One of the greatest challenges in Enterprise Technology Sales or most other B2B sales is getting access to the ‘C-Suite’ and making sure you are relevant to the true ‘Person(s) of Authority’ within an organization. Tonight we had Stu Lucko lead a discussion on what separated sales professionals from salespeople.
The gist of the talk was that a sales pro needs to listen to financial executives and truly seek to understand their business concerns around operational issues. They’re looking for someone who will really partner with them and solve problems so they are getting value out of the solutions at hand.
Part One, seen here, Stu talks about a personal case study with a Salesforce.com rep who got it right and also what a sales professional needs to do to get the attention of a CFO.
Why is this important? IT Executives like VPs os IT, CTO’s and CIO’s often have the companies biggest budget outlays behind payroll. These IT Executives often report through the CFO to the CEO. They are intimately involved in the enterprise technology decision making process. You can call this a ‘holistic’ view, a ‘birds eye’ view, the C-Suite is the place in a company where hardware, software, processes and people all come together.
Stu also dives into dreaded ‘switch-over costs’ from the CFO’s point of view. CFO’s are looking for more than promised ‘cost savings’ in the solutions that we pitch to them. They’re looking at the big picture, especially costs associated with disrupting their business processes.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” – L.P. Hartley
Colorado Technology Sales 