How To Sell To Top Management | Sales Management Training

Becoming an insider and selling to owners, board members, and top management takes a unique combination of attitude and aptitude.

Attitude

To operate successfully in the boardroom, you need the self- confidence to feel on equal footing with the top officers. Such an attitude also presumes that you can understand the issues facing the top officers. It means that you are willing to articulate your solutions in such a way that you can be a change agent in the business relationship.

Top officers exude power. If you are reticent about net- working with top officers, you must push yourself to learn the ropes and overcome your fear. After you have met with a few chiefs (a common reference to CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CAOs, and related titles), you will begin to relax as you realize they are just like you, but different. As my football coach used to say to get us to overcome our fear of the opposition, “he puts his pants on just like you.”

Aptitude

Time is a precious commodity to top officers in businesses. The further up the food chain you move in a company, the more time sensitive your prospects and clients will be. For this reason, you will also need aptitude in dealing with the chiefs.

People who are unsuccessful selling to top officers waste time, don’t tell the whole story, and communicate poorly.

Top officers and especially CEOs have learned to make decisions with very little information—they want only the key facts. Their jobs require them to make lots of decisions in a short amount of time. Many of them fear wasting time with someone trying to sell something. Investing her time wisely will enable a chief to make steady progress toward company objectives.

Before you meet with a top officer you must do your home- work and know about the company and its problems. You should have other insiders on your side, if possible.

CEOs are particularly suspicious of a professional who only covers the upside and fails to cover the downside. You need to use a balanced reward equation to communicate your benefits. When you say that your service will save $400,000 in taxes, the CEO is thinking, “And how much audit risk or extra compliance costs will I have?” Be like Abraham Lincoln, who always gave both sides of the case in a debate to appear fair and to disarm potential counterarguments.

Last, communicating with CEOs takes skill. You must learn to cover the “bullet points” succinctly and accurately. As you cover the bullet points, use written materials to handle the details.

Conclusion

With the right attitude and aptitude, any professional can sell successfully to top managers, board members and owners.