How to Break the Rules to Reach the Decision Maker

One of the greatest challenges for any sales professional is gaining access to the ultimate decision maker. But what if we’ve made this challenge even more daunting by believing an antiquated set of self imposed rules need a little updating?  Rules that may have been created by lack of experience, fear or misguided assumptions? These are the “old” calling high rules I’m referring to:

• You must earn the right to call high.
• You must do massive amounts of homework to see what product you should pitch.
• You need to be prepared to pitch; at least an executive summary.
• You only get one shot.
• You must do what they tell you to do.
• My inside coach says he has the budget and is the decision maker. I don’t need to call high.

When calling at the C-Suite, which I call selling Above the Line (ATL), you need to change the rules. Why? Because ATL buyers have different decision criteria than Below the Line (BTL) buyers, those responsible for using the product or service you’re selling.

Different value proposition, different rules.

Calling on the ATL Buyer Rules:

• Call early. Don’t waste their company resources or yours on something that isn’t critical to the ATL buyer’s agenda.
• Do homework on what’s important to them. Either read their website, their LinkedIn account, or their quarterly reports. Read about the industry and their title so you know how to tailor questions. (What keeps a CMO awake at night in 2015? What are the 2015 trends in the medical device industry?)
• Call and ask questions about their initiatives, goals or objectives, and ask about the ones they’re having the biggest problems with. Worst case, prime the pump and be prepared to ask questions using the homework you’ve done.
• Time travel. All ATL executives live in the past 3 or next 3-6 months. Questions regarding “now” are not in their wheelhouse.

To be effective at the ATL level, you need to forget all the rules you have been trained on:  feature/benefit, respond to the person making the inquiry, win the demo, and do a great RFP.

Bottom line. You need wins at both BTL and ATL. Follow the BTL rules, but when going after the second value proposition of your deal, the ATL value prop, you need to change the rules. Try it. I guarantee you’ll have a lot more fun.

Join SMEI for a webinar on this subject on February 10, 2015.

Tom Latourette is Managing Partner, M3 Learning