Sometimes customer executives involved in a decision process are only accessible through one of their direct reports…meaning you may not meet with them directly (or when you would like to). This means you have to depend on the contact supporting your selling effort...your “inside coach”.
How to make it as easy as possible for your “internal coach” to sell for you...
Create a brief summary
Summarize the whole “story” by developing a BRIEF document (bullets and pictures). Why bullets and pictures? Executives would rather “scan” than read. Sample information to include...
Current Environment
Challenges
Goals/Objectives (the customer’s)
Solution(s) you are offering
Implementation timeline
Value your solutions provide
Investment options
Keep it short!
No more than 1-2 pages if possible
Make a decision in your favor easy!
Summarize the customer requirements you are meeting on one page. Here is an example…let’s say the following is accurate about your progress to date:
Working with customer resources to test your solution and they believe it will work well.
Confirmed your company can complete the project within required timeframe
Your implementation plan minimizes the requirement for customer internal resources time and effort
How about displaying this so your internal coach can easily “talk from the document” or the document “speaks for itself”…
Ask your internal coach how to best approach the executives that need to approve the deal you are pursuing. This will naturally lead to how you want to creatively make it easy for them to move forward with your company!
Marc Kitz, Sales Coach
860-836-8979