SALES PITCH


not being afraid of having an opinion. Our research has shown that top-level executives want to be challenged and surprised. They may not agree with everything you say, but it will certainly get you on the radar.”


Speak their language Successful salespeople should also be fluent in their customer's industry; how it works, its trends and even its jargon, maintains Read. They need to speak the language of the customer and relate in terms that these executives use themselves as it implies a much closer understanding of their business. Another key tip for sales staff is to familiarise themselves with how top executives make purchasing decisions and then market themselves accord- ingly. Top executives don’t want to know what you do – they want to know what you can do for them. “For salespeople this means promoting themselves and their companies as problem-solvers. For instance, buyers at all levels respond better to case studies, or problem-based marketing, than they do to product portfolios. However, too many company web- sites, particularly when the marketing department has sole control of content, tend to focus purely on product range rather than emphasising what that product range can actually do for their customers. As things stand, most B2B marketing leaves top executives cold.” Credibility is another important consideration and top-level executives expect anyone they are dealing with to have the authority to follow through on any agreements they make, so if a salesperson has to check back with head office before signing off on a deal, he or she probably won’t get to enjoy the comforts of the C-suite again any time soon! Once a deal has been agreed, however, those salespeople who


‘return to the scene of the crime’ to monitor delivery performance and client satisfaction are viewed as much more credible and have a better chance of securing repeat business. Read firmly believes that building relationships from the bottom


up is the only way to gain access to the C-suite. This premise is basically true across all cultures in both good and bad times, he says. “Salespeople need to know what’s going on with their cus- tomers if they are to anticipate their needs and remain relevant on an ongoing basis,” he stresses. “It’s about being in the right place with the right message at the right time.”


SALES STANDARD Another area of keen interest for Read is the overall state of the sales profession itself; its standing in the world of business and what exactly consti- tutes sales excellence. “I find it criminal that sales, as such a mission-critical component of the enterprise, is the one area that doesn’t have an applicable best-practice standard,” he says. “If we have no mechanism for measuring sales excellence, how are we supposed to improve? There are a lot of companies out there right now that don’t know if their sales departments are being run in a professional manner or not because they have nothing to measure them against. We need to have a proper industry-wide standards and certification process in place to measure and recognise excellence in both com- panies and individuals.” Read also feels that business schools and other educational institutes have a key role to play in promoting sales as a viable career path and not just something you fall into by default. He strongly advocates the establishment of a training stream from second-level up which, he feels, will do much to professionalise and legitimise the indus- try. He is currently working closely with various sales professional industry associations world- wide with the principal aim of establishing and overseeing a framework for measuring excellence that he hopes will be accepted and adapted into business-education syllabi for the future.


Volume 4 Issue 3 2010 Marketing Age 49


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