In a comment to my previous entry “How to Sell to a CEO” karishmak asked:“How do I reach the CEO? We can be very professional and act like a CEO but its very difficult to reach the CEO especially in the offshore software industry where you are restricted to talk through phones, emails and skypes. Can any one help?”Great question.
There are three solutions to this problem:
1. Work with lower level contacts to gradually win access.
2. Enlist the help of a colleague, peer or friend of the CEO.
3. Trick the CEO into taking your call.
Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. Let’s start with the first method, because it’s the way that most customers would prefer you approach the situation. My description of the first method is based upon the wisdom of Neil Rackham, author of the classic sales book “Spin Selling.” He points out that in most companies the “decision” to buy (or not buy) an offering is often shared between three individuals:
1. The “budget owner.” This is the CEO or (if your offering is small potatoes) some lesser executive.
2. The “problem owner.” This is the operational manager whose department actually needs your offering.
3. The “access owner.” This is the person in the operational manager’s department who is willing to talk to you and (hopefully) sponsor you.
Typically your first customer call is to the “access owner” who then agrees to sponsor you to the “problem owner.” If the “problem owner” is satisfied that you can provide something of value, the “problem owner” gives you access to the “budget owner.” If you can get all three people to say “YES,” then you have a sale.
To make this method work, your sales approach needs to be different for each type of decision maker.
The “access owner,” being lower level, is primarily interested in his or her own credibility and position in the hierarchy. This person will want to be certain that you are credible and can deliver as promised, so that bringing you forward will enhance the status of the “access owner.” At this point in the sale, your emphasis is on creating an aura of personal credibility and building a strong relationship.
The “problem owner” is typically too busy to talk to you unless somebody else in the organization (i.e. the “access owner”) is willing to put his job on the line by sponsoring you. The “problem owner” is primarily concerned with whether your offering will have an actual benefit in the part of the business that’s the responsibility of the “problem owner.” At this point in the sale, your emphasis is on the solution and the benefits that it will provide.
The “budget owner” (i.e. the CEO) isn’t interested in your offering, per se, but on the impact that your offering will have on the proverbial bottom line. (See my previous post on this subject.) So at this point in the sale, it’s all about making the decision to buy into a no-brainer. The way you do this is to make the “access owner” and the “problem owner” into your advocates.
The advantage of this method is that, when you’re done, everybody is on board. By contrast, if you sell directly to the CEO, you still may need to backtrack down to the “problem owner” who may resent that you went over his head. The disadvantage of this method is that it can consume a great deal of time, especially if (as is often the case) the “access owner” lacks in the internal credibility to be an effective sponsor.
In my next post, I’ll explain how to get access to the CEO without working through the hoi-poloi in the management chain. That's when you need the kind of chutzpah I was talking about in my previous post.
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