C-Level, Relationship Selling Blog

C-Level Selling Tips – Keep Competition Out of Your Key Accounts

The only way to keep competition out of your key accounts is to be perceived as the top benefit provider for that key account.  Your competition wants those accounts and they will eventually penetrate unless those accounts fear losing the benefits you and only you can provide.  This article will show how to make sure that happens

C-Level Selling Tips – Keep Competition Out of Your Key Accounts

C-Level Selling - The Great Customer Experience Happens When the C-Level Executives Are Satisfied

How much time do you spend with the senior staff of you customers?  I’ll bet not much – not good.  I’ll also bet that if by chance you do know them, you check-in to only say hello and see if there is anything they can give you – not good again.  And if you don’t know them, you only try to gain access to them when there’s something you want – really not good.

The Great Customer Experience requires making C-level executive constantly feel you are helping them succeed.  Learn what’s required in this C-level selling article

C-Level Selling - The Great Customer Experience Happens When the C-Level Executives Are Satisfied

Read It, Learn It, Implement It and I guarantee your selling will improve

C-Level Relationship Selling – Good Work Won’t Win the Next Sale

To win sale after sale from the same customer, you must do more than good work.  You must associate yourself with the winning solution and show that you’re special. 

When people buy from you they expect good results. So when they get what they paid for, it’s really nothing special.  Therefore, when it’s time to buy again, those same people will consider you because you delivered.  But they won’t necessarily buy from you, because again, it wasn’t anything special.

On the other hand, if there was a problem of any sort, you’re remembered as a problem, even if you corrected it.  Consequently when it’s time to buy again your chances are slim.

So why is it that good doesn’t guarantee the upside, whereas bad pretty much cements the downside?  It’s all about PR.   

This is why it’s critical to get-to the top people to associate yourself with the success.

This means .... C-Level Relationship Selling – Good Work Won’t Win the Next Sale

Read and learn how.

Good Selling

 

 

C-Level Relationship Selling – How to Differentiate When Selling

Differentiating is a good talking point, but it doesn’t close sales.  Showing you’re competent does. 

In the greater scheme of things, your products or services are similar to competitors’.  But, in the finite scheme of things every competitor is different. 

However, differentiating is not what closes a sale.  Showing you’re the best alternative of the various choices does.  Best is decided by the ultimate decision-maker and those that influence him or her. Best does not mean the most different.  Best means .......

Read what counts at C-Level Relationship Selling – How to Differentiate When Selling

Good Selling

 

C-Level Relationship Selling – 4 Style Checks to Exude Trust and Believability

Most people approach a prospect or a customer in their usual style/manner and expect that person to like them or at least effectively interact with them.  This works if their style gels with the other person’s style.  But if it doesn’t, it sets up a barrier to trust and believability.  The higher the rank of a person the more style impacts initial credibility and subsequent dialogues.

Learn a simple 4 step check to make all types of prospects immediately feel comfortable with you.  To be successful in sales, one must be able to adapt his or her style to effectively interact with everyone. 

Learn how at C-Level Relationship Selling – 4 Style Checks to Exude Trust and Believability

 

 

C-Level Relationship Selling - 9 Active Listening Steps to Effortlessly Sell Prospects

Sales calls are the most important step for selling and relationship development.  That’s why you have to have a strategy to get people talking while you listen with an ear to understand. Learn the 9 steps strategy to win-over C-Level executive and other prospects in this article

 C-Level Relationship Selling - 9 Active Listening Steps to Effortlessly Sell Prospects

 

Selling to C-Levels - 8 Interviewing Tips to Easily Close Sales

Interviewing questions open up C-levels and other prospects to reveal the triggers that will cause them to buy from that interviewer.  Interrogative questions turn-off people like a light switch. So to win-over prospects and C-levels, follow these 8 suggestions.

8 Interviewing Tips: Selling to C-Levels - 8 Interviewing Tips to Easily Close Sales

 

Selling to C-Levels - Engaging C-Level Executives in Productive Conversations

Winning over Senior and C-level executives is very helpful for successful selling.  However, these movers and shakers don’t care about what you have to offer until they feel you understand them and their situations. 

Keeping C-level and other executives engaged and excited to be with you is easy if you follow these simple rules. 

