things into account. Executives are really quite isolated, despite all the attention that may appear to be directed toward them. Their isolation reflects the fact that they are in a very competitive environment, and as such, they don’t have the luxury of being as open with their thoughts and comments. C-suite people don’t have multiple peers in the same company with whom they can talk or compare ideas. The people they frequently interact with are generally lower in the company hierarchy. Understandably, employees who may be several layers below the executives are going to exercise a lot of caution when talking with the C-suite level.
Because of their isolation within the company, C-suite executives are often driven to have relationships with people outside their company. However, in looking for people with whom they can connect outside the company, they are still going to be very guarded until trust is established. In fact, one way to connect with those in the C-suite is to build relationships with people who do have relationships with them. Executives associate with other executives and/or with people who, even if they are not part of the C-suite, still command that level of respect and trust. They may be peers of the C-suite crowd. If you expect to sell to the C-suite, this is the crowd you want to be a part of.
You may need to alter your activities to allow yourself to travel in the right circles. As an example, look at how salespeople connect with decision makers at Wal-Mart. In the 1990s, many manufacturers decided the best way to sell to Wal-Mart would be to have their salespeople and support teams located near Wal-Mart’s offices in Bentonville, Arkansas. Obviously, this relocation strategy minimized travel expenses for the vendor’s sales team, but more important, it allowed salespeople to travel in the same circles the Wal-Mart decision makers frequented.
One of the key values to which Wal-Mart has always adhered is that its employees are not influenced in any way by a vendor. This means vendors are not able to use many of the typical approaches of entertainment and incentives to develop a relationship with a customer. With the normal approach blocked, vendors wanting to sell to Wal-Mart found they had to get creative in interacting with Wal-Mart executives. So, they became active in areas outside of work situations, such as school and athletic activities where their children played alongside the children of Wal-Mart executives. They also became involved in community functions as well as church and synagogue activities. By traveling in the same circle as the people they were trying to reach, opportunities to connect naturally developed. This is the same approach you should use when looking to connect with the C-suite.
You may say this approach is not realistic for you, because there are either too many C-suite people with whom you are trying to connect or geographic boundaries limit your ability to enter into their circle of activities. There are still other ways to break through, and they start with being seen as a peer.
Attributes Needed to Connect with the C-Suite
Let’s break down what it takes to be seen as a peer by people in the C-suite. It requires the following attributes:
Trust
Knowledge
Respect
Integrity
Confidence
Personal Control
Value of Time
Strategic Perspective
Value of Assets
Some of these attributes are very basic and some are far more complex. Let’s look at each one, starting with the bottom and working our way up, because the attributes at the bottom of the list are sometimes not as easily understood.
Value of Assets
This means understanding how assets can be used to one’s advantage. The most basic asset is money, but assets also include numerous other things a particular company may deem critical to its success. Examples may be commodities such as oil, gas, or wheat. They also may include intellectual assets, such as patents, proprietary knowledge, and protective agreements. Whatever they are, they are important to those in the C-suite, and anyone who is going to communicate with C-suite executives must know what assets they value. It’s not just important to know the assets, but also to understand how they are leveraged, how they are used, and the role they play in the company you’re looking to associate with.
Strategic Perspective
People lower down in an organization are always going to be tactically focused. They are concerned about accomplishing things now, so they tend to be driven more by short-term goals. The further up you go in an organization, the more strategic people become. People at the top are usually the most strategic people in the company. This does not mean they’re not concerned with immediate performance, but rather they have a better grasp on how short-term performance fits into long-term objectives.
One of the main examples is the strategic perspective on how to spend money. People at the top will spend money regardless of whether it is in the budget, provided they believe it will help them achieve an objective or allow them to position their company better strategically. This is the underlying reason why the best way to sell into an organization is to start at the top, because top-level executives are always less price focused than people lower down in an organization.
Value of Time
This may sound simple, but to executives in the C-suite, the value of time takes on an entirely new meaning. Not only is there the value of their time, but also the value of time on their assets. You might say that time has a compounding value. The more effectively time is used early on in the day, the more time is available later in the day. Furthermore, the more effectively someone uses time early in a project, the more time there is later to ensure the outcome of the project is better than expected.
C-suite executives know that time is their most valuable commodity, and everything they do is going to be measured against the amount of time it is going to take. If you are going to be seen as a peer to the C-suite club, you better be ready to accept that each minute of time has a price tag associated with it. What’s interesting, too, is that C-suite executives are just as concerned about those around them using their time correctly as they are about using their own time. They adhere to this principle because they know what can happen when someone does not use time efficiently.
Personal Control
People who occupy the C-suite display a certain high level of professionalism in the way they act, talk, dress, and respond to experiences. They know their actions are on display at all times. They know that while what they say and write is important, many times it is how they personally act that speaks loudest. It is only natural, therefore, that people who demonstrate a high degree of personal control are adept at recognizing a similar quality in other people. If a C-suite executive thinks you don’t demonstrate a high degree of personal control, then there is an automatic barrier that arises that will forever cloud anything you say. Yes, the C-suite does some stereotyping, but it’s no different than what you and I do every day when we encounter people, whether it’s in a store, on a street corner, or at a restaurant.
Confidence
This one may seem basic, too, but it is part of the list primarily because I want to define the attribute of confidence as separate from arrogance. Some people shy away from expressing their confidence for fear of being seen as arrogant. The person in the C-suite knows the difference between confidence and arrogance. Senior-level people do not have a problem with confidence. If someone else interprets C-suite executives as being arrogant—when really they are simply being confident—it’s the other person’s error, not theirs. Allow your confidence to come through when you are meeting with a member of the C-suite club. Failure to display your confidence will quickly result in disconnect between you and the C-suite.
Integrity
Integrity (or the lack thereof) is not only on display publicly in what we say and do, but often becomes most evident in what we don’t say or don’t do when no one else is around. People in the C-suite recognize this quality when assessing how someone deals with others. Interestingly, it’s not something people can readily identify in themselves. It is far easier to spot integrity in others based on how we see them behave, usually over an extended period of time.
While it takes time to develop integrity, it can take mere seconds to destroy it. View your integrity as a savings account into which you are making contributions on a regular basis, without the intention of ever withdrawing those deposits. Furthermore, do not allow there to be incongruence in how you carry yourself, publicly and privately. The old adage holds true: Your integrity shows up when no one else is watching.
Respect
This plays right into the other traits listed so far. Respect is clearly something people expect from others they come in contact with. Members of the C-suite are accustomed to receiving respect from others; therefore, in their eyes, respect is a nonissue, because they believe everyone should be practicing it. Of course, some people believe you can’t show respect and be confident at the same time. Members of the C-suite do not see a conflict here. In fact, they believe when the confident person shows the other person respect, it means a lot more. On the other hand, if a person who is not confident attempts to show respect, the C-suite executive will see it as pandering.
Knowledge
Anyone who is looking to communicate with someone in the C-suite must have a strong base of knowledge. For executives, knowledge is not just knowledge about their company and their industry, but also includes knowledge of geopolitical and business/economic issues. Knowledge, however, is not always exhibited in what you say. Knowledge is also seen in a person’s level of confidence in being prepared to handle whatever discussion may arise. You can break down the necessary knowledge into two categories. First, you need to know just enough about most topics to be able to actively participate in and understand a discussion on those topics. Second, you need a deep level of knowledge on the topics that are most important to the C-suite executive.
Trust
Finally, we come to trust, which is the foundation of every other trait C-suite executives expect to see in other people with whom they are going to associate. Without trust, there is no reason for a member of the C-suite to even have a discussion with the other person. The most basic way to prove trustworthiness is whether the parties involved can keep information private. In addition, when it is appropriate to share information with others, it must be done without fluff or exaggeration.
Connecting with the CEO Directly
Pick up your phone and call the CEO with whom you’ve always wanted to have a meeting. Go ahead and try it and see what happens. In the vast majority of situations, you won’t even come close to connecting with the CEO on the phone. In fact, many times you won’t connect with anyone even close to the C-suite. Don’t worry. Also don’t think for a moment that you are not going to be able to get the meeting you want. It just takes time.
Connecting with the CEO or anyone else in the C-suite requires a strategy. It requires a clear understanding of how you intend to break through. There are a number of different approaches, but two of the best ways are by 1) developing a relationship directly with the C-suite member or 2) connecting with the executive by way of a strong referral. You’ll notice I’m not saying one of the ways to the C-suite is by working your way up through the organization. This method is by all means the worst and least effective.
I encounter many salespeople who go to great lengths trying to convince me otherwise. They tell me that they’ve been successful by starting with the one contact they had somewhere in the company and then, through persistence and diligence, working their way up through the organization to a meeting with the CEO. Excuse me for being blunt, but that approach is rarely successful, and if it is successful, it is typically due to a lot of luck and the investment of way too much time. High-profit selling means not only being able to sell at a higher price, but also being able to sell in a time-efficient manner. Salespeople who spend years working their way up through a customer’s organization, encountering risk and failure along the way, are certainly not investing their time in an effective manner.
There is a simple reason that approach doesn’t work: With each step, you must have a successful sale. If anyone along the way rejects you or your company, you are back to square one. Your odds of being successful are about as likely as trying to throw a ball through several swinging tires at the same time. It’s just not going to work. If you want to connect with the CEO or any other person in the C-suite, you need to do it directly, either on your own or through a referral.
The 12 × 12 Approach
Over the years, an effective way I’ve found to connect with someone in the C-suite is to use what I call the 12 × 12 method. It involves having twelve points of communication over a twelve-month period. Yes, this method takes time, but remember—executives at the C-level will not do business with anyone they don’t trust and have confidence in. Confidence and trust take time to build. The 12 × 12 approach requires you to send something of interest to your C-suite contact each month. One month it might be a thank-you letter, expressing gratitude for the person’s participation in a charitable event you also support. Another month it might be an e-mail containing a link to an industry article that may be of interest to the C-level executive. Another month it might be a fax with a copy of an article you found in a magazine or daily newspaper that discusses a topic you think will interest the person.
The objective of the monthly communication is to highlight things of interest to the C-suite executive. Don’t attempt to make it about you or your company. Certainly include your name, company name, and contact information, but do not include a sales brochure or any material about your company. At this point, the executive is not interested in your company. If you do send material about your company, it could have a negative effect, as the executive may automatically discount any trust in you.
Another tip is to be sure you use different communication methods. Do not always use e-mail, or the telephone, or regular mail. By using different modes of communication, you’ll have a better chance of breaking through. Everyone has one or two preferred means of communication. Until you know the preferred method of the person with whom you are trying to connect, you would be wise to use a variety of methods. Remember, too, that you are attempting to reach not only the C-suite contact, but also the executive’s gatekeeper. Many times the impression you make on the gatekeeper is going to determine if you even get a meeting with the executive. Members of the C-suite place a high value on time, so it is their gatekeeper’s job to carefully screen anything and anyone who may take up some of that time.
After you are about five months into the 12 × 12 process, take the step of calling the C-level person to get an appointment. Chances are you’ll get either voice mail or the executive officer’s administrative assistant. Either way, it’s fine. If you get voice mail, you have at least made another communication contact. Don’t expect a call back, but merely continue your monthly habit of communication. If you reach the person’s gatekeeper, then you may suddenly find yourself with the opportunity to secure a meeting. The gatekeeper has been seeing your monthly communication, and along the way, has begun to see you as a person who is trying to help, not simply someone trying to sell something.
When talking with the gatekeeper, you should be aware that this person is going to go in one of a few different directions. First, the gatekeeper could reject your request outright. If this happens, don’t push it, but rather look to win long term. Thank the gatekeeper for his time and continue with your plan of sending a meaningful form of communication each month.
Second, the gatekeeper may not allow you to have access to the C-suite executive, but instead may refer you to someone else in the company. In this case, politely ask if you could be conference-called with the other person right then to get a meeting. Keeping the gatekeeper on the phone while you talk with the other party will increase your credibility.
Before we get too far along, let me add a few more comments regarding what you should remember if the gatekeeper directs you to someone lower in the company. Your objective is to view these meetings as tryouts for your eventual meeting with the CEO. After each meeting, you are going to make sure the gatekeeper receives from you a report on how the meeting went. If possible, you want to do this follow-up over the phone. Then, make sure you continue to send a monthly communication to the CEO, just as you were doing before your meeting with the person you were referred to by the gatekeeper.
The third route the gatekeeper could take is to allow you to have a meeting with the C-suite executive—which is what you wanted all along. Your key here is to only ask for twenty minutes of the executive’s time. I like to use twenty minutes because it’s an unusual amount of time and, more than likely, most people will block out thirty minutes on their calendar anyway. You in essence end up with a thirty-minute meeting without asking for thirty minutes, which could appear to be too big of an initial request.
Salespeople around the world have asked me what type of results they can expect from using the 12 × 12 approach. I say your odds of success are much higher than with any other method I’ve ever seen used. In working with clients across a wide number of industries, I’ve always been able to achieve a success rate of between 10 percent and 30 percent, typically. The only reason it is not higher is because the salesperson fails to follow through on the monthly commitment to send meaningful information to the C-level executive.
When determining what information to send, use these criteria:
Industry Information. News of interest that deals directly with the executive’s industry.
Regulatory Information. News of pending changes in regulations that may have either a positive or negative impact on the company’s executives directly or their industry.
Congratulatory Information. A note of congratulations on a personal accomplishment, the company’s quarterly earnings, or any other significant piece of information that has been announced.
Competitive Information. Anything a competitor is doing that is public information can be shared—as long as you know how the person you are sharing the information with views the competitor. Never speak negatively about a competitor, and also be sure that any information you send won’t be construed as being demeaning.
Connecting with the CEO by Way of a Referral
We all would like to have a never-ending supply of referrals to build our business, especially referrals that allow us to be seen by people in the C-suite as one of them. Developing direct relationships with C-suite members isn’t always possible. Another viable method of gaining a referral to the C-suite is by developing relationships with other people in the company you are targeting or even with other CEOs by way of social media.
I’m not going to go into a long explanation about how to leverage social media for the simple reason that the rules of social media are changing so quickly, it’s impossible to develop any plan and expect it to last for more than a couple of months. What I will say is that you do want to develop relationships through social media sites with other people in the company you are targeting. Use discussion groups and other social media tools to develop these relationships as professional relationships, allowing people to get to know your level of expertise. The objective of this process is to reach the C-suite in a roundabout manner. There is a strong likelihood that, at some point, one of the people with whom you have developed a professional relationship through social media is going to be sitting in a meeting with the CEO, discussing a subject that matches what you can provide, so the person might mention you and suggest a meeting. In that case, your referral to the C-suite is coming by way of your contacts with someone else in the company. This is a much more effective way to reach the C-suite than trying to sell your way up though the company. It’s more effective because as you are developing relationships with several people at the same time, you are essentially doing professional marketing as well.
Dealing with the Blockers
You may have a great relationship with the C-level person with whom you are meeting or you may have just started to develop the relationship. In either case, you have to be careful of those people who will look to obstruct you and your strategy to sell to the C-suite. I refer to these people as the “blockers.” Sometimes you’ll know who they are and sometimes you won’t. More often than not, the blockers will be people you will never meet. To make matters worse, sometimes the blockers don’t even know what it is you are trying to sell. Blockers take on all forms and all causes, but for the most part, they can be broken down into three different types:
People who say “no” to everything.
People who are always looking to turn every situation into an opportunity from which they can personally benefit.
People who are looking to block you in favor of a competing solution.
Let’s look more closely at each one of these types.
The first type of blocker—the person who says “no,” no matter what, is often from the finance department or another analytical-type department. These blockers tend to base their views on the argument that they don’t have all the facts. They want to study any idea until it’s no longer worth studying and the opportunity goes away. These people can be extremely detrimental to a corporation when it comes to exploring new ideas and opportunities. Avoid having them impede your progress by being very up-front in your discussions with the C-suite. Be sure you have a clear understanding of how decisions are made and what information is necessary to make the final decision. Leverage time in these situations so that you can work to close the sale rapidly by emphasizing the strategic importance of making the decision. Of utmost importance is keeping these blockers from having anything more than a low-level involvement in the decision-making process.
