I recently delivered a keynote for the Xchange Solution Provider Conference on Leading Breakthrough Sales Performance. To prepare, my team conducted focus group interviews with a group of chief information officers.
The interviews provided a very consistent perspective on selling into the C-suite and, more specifically, to CIOs.
Here’s what we found. The average CIO in our focus group:
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Receives more than 100 inbound emails every day (and several report receiving more than 150 emails per day).
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Experiences both “disappointment” and “frustration” during the initial sales engagement with potential vendor partners. CIOs’ main concerns: vendors’ lack of preparation and inability to differentiate themselves from competitors.
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Feels “overwhelmed” by the sheer volume of solicitation attempts from vendors.
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Views cold calls and cold emails with disdain. Cold contact was consistently described as the “worst possible way to gain access or attention.”
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Leverages a network of trusted contacts and their own research when considering a new vendor, taking a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” approach.
The conclusion? The C-suite is getting even harder to access and once inside, the C-level buyer’s expectations have changed. Sales organizations have to prepare to engage differently. The traditional sales call is heading toward extinction.
The C-suite buyers we interviewed demand expertise and a very high degree of customization early in the sales cycle. In the enclosed video, I shed a little light on selling in the era of customization.
The Era of Customization from Ryan Estis on Vimeo.
