In their book called CustomerCentric Selling, Michael Bosworth and his co-authors present their core concepts for reframing the concept of selling. The first principle they describe is “You get delegated to the people you sound like”.
They Don’t Call High Enough – But Why?
Sales managers often complain that their salespeople “don’t call high enough”, preferring to meet the potential users of their offering rather than the actual decision makers who can actually make a buying decision.
Most decision makers are risk-averse pragmatists who look for proven solutions. If the salesperson proves capable enough to get an appointment with such a decision maker, but merely presents product features and functions to someone with no interest in those things, the salesperson will get delegated to someone else in the company who has a similar interest in features and functions. The apparent drawback is that this other person within the buyer’s organisation most likely has no authority to make a purchase.
In fact, not having met the decision maker at all would have been more beneficial (or less harmful) for the seller and her or his company. Or as Bosworth et al. put it in their book:
In many such cases, it would have been far better not to have called on the executive at all. Your company’s position may have been compromised in the eyes of the buyer. Access to decision makers is a high-risk, high-reward proposition.
How Do the Top Performers Do It?
When you look at the habits of successful, top-performing sales people, it becomes clear that they are often very good at this. They are able to empathise with senior decision makers, and they understand, use and reflect their language. Their conversations are full of anecdotes, examples and illustrations. But there is no reason to despair, as average salespeople can be empowered to have the same type of discussions with top buyers as their more naturally gifted colleagues.
Sales-Ready Messaging to the Rescue
The basic problem is that there is a clear shortage of people in companies who actually understand how decision makers view the use of their offering. CustomerCentric Selling offers a simple but effective way of getting around this problem.
Sales-Ready Messaging is messaging concept that enable sellers to have peer-to-peer conversations with any decision maker – regardless of their title – thus preventing them from instantly delegating your salesperson to someone else in the organisation. It helps your salespeople handle those “silver-bullet meetings” with success!
At CustomerCentric Selling Europe our Go-to-Market Development Workshop™ is designed to deliver and design the kind of Sales-Ready Messaging that allows salespeople to manage complex business discussions with the customer’s senior management.
If you want to learn more how your salespeople can successfully “call higher” as well, get in touch with us!
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