“Leverage your champions and do your best to build relationships along the way.” – Brad Harmon in today’s Tip 1134
How do you reach an executive buyer or decision-maker?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Brad Harmon. Brad holds an MBA and is a successful Enterprise Sales Rep with over 10 years of experience helping C-level customers achieve their organization’s desired outcomes and goals. He believes in always putting your best foot forward, and every sale should be a reference for you once the deal is done. Here he is:
Brad Harmon: Hello and here’s your daily tip on getting the decision-makers. There’s been many different ways taught to us over the years on how to reach an executive buyer or decision-maker. Some say start with the top-down approach where you target your executive, get pushed back down, and then funnel your way back up, or you start at the bottom and then work your way back up to that executive. I’m here to tell you that either way can work, but there needs to be a way for you to differentiate. We’ve all had to be creative over the last few years due to the remote sales world that we live in. My number one goal when I’m selling is to find my champion. Once that person is identified, leverage them to get to your decision-maker or the economic buyer. Earn their trust and earn the right to ask for a meeting with that person.
Another avenue to take is a creative approach. Research what college the decision-maker went to and send a hat and some sort of alumni type campaign or maybe even send some baked goods. This gives you a reason or a call to action to follow up. You can also be persistent with their assistant regardless of the approach you want to take your messaging to any executive needs to be short, concise, and have high value. After reaching out to a CFO, my message is simple. In today’s world, company’s goals from a finance perspective are to increase working capital, reduce operating expenses and ensure compliance. Do any of those align with your needs? Once you get to the decision-maker, you will understand the buying cycle much more clear, which will help you identify their buying process much better when you’re dealing with your management,
Leverage your champions and do your best to build relationships along the way. If you’re selling technology, you don’t necessarily have to end up in the office of the CIO in order to sell your product. Your champion could be someone sitting with a process improvement, title, or even transformation. Typically, these titles have performance metrics to hit in order to obtain their bonuses or meet their department’s goals. Be concise on how your product or service can help them obtain these goals. Find a way to help get them promoted. Make them your champion and continue to build that relationship and trust. That is how you get to the higher-ups. Where we all know is where the seven-figure deals get done. Or best case scenario, you could punch it over to procurements and you get to battle out the T’s and C’s. I hope you found this overview beneficial today and keep continuing to smile and dial.
Scott Ingram: Brad would love to connect with you on LinkedIn. To make that happen, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1134. Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!