What Do Executives REALLY Think About Sales Professionals?
Selling to top executives requires a solid understand of how they think and feel. Unfortunately, there are some myths floating around about how executives think and feel about sales professionals.
This post tests your ability to separate myth from fact in this all-important subject area. Vote in the poll below and then click on the link to get the correct answer.
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The myth is: #1: Executives dislike receiving sales pitches or presentations. The other two statement are facts, not myths.
Business researchers Dr. Steve Bistritz and Nicholas A.C. Read recently surveyed a large number of executives to discover what they actually thought about sales professionals
Contrary to popular belief, actual research indicates that executives are not opposed to receiving sales pitches or presentations, as long as sales professionals listened and understood their major concerns and business issues before proposing a solution.
This is really good information for a sales professional to have, because it tells you how to handle your meeting with a top executive. Rather than wasting time apologizing or overcoming reluctance, you can and should focus on business issues so that you can have a productive conversation.
On the other hand, top executives are GREATLY annoyed by any sales situation that requires them to deal with multiple points of contact. While they understand that complex solutions may often involve multiple business partners, executives wanted YOU to be the single point of contact and accountability.
What this means is that you should leave the "expert" and your sales manager back at the office and meet with the executive alone -- and then convince the executive that you're the right person for him or her to be dealing with.
Far from looking askance as sales professionals, top executives greatly value them, if and when they appear at the right time.
Executives typically get involved in the buying process for major purchases at specific times in the buying process. And that's when they actually WANT to meet with a sales professional. In other words, the executives want you to adapt to their schedule and their buying habits, not the other way around.
Pretty interesting, eh?
BTW, if you're interested in more of this kind of groundbreaking research, check out Bistritz and Read's bestseller Selling to the C-Suite.
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