Steve W. Martin - Heavy Hitter Sales Psychology: How to Penetrate the C-level Executive Suite and Convince Company Leaders to Buy

Copyright 2009 by Steve W. Martin.

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Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steve W. Martin, 1960-

Heavy hitter sales psychology : how to penetrate the c-level executive suite and convince company leaders to buy / Steve W. Martin.

p. cm.

Includes index

ISBN 9780979796135

1. SellingPsychological aspects. 2. MarketingPsychological aspects. 3. Business communication. 4. Success in business. I. Title

HF5438.25 .M37366 2009

659.10688 20dc22 2009930572

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

14 13 12 11 10 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover design: Kuo Design

Interior design and composition: Girl of the West Productions

Editing: PeopleSpeak

Introduction: How to Use This Book

T his book is for senior salespeople, those who have been in the field for five, ten, and fifteen plus years. The goal is to help them accomplish the most difficult task in all of sales: penetrate the C-level executive leaders office and convince him to buy in the life-or-death meetings that determine whether the salesperson will win the deal.

I would like to thank the more than five hundred C-level executives whom I interviewed as part of the win-loss studies I have conducted on behalf of my clients. Listening to these senior leaders share their honest thoughts about how they made their decisions and why they selected the vendors they did was always fascinating. Throughout this book I have inserted their comments along with the title of the person who said them, as shown in the example below.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

I would also like to thank another very important group of people. As part of my preparation process for the keynote presentations and the sales training workshops I conduct, I have had the privilege of interviewing over one thousand of the top salespeople at some of the worlds best companies. I never grow tired hearing the stories of how these Heavy Hitters defeated their archrivals by winning over executive decision makers.

Finally, I would like to offer you some words of advice about reading this book. First, fight the urge to power read through this book. Although reaching your destination as quickly as possible may be ingrained in your psyche, those who have been in sales for many years have come to realize that the journey is the destination. Slow down and read this book in chunks of ten pages or so at a time.

Second, write in this book. Highlight passages you find interesting. Make notes in the margins about tactics you plan to try. Bend the corners of pages that are important to you. Most importantly, complete the nineteen exercises. By doing so you will learn more not only about people you must persuade, but about yourself too. The exercises will help you internalize the concepts and apply them on your next executive sales call. Most assuredly, you will reap the rewards for doing so.

Part I

The Foundation of Selling to C-Level Executives

Your most important competitive weapon is your mouth and the words you speak. While you will frequently meet with lower-level and midlevel employees at companies whose business youre trying to secure, the rare conversations you have with C-level decision makers will directly determine whether you win or lose the deal. Therefore, it is critical that you understand how C-level executives think and how they communicate and that you are able to adapt your use of language to match C-level decision makers. In part I we address sales linguistics , the study of how the customers mind uses and interprets language during the decision-making process.