Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Closing the Deal

Getting sales pitches to decision makers

By Ken Cheo, principal at Winfree Business Growth Advisors

Quite often our clients want to know how to get to decision makers. Decision makers have gatekeepers and many times we find ourselves dealing with voicemail. I could write at least a dozen tips on this subject. I will give you six today:

1. Don’t cut corners – Decision makers are busy people and will be hard to get to. This does not justify starting at a lower level. Anyone who cannot make a decision can only give you a maybe or a no, they cannot give you a yes.

2. Be prepared to accept the case that they may be a no – Sometimes I find salespeople are so emotionally involved in wining a particular piece of business, they ignore the possibility that the prospect just may not be looking for what you have or be ready to buy it now. That may be the reason they are not responding to your attempts to connect. If they are not responding, look at your messaging or just keep them on your marketing campaign and go on to find someone who is ready to buy.

3. Start the conversation with a discussion on time – One of the gatekeeper’s biggest responsibilities is to protect the decision maker’s time. If you assure them from the beginning that you will not waste the decision maker’s time, they may open up and be willing to help you.

4. Be prepared – Have some compelling and brief reasons for why the decision maker may want to talk with you for longer than a minute. Offer two or three and don’t assume which ones will really stick. If they are not working, re-examine your scripting and be prepared for item two above.

5. Be prepared to articulate the reasons in a way to the gatekeeper that they are likely to see it as important to the decision maker. Remember, it doesn’t matter what we think. The gatekeeper knows more than you about what has been on the decision maker’s desk and who he or she has been seeing. Unless they see it as important to pass you through, they will be more likely to ask you to send information or leave a voicemail message to stall for time. Asking for their opinion about what may or may not be important to the decision maker and then for their help is a better approach. Trying to maneuver around them sometimes works but not always and trying to push through them or pretending to be their friend never does.

6. Be working other proactive ways to get in front of these people. Our clients are working five proactive channels. Cold calling can work, however it yields the lowest return on invested time. Getting personally introduced is the best.


Ken Cheo is a Principal at Winfree Business Growth Advisors, working with business owners and their sales teams to grow sales faster. He can be reached at 508-735-5399 or kcheo@winfree.org.