The Fourth Commandment of Selling Professional Services

Commit high-level executives to action
by James “Alex” Alexander, Ed.D.

Sales pundits and astute sales managers have preached for years on the importance of selling to the C-suite. When selling professional services and complex solutions, having top executives as allies greatly improves your selling effectiveness and acts as a big barrier to competitive inroads. Yet, even armed with this knowledge of the probable gain and motivation to do it, most sales organizations do a lousy job of selling to the top of the power chart.

Keep reading to find out:

• Why selling to senior executives is now more important than ever.
• Why most attempts to sell “up” are often counterproductive.
• When it is not appropriate to try and engage senior executives.
• Proven approaches to selling to the top of the power chart.
• Best practices when selling to executives.

Convoluted buying means painful selling

In the “old days,” managers close to the action made the buying decisions. For example, an IT manager could be the decision-maker for purchasing servers as well as professional services such as assessments or studies.

Yes, some subject-matter experts on staff may have been influencers in the decision, it might have been politically correct to “run it by the boss,” and purchasing might have had their say, but the total number of people involved in the decision was small. Buying was relatively simple and so was selling. The likeable seller that best matched the technical wants and needs of the buyer usually won.

It is different today. For example, a marketing manager at a client of mine used to make buying decisions up to $100,000 by himself. Now, any purchases over $30,000 have to be approved by the senior vice president of marketing, and the CEO must bless all purchases over $100,000.

This added scrutiny slows down buying, as staff must bring more stakeholders into the process to gain their buy-in and justify the purchase decision. I’ll bet a hefty wager that similar situations are occurring within your organization and within your customers’ organizations.

If you sell professional services, outsourcing or other complex solutions, the situation is worse. Research from just a few years ago shows that, on average, 12 people were actively involved in purchasing solutions.* Yet, as more departments, markets and geographies are impacted by potential solutions, even more influencers are brought into the buying fray.

Furthermore, the more costly, the more complex and the more risky the potential decision appears, the more senior management involvement becomes a requirement, at least to “sign-off” on the purchase.

And often, many of these senior managers have not been actively involved in the buying-selling process so they don’t necessarily understand the problem or the solution or how it benefits them personally. Add in the invisible factor of services, and this is a recipe for stagnation. Add to that a tough economy, and it becomes much easier and sometimes more fashionable to put off decisions until the next quarter, next year or next administration.

Saying no has never been easier. Many times aggressively selling to senior executives early on in the selling cycle is the only rational way to maintain sales sanity.

Selling sin: Thinking you can win many big, complex professional services and/or without executive support.

Selling to the top of the power chart

Yes, I know it is not easy, but if you effectively sell to the C-level, there is a payback. You will:

• Close more deals.
• Close deals faster.
• Maintain more price integrity.
• Build references in high places.
• Create competitive differentiation.
• Gain more control of your own destiny.

Selling at the top requires a change in role, added capabilities and a different mindset. Keep this in mind as you follow the Fourth Commandment of Selling Professional Services: Commit high-level executives to action. The five questions that follow will give you the information and framework to create and launch a selling-to-the-top strategy and action plan.

Five questions to ponder

1. Why?

The first question to answer is: Why would an executive want to see you in the first place? What qualifies you to take up his valuable time? What do you have to offer him that he might value?

Different from managers in the middle, busy executives at the top have different issues, expectations, world views and mindsets. They care about finding answers to nagging questions impacting the business, discovering ideas that may lead to innovation or accumulating knowledge that might drive competitive advantage. Everything else is for their subordinates to handle.

For salespeople used to talking technology innovation to department heads or combating purchasing agents over discounts, this is often a rude awakening. The executive faced with this type of dialogue quickly will point the salesperson back to the elevator and suggest that he go talk to Terri in the IT department or Fred in purchasing. It’s not that executives don’t necessarily care; it’s that they don’t have time for the nitty-gritty. Their job is to plot the course and navigate the ship, not buy the supplies or maintain the vessel.

2. What?

The “why” above drives the “what.” To make your executive prospect happy that she met with you, you first need to be seen as a business peer — someone with enough credibility to “earn the right” to converse with her as an equal. An important conveyer of that credibility is to have relevant information — things the senior executive does not know but would like to know.

The type of information senior executives are interested in varies, but most all of them find value in business and industry outlooks, trends, critical issues, benchmarks and best practices.

