{"id":1398,"date":"2008-01-30T14:50:37","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T20:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/deal-killing-ceos\/"},"modified":"2008-01-30T14:47:46","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T20:47:46","slug":"deal-killing-ceos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/deal-killing-ceos\/","title":{"rendered":"Deal-Killing CEOs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ManageSmarter.com offers an article I could have penned &#8211; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.managesmarter.com\/msg\/content_display\/publications\/e3if1dace1ad88d94c412bf1b3aa1684c66\">The CEO as Salesperson<\/a>.\u00a0 I can relate to this sales call:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>After initial introductions, the CEO took over the meeting and, ignoring the agenda, began a detailed demo and discussion of the product. He set about to demonstrate the superiority of the product and his own knowledge of the industry. He argued with the prospect, dismissed their questions and points of view, and then couldn&#8217;t understand why they didn&#8217;t buy immediately. It took the regional manager nine months to recover and get the sale.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My experience with the CEO in a sales call most often followed a similar form with even worse outcomes (lost the prospect all together).\u00a0 I know there are good sales CEO&#8217;s out there and my experience is limited, but I still would be hesitant to bring the CEO on a qualifying call.<\/p>\n<p>The author does provide a checklist for the call and the right tact for the CEO to take (my editing):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The key to effective use of the CEO lies in the discipline of call planning. This can be time-consuming and the CEO might need to be educated about it, but the payoff is huge.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the previous example in which the CEO did the demo; in reality, sales staff can and should perform this role.\u00a0 A higher-value and more appropriate role for that CEO would have been to sell vision, strategy, ideas and relationship, not specific features and functions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Finally, an over-reliance upon the CEO to close prospects becomes problematic for one very simple perception:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>According to one financial services representative, &#8220;The<br \/>\nclient exec told me that if the CEO had to go on every sales call, we must be poorly run or desperate for business, and that made him nervous. Even a small<br \/>\ncompany&#8217;s CEO shouldn&#8217;t be going on every sales call.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ManageSmarter.com offers an article I could have penned &#8211; The CEO as Salesperson.\u00a0 I can relate to this sales call: After initial introductions, the CEO took over the meeting and, ignoring the agenda, began a detailed demo and discussion of the product. He set about to demonstrate the superiority of the product and his own knowledge of the industry. He argued with the prospect, dismissed their questions and points of view, and then couldn&#8217;t understand why they didn&#8217;t buy immediately. It took the regional manager nine months to recover and get the sale. My experience with the CEO in a sales call most often followed a similar form with even&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/deal-killing-ceos\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,9,11],"tags":[268,184,267,142,269],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-management","category-sales-techniques","category-team-management","tag-ceo-selling","tag-qualifying","tag-sales-approach","tag-sales-technique","tag-selling-with-the-ceo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-my","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2643,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2015\/10\/one-third-of-ceos-are-worthless-in-sales\/","url_meta":{"origin":1398,"position":0},"title":"One Third Of CEO&rsquo;s Are Worthless In Sales","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Those aren\u2019t my words but rather the findings from a Selling Power survey.\u00a0 From the article: A recent Selling Power online survey found that 29 percent of sales leaders judged their CEO useless when it comes to creating a sale. Almost one third and I think I have worked for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2010,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/05\/bite-sized-selling\/","url_meta":{"origin":1398,"position":1},"title":"Bite-Sized Selling","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have come across many articles recently that promote selling tips in this recession.\u00a0 One common thread runs through all of them \u2013 chase smaller deals.\u00a0 Here is an example from Inc.com - 5 Tips for Selling a Service Now: \u201cThe big change for us in 2009 is that we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":550,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/communicating-with-the-ceo\/","url_meta":{"origin":1398,"position":2},"title":"Communicating With The CEO","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"January 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In Selling Power's latest Sales Manager's Newsletter there is an article from Anthony Parinello, author of Selling to VITO and Think & Sell Like a CEO. As a sales manager who is working with a salesperson on their messaging, Anthony makes some great points about assumptions CEO's hold about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":935,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/05\/the-selling-ceo\/","url_meta":{"origin":1398,"position":3},"title":"The Selling CEO","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"CareerJournal.com's Company Leaders Are Spending More Quality Time With Customers covers a timely topic in today's market - CEO's directly involved in the selling process.\u00a0 We have seen this change in our mid-sized customers for the past few years.\u00a0 This article provides a good example - the CEO for Intel\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Techniques&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/windowslivewriterthesellingceo-7d28bw-salesperson7.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1556,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/5-keys-to-credibility\/","url_meta":{"origin":1398,"position":4},"title":"5 Keys To Credibility","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Selling Power offers a short, but excellent article that provides 5 subtle ways to build credibility.\u00a0 We often talk about establishing rapport with prospects and then building credibility.\u00a0 This is sales 101, but it is surprisingly sparse in sales situations (emphasis mine): Of the five elements which are essential to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Techniques&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":746,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/qualifying-or-responding\/","url_meta":{"origin":1398,"position":5},"title":"Qualifying or Responding","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Managesmarter.com offers a short article regarding Best Sales Practices of 2007 that contains a stellar piece of sales advice: \"The dictum of 'No RFP shall go unanswered' is not a good idea,\" says Sam Reese, CEO of sales training firm Miller Heiman. Because of the time, energy and money involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Techniques&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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