Michael J. Nick - The Key to the C-Suite: What You Need to Know to Sell Successfully to Top Executives

More Advance Praise forThe Key to the C-Suite

Nick provides a well-thought-out, metric-driven analysis of how C-level executives make decisions that get beyond the standard acronym-driven methodologies that sales people are normally taught.

G ARTH M OULTON, Senior Director of Community, Salesforce.com, and co-founder, Jigsaw

Michael pushes the value creation envelope further by helping to create a financial pain-gain model to help salespeople mediate meaningful discussions with CXOs.

V ICTOR A NTONIO, Sales Influence

An easy-to-read, demystifying explanation of how to create tools necessary to interact, communicate with, and sell to C-Suite executives. The Key to the C-Suite opens the door to successfully selling to top executives.

J OE B OLIAN, President , Taxography, Inc.

This book will take consultative selling to a totally new level for those organizations that incorporate the major C-Suite metrics in their selling processes. Following the books systematic approach will give sales professionals the knowledge and tools they need to be viewed as business consultants, and not tell and sell vendors, by their prospective buyers.

B OB K ANTIN, President, SalesProposals.com

Finally, a credible way to measure the financial impact on an organizations top and bottom line. Thank you, Michael Nick!

G URU G ANESHA, Sandler Training, the Sales Guru for the High Tech Industry

In the current economic environment, buying decisions are made at the C-level, forcing sales professionals to speak a different language and adopt better tools in order to survive. The Key to the C-Suite simplifies the C-level vernacular, provides a solid education of strategic buying, and illustrates how to tie value to financial impact by moving beyond an ROI sales model.

H ARRY D EAN B ILLIPS, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Tax Compliance, Inc.

The
KEY
to the
C-SUITE

The
KEY
to the
C-SUITE

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO SELL
SUCCESSFULLY TO TOP EXECUTIVES

MICHAEL J. NICK

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E-mail: specialsls@amanet.org
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This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nick, Michael J.
The key to the C-suite : what you need to know to sell successfully to top executives / Michael J. Nick.
p. cm. Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1730-0
ISBN-10: 0-8144-1730-2
1. Selling. 2. Sales management. 3. Executives. 4. Consumer behavior. I. Title.
HF5438.25.N523 2011
658.85--dc22 2011007609

2011 Michael J. Nick.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

About AMA

American Management Association (www.amanet.org) is a world leader in talent development, advancing the skills of individuals to drive business success. Our mission is to support the goals of individuals and organizations through a complete range of products and services, including classroom and virtual seminars, webcasts, webinars, podcasts, conferences, corporate and government solutions, business books and research. AMAs approach to improving performance combines experiential learninglearning through doingwith opportunities for ongoing professional growth at every step of ones career journey.

Printing number
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What does it take to capture and keep the attention of todays crazy-busy executives? Perhaps youre still under the illusion that theyre interested in your products, services, or solutions.

If so, youre in for a rude awakening. In fact, your offering is so irrelevant that even talking about it in early meetings with C-level executives is a serious breach of etiquette. The result? You immediately lose credibility, and they see you as one more lightweight, self-serving salesperson. Potential opportunities come to a screeching halt.

Ive seen this happen repeatedly. Most salespeople simply dont know what it takes to engage senior executives in a peer-to-peer conversation. They lack the business acumen and customer insight to understand the true value of their offering. Worse yet, because their companies fail to provide this information, many salespeople dont even know what theyre missing.

But what you dont know can hurt youbadly. It can cripple your sales efforts and make you work ten times harder to reach your quota. Ive been in those situations, and Im sure you have, too. Its no fun to be continually scrambling to meet your numbers.

Thats why The Key to the C-Suite is an essential tool that belongs on every salespersons desk. In todays economy, virtually all decisions are being scrutinized to determine whether theyll contribute value to the companys bottom line. And you need to be the one who tells senior executives what your offering specifically means for them because theyre often too busy to figure it out on their own.

In this book, Michael Nick has laid out a detailed blueprint for clearly articulating your business case in a manner thats highly appealing to C-Suite executives. First, you learn their language. Then, you get inside your product or service, offering to figure out its true contribution to their business objectives.

Step by step, youre led through exactly what you need to do to get your prospects to consider making a change. Once you learn how to do this, youll become an unstoppable force. Why? Because frazzled prospects dont have enough time to think and strategize on how to improve their business.

Theyre looking for trusted resources that have their best interests in mind. They want to work with people who bring them ideas and insights on how to achieve their objectives. Theyll definitely pay attention when you contact them with an idea on how to increase the average order size on your web site by up to 14 percent or how to significantly reduce time to revenue on new product launches.

Thats the kind of specific offering that gets them drooling. Theyll ask you in to meet with them. Theyll want to learn how you did this for others. Theyll invite their colleagues to meet with you as well.

Suddenly the status quo is no longer acceptable. Its time to seriously consider doing something different. Youre now in the drivers seatleading the change initiative. And it all started because you knew how to build a strong business case when talking to C-Suite executives.

Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling