Sales Velocity Partners
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How To Connect With Executives Senior executives are responsible for the big picture not the details. What do senior executives want to know before they buy? You want to discover if the executive recognizes the relevancy of the value assumption and whether they want to take the next step in the decision process. The engagement conversation must enable the executive to answer the following questions: Who are you? Do you sound professional? Is this message appropriate? Is this message about me and my company? Is this an issue that I am experiencing? Should this be something that I want to take further? Your introduction should be about customers and should raise questions in their mind about their business, their situation, and their performance. When you provide customers with the information they need to answer questions, they will agree to continue the conversation. The key to this message is that the prospect recognizes that this message could not have been sent to anyone else and recognizes its relevancy. The Issue You Address Must Be Relevant In the Larger Context of the Business You must establish relevancy. Executives want to know if the issues that solutions address have any relevance in their business. The rule of relevancy requires that you identify the business issues that are on the executives' dashboard and translate your value capabilities into one of those terms. A Statement of Value Assumption Must Be Valid A rule of validity demands that you demonstrate to executives that the solutions or the problems that your solutions address in fact exist. This means that the problem is actually occurring in the customer’s organization. It also means that the potential cost of the problem is significant enough to require investigation. It means that the nature of the problem continues to require executive involvement. If you can show that significant consequences exist, you satisfy the rule of validity, as well as confirm and specify the relevancy of the situation. This incentive for change is built from a portrait of the customer’s negative present. Be concise. You must be able to and must reduce the indicators, causes, consequences, and cost to the customer's problem to a single message. Stick to the facts. You may get the biggest impact by allowing the facts to speak for themselves. If the facts don't support the incentive to change you will make the sale. Make sure your record speaks the executive’s language. But the facts in terms that relate to the upper management perspectives. Do not violate the rule of relevancy. Ask for the executive’s feedback. You need to know how the executive is responding. Can they provide additional insight? Is this issue worth pursuing?
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Sales Velocity Partners
www.salesvelocitypartners.com
The Solutions’ Value Must Be Measurable The rule of measurability is critical to senior executives. With limited resources to invest, their ability to measure and quantify issues, allocate funds accordingly, and track the returns is a constant concern. In each instance the need to summarize results to executives. These are the sanity checks that ensure the engagement is still on course. There Must Be Consensus and Alignment around the Findings Consensus and alignment require that a working majority of the cast of characters agree about the relevance, validity, action ability, and measurability of the problem. An Executive will not approach a solution if he doesn't believe his organization can achieve its promised value. Remember that executives have come up on the short end of the value promised more often than not, and they are skeptical about promises.
Speaking In Perspective Each individual situation determines what is of value to that individual personally. When you neglect the customer's perspective, you put both your credibility and relevancy at risk. Read the CEO's message in the annual report. Have there been rupturing, workforce reductions, mergers, and acquisitions? All of these events leave a mark on the organization and offer clues as to what objectives and emotions drive their decision-making criteria. The Last Step Give the executive a little homework. You asked the executive to provide additional information that will assist you either in your preparation for the meeting with him or with his staff. The issue here is to keep the executive personally involved in thinking about this issue. Most importantly, it is a test to see whether this executive has a sense of urgency that goes beyond simple interest. It will make your conversation memorable. By doing this, you generate more credibility through the questions you ask. Customers who hesitate to work with you should be carefully scrutinized. If a customer refuses to work within a sensible and high quality approach, you probably will not be able to differentiate your solutions from the rest of the competition and you are likely entering into a no-win situation. In fact, when customers are unwilling to answer the simple questions, they're usually telling you something very important. They may not be ready to take a serious look at the problem. Feedback Conversations These are intended to measure and confirm value delivery. There are important reasons for discussing this with your customers, including: Ensuring customer awareness of the value delivered. No one recognizes value, for all intents and purposes, it does not exist. Protecting the customer relationship and competitive threats. If customers can measure and appreciate the value delivered, they are more likely to ignore the advances of your competitors. Sales Velocity Partners
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Sales Velocity Partners
www.salesvelocitypartners.com
Expanding the customer relationship. In a time when customers are aggressively shrinking their supply bases, valued vendors are in great position to increase business. Gaining new customers. Customers who recognized by delivered are amenable to referrals and recommendations. Achieving Agreement When your executive agrees to continue the engagement conversation, it is then time to test your value assumption. You can say something like: "Based on my research, I have made a couple of assumptions about your current (situation) and I would like to run them by you and get your thoughts. If they are on track, we could decide if we should take a deeper look at the problem. If they don't line up, that will be good to know as well. Are you comfortable with that?" When the executive agrees, this means that your value assumption is worthy of diagnosis. This means you have earned the keys to the elevator. When you answer a question with a question such as, "Why is that important to you?� Customers will see you as a stereotypical salesperson and the trust level will drop quickly. Once you answer your prospects questions, then the process continue immediately with your diagnostic conversation. If you answer and stop, you're caught in the loop of answering questions and learning nothing.
Final Note When you report to the executive, you want to be sure to cover the people, process, and financial considerations of the designed solution. Solutions that require change in the executive’s thinking, he needs to be assured that this is a change that can be successfully managed. You want to explain how people's behavior will be impacted and changed; how processes will be altered and adjusted; how the change will be managed, and how the financial impact is supportive of the investment required. When you show executives that the problem and the respective solutions are actionable, you give them the confidence to invest their time and their money.
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