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Winning Executive-Level Opportunities
Your most important customer doesn’t care about the features and benefits of your service.
It doesn’t matter how articulate you are about describing those features or how much you advertise them. They don’t care.
How can I be so sure when I don’t even know what service you provide? Because I’m referring to executive decision makers; those people who make the ultimate call about whether to choose your service or not. Executives are looking for one thing: results. Your wonderful descriptions of your features and benefits will barely hold their attention if they do at all. When you do get their attention with the results they will achieve using your service, however, you’ll short circuit the sales process to close more opportunities, at higher prices, and in less time.
Results can mean many things, but almost always, they fall into three categories:
Increasing revenue, decreasing costs, and minimizing risk
If you can communicate your value in terms of how your service improves one or more of those categories, you can capture and retain the attention of executive decision makers.
And when communicating the results you will provide, two important factors come into play.
First, timing. Our research has shown that executives are much more interested in discussing value early in their decision-making process.
If you wait to discuss your value until the proposal or negotiation stages, it’s too late. Your executive decision maker will have lost interest and procurement/sourcing will have taken over the process. This line of thinking is especially critical when up- or cross-selling your next service. Too often I see suppliers close a great opportunity and then neglect to share their customer value until it’s time for a renewal. By then, the competition has already articulated their value in a meaningful way and won the next deal. Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are a great way to reinforce the value you are creating for your customers.
The second key factor when communicating your value is simplicity. If you can’t quantify your value on the back of a cocktail napkin, your story is probably too complicated. There are three main reasons simplicity is so important:
- You and your salespeople need to believe in your value. If your story gets too complicated, you start second guessing yourself.
- Your customer needs to be able to understand it. If you have too many numbers and calculations, they won’t be able to follow you in the 5 minutes you get to make your point.
- Your customer needs to be able to share your value message with their internal counterparts. Without a doubt, your customer is having conversations about your value without you present. If they can’t articulate your value, your message is lost.
We all want to close more deals and one of the best ways to do that is to grab and retain the attention of executive decision makers. Instead of wasting time and energy on mid-level workers who only care about the features and benefits of your service, move to the head of the line with value messaging for executives. When you deliver the right value, at the right time, to the right audience, you’ll close more opportunities, faster, and at a price that better aligns with your value.