By Terry Booton, President
Advanced Marketing Instruction

Why start at the bottom when you can sell at the top?
"Relationship" and "bottom-up" selling aren’t especially effective in today’s time-pressed sales environment, asserts Terry Booton, president, Advanced Marketing Instruction (Marietta, GA) and author of Cracking New Accounts. "The idea of these concepts is to take the time to get to know a lot of different people in the organization."

What’s Wrong With That? - Given that the cost of the average industrial sales call is around $500-and that it takes an average six calls to close a sale-can your company afford the $3,000 loss if you never do make the sale?

According to Booton, bottom-up selling poses this kind of expense and risk. "How many times have your salespeople spent days, weeks, and months working on something for a prospect-only to have the recommendation taken to the top decision maker who rejects it?" he asks.

A Better Strategy
Booton offers a better strategy: Start at the top-and work your way down. "By calling on the top decision maker to begin with, you quickly determine whether there are any opportunities for you to sell your products or services," he says. The extra time your people save can be spent making other, more productive calls.

"It’s much easier to start calling at the top and go down the ladder than it is to start at the bottom and try to climb up," contends Booton, who has been selling to CEOs and presidents for 20 years.

"If you begin at the bottom, you often get sucked into doing a lot of work for end users who have no intention of buying or have no authority to buy," he explains.

Starting at the top is especially important if you’re selling products or services that will change the operations, procedures, or policies of an organization.

Added Benefit - "If a company launches a supplier-reduction effort," notes Booton, "you have a better chance of remaining if you have a personal relationship with the top decision maker."

How Difficult Is It?
Ask salespeople why they don’t make a habit of calling on presidents and CEOs, and you’ll get a number of answers. These are among the most common excuses:

"Presidents don’t get involved in these kinds of decisions."
"I can’t get past their secretaries."
"They won’t talk to someone like me."
"What could I talk to a president about, anyway?"
"I feel more comfortable working with people in the lower levels of the organization."

What These Excuses Really Are - According to Booton, these excuses can best be summed up in one word: intimidation!
Yet, on the basis of Booton’s experience and research, this intimidation is unfounded. "Company presidents are among the easiest people to get through to," he asserts.

The Direct Approach - Top decision makers will get right to the point, too, saving your salespeople and themselves time. "They will tell you what they want and what it takes to get their business," Booton says.
The reason presidents and CEOs are accessible is that they, like you, are interested in making money. "If you can show them ways to do this, they will be very interested," Booton observes.

Voices of Experience
Booton backs up his contentions with first-hand knowledge. He explains that he took a film crew throughout the United States and interviewed top executives in organizations of different sizes and in different industries. He asked these questions:

Who is the ultimate buying decision maker?
How influential are you in buying decisions?
What are your current priorities?
How difficult are you to see, on a scale of 1 to 10?
How can salespeople get past your secretary?
What do you expect salespeople to know when they talk with you?
What do you use as decision criteria?
How important is return on investment?
How would you make a call on yourself?
How willing are you to change suppliers?
What do you want to see in a proposal?
Is a salesperson ever wasting his or her time making an initial call on you? (The universal answer to this question was a resounding, "No.")

"What Can You Do for Me?" - Another common response was this: "If salespeople can show me new products or ideas that will help me run my business more effectively, profitably, and productively-or help me gain marketshare or competitive advantage-I will make the time to talk to them."

Furthermore, the majority of CEOs and presidents reported the following:

If they had no interest, they would quickly tell the salesperson so.
If the company would be interested but the CEO would not be involved, he or she would happily introduce the salesperson to the right people in the organization. (Being introduced by the company’s top decision maker would obviously start a salesperson off on the right foot with these people.)

Research and Preparation
While the good news so far is that presidents and CEOs are accessible, it’s crucial to understand that salespeople must earn the right to spend time with top decision makers by being fully prepared.

"Salespeople must have something of value to offer," Booton stresses, "and they must know all about it."

Five-Phase Approach - Booton recommends a five-phase approach to your preliminary research-things to have your people do before they even attempt to set an appointment with a top decision maker:
Understand the customer’s industry in general and his or her business in specific. "Understand the problems the industry faces, the needs the customer has, and how your product or service addresses these problems and needs," Booton advises.
Know your competitors for that business. Find out how your products and services are different from what the competition offers-how you can provide a competitive advantage.
Be able to provide a cost justification for your product or serviceÑ-a specific "reason" to buy from your company.
Be able to supply references-names and phone numbers of satisfied customers who can also tout the tangible benefits of your product or service.
Identify a key, "earth shattering" point about your product or service that you can use to gain the president’s or CEO’s attention quickly.

Copyrighted material reprinted with the permission of the Bureau of Business Practice, 125 Eugene O'Neill Drive,
Suite 103, New London, CT 06320. 800-876-9105

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