10 Thing Sales People Need to Know About C-Level Decision Makers

Selling to high-level decision makers is challenging at the best of times. However, it can be simpler in case you understand a few business principles.

C-level decision makers are paid to improve their business results. Irrespective of how the media portrays these executives, their primary concern is to improve their business. This includes increasing sales, market share, customer loyalty; reducing costs, errors, or worker turnover; improving productivity, worker engagement, customer support, etc.

How does your product, service or solution address of these issues?
C-level decision makers deal with changing priorities. Improving customer engagement could be a top priority today but tomorrow that executive may be faced with cutting $250,000 in expenses. That means they sometimes go icy after expressing preliminary interest in your solution.

Do you have a strategy in place to keep your solution current?
C-level decision makersare very busy. The average executive arrives early in the morning & stays late in to the evening. They get dozens of calls every day, get lots of emails, & attend lots of meetings. This means that you need to maximize every minute you have when you connect with them. This is applicable to phone conversations & face-to-face meetings.


Do you know EXACTLY what to say when you connect with these individuals?
C-level decision makersrely on others. Contrary to popular belief, these high-ranking big-wigs seldom make decisions on their own. They often defer to other people on their team & ask for feedback from peers and/or subordinates. This means you need to involve these people in your conversations & include them in the decision making method.

Do you have the ability to finesse this?

C-level decision makers don’t like to make mistakes. A major mistake can affect an executive’s reputation in their company. This affects the decision-making process which means you need to uncover their risk factor during your conversations.

How will you reduce your prospect’s risk factor?

C-level decision makers have big egos. Most executives have a healthy ego which is one of the things that helped them achieve their status in the company. This means that you need to be very confident in your own abilities when selling to these individuals. Don’t back down when you’re challenged. In fact, doing so could cost you the business because C-level execs want to deal with people who believe in what they do.

Are you confident enough to deal directly with C-level executives?

C-level decision makers spend the bulk of their day in meetings.The next time you’re in the office, watch an executive. Chances are you will see them dashing from meeting to meeting. Your prospects are in the same position. They aren’t sitting at their desk waiting for you to call them.

Are you persistent in your efforts to connect with these individuals?

C-level decision makers have at least 40 hours of work on their desk at any given time. Several executives I know have expressed these sentiment, “I will never get caught up” or “Just when I think I can’t get busier, I do” or “I never call a sales person back because I already have too much on my plate.” you need to give these individual’s an extremely good reason to meet with you or take your call.

Is your approach effective?

C-level decision makers receive upwards of 150 emails every day. Many sales people use email as their major form of correspondence and it can be ineffective because most C-level decision makers simply don’t have time to respond to every email. A Managing Director once told me that he prefers telephone correspondence because he simply can’t get to every email, even when he wants to.

Do you use a variety of strategies to connect with C-level decision makers?

C-level decision makers think big picture.Stop focusing on your product or your company and start looking at the big picture of your prospect’s business. Most C-level execs don’t get bogged down in the little details of their business—they pay others to take care of the details. I once met with the President of a $125 million company and made the mistake of asking her questions about front-line execution instead of top-level strategic issues.
 by: Kelley Robertson