Four Ways to Sell To a CEO: Back to the future?

Geoffrey James advices in his interesting Sales Machine blog on « Four Ways to Sell To a CEO »
Starting with reminding the basics:
- Your offering must be appropriate.
- You must be a social equal to the CEO

His 4 advices are (in a nutshell):
1) Laddering:
Building contacts inside the organization
2) Cold calling:
How to get the VITO on the phone and have a conversation with him, not giving him a sales pitch.
3) Networking:
Referral selling: outside the company, researching on the life of the CEO
4) Socializing:
Trying to meet the CEO on a non-business event.

Selling to the VITO

The post in the blog reminds us of “Selling to the VITO” by Anthony Parinello out of 1994. The book is based upon his experiences in the eighties, when the business world was quite different as letters, faxes and landline telephone where the communications means.

After all the changes in:
- Communications (mobile, Internet)
- Technologies (PC, PDA,..)
- Tools (presentations, webinars)
it is incredible and at the same time assuring and confident to learn the actual selling has stayed more or less the same.
This is probably due to the fact “people buy, not companies”.

In his book Anthony Parinello guides the reader to a whole range of topics concerning selling: Cold calling, letter writing, avoiding gate keepers and what to focus on to whom in an organization, to finally the meeting with the VITO.
The advices he gives still can be used, although a different communication medium will be used.

These guidelines and methods of selling inspired us in designing, crafting and building LEADSExplorer: once you have a lead, you need to know their interests, the company: the background and the history.
And above all the leaders of the company: not solely by name.
As there is an abundance of information available, helping the salesman gathering and collecting all the information will increase his efficiency. That’s why we included the Internet Data Mining to give the salesman the necessary information at his fingertips.

One of the many statements was:
“You need to be able to sell the tangible benefits and close on the intangible benefits”.
For the first know what product or service they interested in and know your stuff.
For the latter you need to think as the VITO, based upon the information gathered from the website visits, the Internet and your social contacts.