Getting To The Top Decision Maker

How often have you encountered a prospect who, when you’re at the closing phase, tells you something like…

• “I am not the final decision maker.”
• “I’ll need to talk to my partner.”
• “There are a few people in my division I need to speak with regarding this idea.”

If you’ve heard one of these lines, you’re not alone. In sales, we are often faced with the daunting task of generating new business; yet, speak to people who cannot make the ultimate decision.

Situations like this are inevitable because you are dealing with the human factor. People as a general rule want to feel important; they like power. It is very easy for pseudo-decision makers to manipulate a salesperson into believing they can make a decision when in truth they cannot.

The Relay Game

Success in sales weighs heavily on how efficiently your message is delivered to the top decision maker. When a message you deliver becomes a part of a ‘relay game,’ you’re almost certain to experience frustration and lost sales.

The relay game, for those of you not familiar with this term, is when a manager says they have decision-making power, but they actually relay your ideas to someone in the power seat that gives them the ultimate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and relay the decision back to you. Quite often they play the relay game and then act as if the decision were there own.

In my sales training workshops, we focus on getting to the proper decision maker from the start. “How is this done?” you ask. Read on.

Get To The Proper Decision Maker

Sales professionals often find it easier to speak with middle managers in the corporate chain, as their willingness to listen to sales pitches is much greater than that of the top-level executives. Your first step in getting to the final decision maker is to analyze your market and determine the highest person in the chain of command.

A middle manager holds little value when it comes to making the final decision. Don’t get me wrong. There are always exceptions to the rule, but for the most part follow this rule: Identify the top-dog, head-honcho, the chief, captain, commander, or any other creative name held by the person who can say ‘yes’ to your idea.

Get to the C-Level

If you are not speaking to the C-level (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) person in your prospect or client’s company, or at least a senior executive, you’re aiming too low. In archery, the biggest mistake made when attempting to hit the bulls-eye is when the archer aims her arrow at the bulls-eye, rather than aiming above the mark.

This is true in sales. For instance, if you are selling computer network administrative services that will be used by a company’s IT Department and you present your idea to the IT manager because she or he is the one that will be using your service, you’re aiming too low.

Although the service may be used at the IT manager’s level, the decision to spend money is held by the CTO or a senior technology manager. If you aim too low on this target, you’ll spend your time wondering why you can’t seem to close the sale. Often in the mean time, your competition is selling the same idea to the appropriate top executive. To make the sale, you’ve got to get the top-level person involved.

What interests the C-level?

So how do you go about getting to the proper decision maker? What peaks the C-level’s interest in talking to you as an individual?

Most C-level executives are concerned with two primary factors in their business:

1. They want methods to increase revenue, profits, and margins; or practical methods of cost reduction, consolidation, or removal.
2. The creative salesperson evaluates his or her offering and determines how he or she can best become either a profit center or cost reduction center. What do you offer that fits into either of these two criteria?

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, if you’re reaching out to organizations’ executives, you’ve got to appeal to the profit or cost reduction centers.

Not the Ultimate Decision Maker?

What happens when you’re already involved in account and you find your contact is not the ultimate decision maker? This is one of my most frequently asked questions.

You must investigate the prospect’s buying process. You’ll know if you’re in the right place by asking how decisions are made.

For example, a sales professional selling copiers presents her idea to the general manager of Trisk Industries, Inc. The general manager likes the thought of the improved performance gained through the new copier, the computer integration, digital capabilities, as well as its ability to be attached to their entire network.

However, when the rep asks for the order, the general manager mentions he will have to talk it over with the Vice President. How could this problem have been solved earlier in the sales process?

Questions To Ask

Most importantly, the sales professional should have been speaking to the Vice President in the first place rather than to the general manager. However it is too late now, so what next? If you encounter a situation like this, ask open-ended questions along the following lines:

• Tell me a little bit more about how the decision process works on a product like this in your organization.
• I know this is an important decision, who else helps you come to decisions like this?
• Assuming we demo this product and it makes sense to you, are there other people we need to consult in order to move toward closure.

The Silence Tool

Remember to be quiet at let the customer do all the talking after asking an open-ended question. Also don’t add more information to the question in attempting to answer it for them. People often do this out of a fear of silence or a care for the person’s feelings. Either way, it is not helpful for you the sales person.

These are examples of open-ended questions gone very WRONG (some worse than others):

• I know this is an important decision, who else helps you come to decisions like this? Unless you don’t have anyone else to answer to.
• I know this is an important decision, who else helps you come to decisions like this? A CEO, maybe?
• Tell me a little bit more about how the decision process works on a product like this in your organization. Like, are you it?
• Assuming we demo this product and it makes sense to you, are there other people we need to consult in order to move toward closure. If not, that’s okay.

Just ask the question, without trying to answer it. Get comfortable with the silence. It is one of your best sales tools.

There Is Another Decision Maker,
What Now?

When it comes to qualifying the decision process: the earlier, the better. Assuming you ask one of the aforementioned appropriate questions and you find there is another decision maker, what should you do?

When I was selling Encyclopedia Britannica to pay my way through college, my managers always talked about never giving a three-legged pitch. It is called a three-legged pitch because just like a table with three legs, it is wobbly.

A three-legged pitch often happened when a salesperson would try and sell to only the husband or wife when there were actually two decision makers involved. Inevitably, if you made a three-legged pitch it ended with, “Let me talk to my husband or wife.”

The same is true in business-to-business sales. You can’t expect to have success when you are pitching ideas to people that can’t execute the decision. Quite often the influencer is searching for your product or services, because they are the ultimate user. However, anyone that cannot sign the contract and order a check is merely an influencer. Influencers offer value to the sales process and influence ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decisions, but they won’t be able to give the ultimate ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

As soon as you encounter a final decision maker, work to schedule a conference call or group meeting. The best practice method for phrasing this type of request is:

“Mrs. Jones, I understand how important a decision this is for your organization. It is apparent there are several people that will be positively affected by this decision. What I’d like to do is schedule a time for all of us to get together. That way I can be there to explain our (product or service) and answer all the questions for each person. I’ve got time available on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday of next week. Why don’t you check with their schedules so we can plan a conference call?”

Remember, if you’re not talking to the decision maker, you’re only as powerful as the influencer’s ability to persuade. If the influencer you’re speaking with isn’t very influential upon the final decision maker, you’re going to be met with a variety of objections when they return to speak with you. If the influencer isn’t a good salesperson to sell your idea upstream, you’re doomed to lose the account.

There are the five key ideas you should take from this article:

1. Determine who is the top-level decision maker and call upon that individual.
2. Gear your message toward one of two centers: profit center or cost reduction center. Selling from one of these to centers appeals to C-level and senior executive team members.
3. If you find you are speaking to an influencer rather than decision maker, determine how the decision process works.
4. Get other team players involved, but be sure to have the decision maker present.

Always schedule group meetings with the influencers and the decision maker. This will make closing a sale easier in the long run.