For example, a CFO of a bank would probably be interested in a white paper on the cost-benefit of implementing different types of consumer privacy strategies. A COO of a manufacturing company might appreciate learning the findings of two case studies of how companies in his industry have improved productivity by applying lean concepts. A CEO in any industry might be delighted to find out the candid thoughts of her management team on how to use technology more effectively.

To find this type of information, first look internally for reports, studies, articles or white papers. If your marketing people are on their toes, there may be some excellent materials already packaged and ready to go. However, if you don’t have this type of information inside, look outside. Scan newspapers and business journals for insightful information. Though not as powerful, this can still be adequate to position you as a peer.

Ponder point: If you have nothing that can add worth to their world at an initial meeting, don’t bother making the appointment. You will be seen as a waster of time, not a creator of value.

3. How?

How we approach the executive interview is also different. The basic techniques in needs-satisfaction sales training (SPIN Selling, Strategic Selling, PSSIII, etc.) that served your sellers so well in the past when dealing at low and mid-levels will now work against you when selling to executives.

Senior managers expect you to already know their business. They don’t want to waste time educating you by responding to questions that might have been very powerful when dealing with those on a lower level. (“What are your critical issues?” “Please share your business priorities?” and so on.) To display your credibility, you must start by demonstrating your knowledge and quickly bring something of value to the conversation first — That’s why doing your homework is so important.

Selling sin: Not taking the time to earn the right to have the executive conversation.

You must modify your questioning strategy to deal with this different situation. First, start by stating a business issue that you know through your research is important to the executive. This starts you off in control of the conversation and quickly gains the interest of the senior manager.

Next, predict that, based on what you know about the industry and the executive’s company, this is an issue for him. When he confirms, you have the right to explore this issue from the executive’s company and help him think through the challenges, clarify the issue and start sorting through alternatives. This value-creating dialogue establishes a natural back-and-forth conversation between equals, standing in contrast to the typical feature-benefit-spewing, PowerPoint-toting, “normal” selling approach.

4. Who?

Committing high-level executives to action demands deeper and broader capabilities.

The professional salesperson must add new knowledge (e.g., business acumen, problem analysis), acquire more skills (e.g., diagnosis, framing alternatives) and attain a new mindset. In other words, he or she must think and act as a business consultant. These are capabilities that do not come naturally to everyone.

So if you are serious about selling to the C-suite, start by training all your experienced sellers on the important knowledge, critical skills, proven approaches and tactical tools for success. Carefully observe and then analyze how well they accept the challenge and absorb the new success behaviors.

Do they have the knowledge and skills required today, or can they develop them in the near future with more training and coaching? Do they have enough confidence and “presence” to be accepted and respected by customer executives?

After careful examination, you may find that your existing people in sales roles are not appropriate for this responsibility. In these instances, you may want to keep them in product-specialist roles and pair them with other sellers to deal at the top. Depending on the criticality of getting to the top quickly, some organizations find that they must bring in outside blood and/or actively involve their senior management in either a support or sometimes a primary role to make their C-level selling work.

5. When?

This is worth repeating: Only attempt C-level selling when you have competent, credible people armed with value-adding information. Otherwise, stay home.

Five best practices for selling to executives

1. Designate or hire a person or staff to research key accounts, key executives and their key competitors and provide in-depth information to your sales team. No matter how well intentioned, faced with their 30-day deadlines to deliver, salespeople often won’t take the time to do the needed research in appropriate depth.
2. Make it an important goal of your services marketers to find and package information that your C-level customers will find of value. Have your company become the “holders of data” for your industry on topics of importance, such as trends, benchmarks and best practices.
3. Selling at the top of the power chart does not come naturally. If you want your sellers to be confident and competent, provide them with ongoing C-level training, coaching and tools tailored to your organization.
4. Even with quality training, some of your people will not be ready to be effective in the role of business consultant. Continue their training and pair them with a top performer, but don’t require them to have executive dialogues until they are prepared.
5. When appropriate, use your face cards — Some senior-level people will only speak to other senior-level people, so involve your top people when required.

Selling at the top of the power chart is not easy, but for many organizations, it is a selling requirement. Following these recommendations will speed your success.

Good selling!

*Source: ITSMA, How Customers Choose Study, 2008.

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About James “Alex” Alexander
Alexander is founder of Alexander Consulting, a management consultancy that helps companies create and implement professional services strategies for product companies. Contact him at 239-671-0740, alex@alexanderstrategists.com or visit www.alexanderstrategists.com.
© Alexander Consulting