In the second category are blockers who use every situation to help make themselves look good. When you spot one of these people, play to their ego and allow them to be involved. Give them something they can personally win. Don’t attempt to work around them. If you do, you run the risk of having the decision-making process spin completely out of control. You may still wind up with the sale, but the chances are high that the sale will come with a number of other criteria attached to it that will hurt your bottom-line profit.
The last type of blocker is the person who is blocking your proposal out of the belief that a competing proposal is better. In that situation, the solution lies in your ability to sell. When I say “sell,” I do not mean applying hard-core pressure. I mean allowing everyone associated with the C-suite to see and understand the full value of your offer. Keep in mind that as important as it is to be selling to the C-suite with the expectation that the executives are the ones who will make the buying decision, you also must remember there are others in the company who will undoubtedly be providing input to the C-suite.
Meeting with the CEO
Your work has paid off, and on your calendar is the meeting you have wanted with the CEO or other C-suite members. This meeting should not be one where you lay out all of your capabilities and dazzle them with slick presentations. Instead, your focus should be on engaging the C-suite members in a serious discussion that allows them to see you as being strategically oriented. In this meeting you now have the opportunity to demonstrate confidence and build trust thanks to all of the work you have done communicating with the C-suite in getting them to even meet with you. Your goal is for the person you are meeting with to see you as a strategic thinker he or she can rely on. This is extremely important, because if you allow the discussion to become tactical in nature—asking about specific dates, operational issues, and other intricate details—you will run the risk of being referred down in the organization to somebody at a much lower level. C-suite members won’t welcome questions that are seen as either beneath their level or ones they know they can’t answer. High performers in the C-suite are always looking for ways to get things off of their plate; therefore, it’s important the C-suite members see your questions and comments as being both strategic in nature and intellectually driven to provoke their thinking.
Always view your meeting with anyone in the C-suite as a discussion that will be continued with either another meeting or via e-mail or telephone. I don’t mean that you should not push for decisions to be made when you are in the meeting. On the contrary, when you are in the C-suite, the expectation is for you to ask for the order and ask quickly. However, if you adopt the view that discussions need to continue, you’ll have a better opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship with the C-suite executive.
Several of the rules to which I subscribe with junior-level employees apply just the same in a senior-level meeting. First, if you can’t close the sale, at least gain agreement on something. Second, never leave without a clear next step, and the next step should include a specific date for something to occur. Agreeing on a specific date for some follow-up correspondence or phone call allows the C-suite person to assess your follow-up skills. Of course, responding by the agreed-upon time is actually responding too late. Always look to beat the delivery date. Your ability to consistently be early will raise the level of confidence senior-level executives have in you.
Selling to the C-suite is a highly effective sales strategy; however, it should not be seen as your only sales strategy, except in those rare situations where what you sell requires C-suite involvement. The timeline required to penetrate and close a sale with the C-suite can be two to four times longer than your normal sales strategy. Without proper planning, it’s very possible you’ll have little to show in your sales pipeline in the end. The best way to use the C-suite strategy is as one of many strategies you have at your command to make your quarterly and annual numbers. Even if you already have a solid relationship and profitable business with a customer, it still makes sense to develop relationships with the C-suite. In these situations the relationship with the C-suite can be viewed as both an insurance policy and an extended research department.
C-Suite Relationships Are Insurance Policies
Like an insurance policy, a C-suite relationship should already be there when you need it, should problems crop up and you or someone else from your company need assistance from a senior-level person. The last thing you want to do is to try and build a relationship with senior management in the midst of a crisis. If this happens, you will have to spend an inordinate amount of extra time working to get the issues resolved compared to the salesperson who has relationships already in place.
C-Suites Are Research Departments
When you have a solid relationship already in place with the occupants of the C-suite, you typically have the opportunity to learn key information about the customer. Often the C-suite will use outside suppliers as a sounding board for information, and information winds up flowing both ways. Your opinion may be sought for assistance on an issue of interest to the customer that only those in the C-suite have knowledge of. If you are able to be part of those discussions, you are then in a position to be among the first to know where the customer is headed. The end result is the knowledge you acquire can significantly help increase your level of sales with the company.
C-suite relationships are without a doubt essential if you are truly going to be selling at a high-profit margin. Failure to develop relationships at that level will nearly always result in profitable dollars being left on the table.