Strategic Selling: Establishing Relationships with Decision Maker

One area in strategic selling overlooked and yet probably one of the most important areas in the sales cycle is the ability to qualify the prospect.

If you are qualifying the wrong person at the wrong level, within the organization, you could be wasting your time.  You need to take your solution selling to the next level and find the decision maker within the organization.

Today, decision makers are being held accountable for their decisions and the results they achieve.  In the current market environment, the ability to sell business solutions  (also known as solution selling) rather than products or services is essential, and can only be done at the executive level.  It is no longer “Status Quo” selling.  Understanding the unique business and personal challenges of selling to the executive or decision maker is crucial to your success.

Executives today are people that have little time or patience for “quota carrying” sales people.  They are working longer  hours, answering to more people, and have little time on their hands.

Employing a strategic selling mindset helps you establish credibility early in the sales cycle.  How can you make the most of such limited time to establish trust and gain continued access to the executives?  “Trusted Advisor” status!

Many sales organizations today boast that they have a consultative sales approach.  What this implies is that their sales people form a consultant-type relationship with the decision makers in the organizations they are selling to.

Executives buy because they feel understood not because they understand!

Understanding this statement is key for you moving forward.  If you truly understand this it might significantly change your sales approach to one of solution selling.  We are all classically trained to present, show, tell, and explain in pain staking details all about what we have to offer.  We work so hard to get people to understand what we have to  offer.

If you can gain the knowledge of each person you approach in the sales cycle and truly relate to them on their level then you will have a completely different dynamic unfold.  Those outstanding bells and whistles or unsurpassed service you are about to offer now be much better received.  This is selling and what is the difference in winning or losing.

It’s also another reason why it is so important to establish a relationship of mutual respect early in the sales cycle.

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