Read this stimulating article at Selling to C-Levels - Engaging C-Level Executives in Productive Conversations

C-Level Relationship Selling – 3 Steps to Handle the “Too Busy” Selling Objection

Learn how to handle “The executive is too busy to see you.”  sales objection, Contacts use this excuse, yet bosses free-up time to get information necessary to make their final decisions.

So click this link for some easy actions to overcome this common selling objection.
C-Level Relationship Selling – 3 Steps to Handle the “Too Busy” Selling Objection

Bonus Tip:  FREE E-book "Getting Past Gatekeepers and Handling Blockers " .  If you can’t get to the powerful decision makers, you’re depending on your contacts to do your selling at the high levels.  The problem is you won’t know what they say, if they say anything at all.  Click this link 

C-Level Relationship Selling – 6 Tips for Overcoming Executive Intimidation

Meeting with powerful people makes anyone nervous and reluctant to pursue them. Unfortunately, if left uncorrected, you’ll be stuck with subordinates who tend to gather all your information and then do nothing with it because they are also nervous about going to their bosses.  So here is how to correct this executive intimidation situation.

Read this article C-Level Relationship Selling – 6 Tips for Overcoming Executive Intimidation

Send this along to a friend  and Good Selling

 

C-Level Relationship Selling – 6 Actions for Handling Blockers and Gatekeepers

Common Situation - You’re blocked.   You’re frustrated.  You try to be polite.  Yet, you don’t ask for the reason s/he is not letting you meet others.  You stop trying and are stuck with this gatekeeper.

So here are 6 actions of what you can do to handle or prevent this common situation.

C-Level Relationship Selling – 6 Actions for Handling Blockers and Gatekeepers - click this link

Gatekeepers and blockers can be handled easily if you know how.  Learn the details through this must read article.

Relationship Selling to C-Level Executives – How to Use Entertainment for More Sales

Most people conjure up socializing when they here the term relationship selling.  In business relationships are all about helping each other survive and prosper in his or her job.  Socializing should be a byproduct of good relationship selling. 

If I’m a C-Level executive decision maker, a relationship would mean providing me with solutions to problems such as, taking care of my employees, saving me money, helping me beat competition, making it easier for more sales, etc.  If you can deliver, and I see it’s you that makes it happen, then I want to continue working with you and possibly socialize with you.

Socializing can be great fun, but unless ....  Read on at

Relationship Selling to C-Level Executives – How to Use Entertainment for More Sales

or Watch the Video at

Video Relationship Selling to C-Level Executives – How to Use Entertainment for More Sales

C-Level Relationship Selling - 6 Steps to Avoid Selling Suicide

“I’ve got a great product, and I know this prospect can use it, but I can’t get this person interested.”  Sound familiar.  Well the problem to this dilemma is not competition, your price, etc.  It's the word “I”.  Look how many times “I” is used. 

A great product/service can die on the vine if the sales person assumes s/he has the answers to the prospects problems. Here are some tips to activate prospects’ interests.

Read this short but poignant article at C-Level Relationship Selling - 6 Steps to Avoid Selling Suicide

7 Sales Management Training Drill for Handling “I’m Interested, but I’ll get back to you.”

Prospects lose interest in your pitch for many reasons.  So before they do, use it to meet more and higher level people to generate shared interest.

 

Prepare Yourself

 

1.   Your attitude has to always be, “Get to the leaders.”  A prospect’s interest doesn’t mean much if you haven’t talked to the leader.  Subordinates can be helpful, but don’t expect them to sell your offering to their bosses.  It requires effort and risk for a questionable reward for them.

2.   Whenever you approach an opportunity or prospect, ask (in your own words), “Who else will be involved and who do those people report to?” You can’t depend on your contact to generate interest in all the other people who will have a say in the purchase.  If your contact is interested, get him or her to introduce you to the other people.

 

 For the rest or this article click here:  7 Sales Management Training Drill for Handling “I’m Interested, but I’ll get back to you.”

Selling to CEOs Tip 24 - Stay Close or Your Competitors Will Steal Your Relationships

Professional relationships are like bank accounts.  The more deposits you put into them the more withdrawal you can take.  The higher the title the bigger the value of the deposit.  Here are some ideas of how to stay close and keep making deposits with top level executives, even when nothing is happening.

Read the Article Selling to CEOs Tip 24 - Stay Close or Your Competitors Will Steal Your Relationships

Or

Watch the Video Selling to CEOs Tip 24 - Stay Close or Your Competitors Will Steal Your Relationships

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Selling to CEOs Tip 23-Use Selling Time to Build Useful Professional Relationships

It is 4 times easier to get business from an existing account where you’ve maintained high level relationships, rather than getting business from a new account.  It’s 2 times easier to get business from an account that you’ve lost, for whatever reason than a new one.  Why, because you have relationships – good ones and weaker ones. 

 

Relationships develop when each party receives positive professional benefits from the other.  That is,

 

Read on at Selling to CEOs Tip 23-Use Selling Time to Build Useful Professional Relationships

OR

Watch at Video Selling to CEOs Tip 23-Use Selling Time to Build Useful Professional Relationships

Selling to CEOs Tip 22 - Get 100% of Business from 100% of Your Clients

It’s so much easier to get more business from existing customers when you’re the preferred vendor, and this is very easy to do.  Being preferred provides an unfair advantage over any competition.  You’ll get jobs without bidding and at your price.  Even governments or institutions have work that sneaks-in under the radar that will be yours.  For those projects that have to be bid, you’ll know when they are coming down the pike.  You’ll learn what price will win, and you’ll be able to help write the specs that center around your strengths.  So being preferred is where you want to be with all your accounts, and it’s easily possible. 

 

Here's The 2 Steps.

 

See article at Selling to CEOs Tip 22 - Get 100% of Business from 100% of Your Clients

 

or

 

Watch the Video at Video Selling to CEOs Tip 22 - Get 100% of Business from 100% of Your Clients

 

C-Level Sales Training Tip 21- Eliminate Low Price by Differentiating

Price battles happen because the C-Level decision maker doesn’t see a reason to pay more.  Showing you’re the best of the choices available is called differentiation.  You separate yourself, your company and/or your solution from the others. 

 

Many sales people struggle with differentiation.  They feel their widget is basically like the competitors’.  With services, they feel the customer can do it just as well themselves.  But every company has uniqueness which should be used as differentiators. 

 

Learn how easy it is to show differentiation where it counts and eliminate the low price argument.

 

See Article at C-Level Sales Training Tip 21- Eliminate Low Price by Differentiating

or

See Video at Video C-Level Sales Training Tip 21- Eliminate Low Price by Differentiating

 

Good Selling

C-Level Sales Training Tip 20 - Relate Immediately by Matching Your Chemistry

To make interactions click immediately you’ll have to make CEO’s, C-level executives and people in general feel comfortable.   The operative word here is you.  You will have to do the matching by adjusting your style to his or hers. 

 

Though years of expert observations and testing, I have reduced style down to four easily usable characteristics – pace, risk, results, and social.  My system is simple.  All you’re going to do is gauge how much of each the person opposite you has and speed-up or slow-down yours to match.

 

Now here’s what I’ve observed through my years of experience using this.  If you conflict with one of these four characteristic, you’ll get by, but with difficulty.  If you conflict with two or more, there will be friction and you’ll not advance your relationship.

When people are at ease with you, they will listen to you, believe you and give you what you want.

Learn this simple system now.

Read the article at C-Level Sales Training Tip 20 - Relate Immediately by Matching Your Chemistry

or

Watch the video at Video C-Level Sales Training Tip 20 - Relate Immediately by Matching Your Chemistry

Good Networking, Selling and Relationship Development

C-Level Selling Tip 19 - The Fastest Path to Relationships and Sales Is Through Your Ears

Listening is the key to establishing relationships and selling.  If you learn what your prospects want, and/or forgot to mention, and/or don’t know about, and what they mean by the words they used to describe what they want, you’ll have a complete description of what it will take to win these people over.  It works for both business and personal relationships.

 

Most people practice useless listening and wonder why prospects and networking encounters go nowhere.

 

Read this Article C-Level Selling Tip 19 - The Fastest Path to Relationships and Sales Is Through Your Ears

and/or

 

Watch this Video C-Level Selling Tip 19 - The Fastest Path to Relationships and Sales Is Through Your Ears

 

They explain listening techniques to win people over effortlessly for networking, selling or developing relationships.