Hey, Senior Executive. Think You Can Sell? Read This First.
During a recent stint at Logan Airport, a CEO I’d struck up a conversation with offered a book recommendation: Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Once I’d had a chance to read it, one part in particular caught my eye.
Goldsmith had asked 50,000 successful professionals to rate themselves against their peers. Some 80 to 85 percent of them rated themselves in the top 20 percent of their peer group, and 70 percent of them ranked themselves in the top 10 percent. Claims the author: “This number is even higher among professionals with higher perceived social status, such as physicians, pilots, investment bankers, 90 percent of whom place themselves in the top 10 percent.”
There’s nothing wrong with that math. But there certainly is something wrong with how these people view themselves.
Although Goldsmith doesn’t specifically include CEOs, general managers, managing partners, and other high-level business executives in his group, I’ll strongly suggest they belong. And if you look at this survey with respect to senior executives of companies with dysfunctional sales organizations, it’s a big, big problem.
I’ve been on enough save-the-deal sales calls with CEOs—and many VPs of sales—to understand the challenge. Their rep is losing or has already lost a deal, so the CEO parachutes in. He offers concessions (usually significantly steeper discounts than their reps or sales VPs are allowed), promises of personal attention, their direct phone number, their private e-mail address, and who knows what else. The customer relents and a deal is done.
Back at the office the CEO brags to the sales team, the board, and anyone else who will listen: “Now, that’s how to sell. Why don’t we have more people in this company who can do that?”
Granted, they have charisma, business savvy, and intelligence. But they also have three magic letters on their business card: C-E-O. And with that, they can offer up the resources of their entire company as barter for that elusive signature on the contract.
That’s not selling; it’s a one-act tragedy. And many executives who have enjoyed top billing in that play don’t know the difference.
But things get worse from here. That CEO remembers back when they carried a bag. They don’t really understand selling was much easier then. And they don’t remember what it was like bouncing around from customer to customer counting on luck, some good interpersonal skills, a dose of motivation, some competitive DNA, much less competition, and buyers who were considerably less savvy.
What about that parachuting, discount-wielding CEO who had never been a quota-carrying salesperson? They have no idea what challenges must be overcome when you have “sales representative” on your business card, especially working for a smaller company. If they worked for IBM, 3M, GE, or SAP, as examples, whatever dealings they had with customers were artificially lubricated by their company’s brand equity. They can’t imagine why the reps for them can’t sell, even as they themselves have no idea what professional selling is really about in this newest economy.
As a result, these executives—the self-proclaimed sales legends—don’t believe sales effectiveness is a strategic capability that must be invested in. They won’t fund methodology or sales process development projects. They won’t get behind a company-level transformation of their selling approach. They don’t think coaching programs are worth the time and money. What they do think is sales people are born—not made—just like them.
“You want to see how to really sell?” they say to the sales rep as they take the elevator up to the executive offices of a company where they are losing a deal. “Watch this.”
Watch this, indeed.
(This column ran today in Sales and Marketing Management magazine.)
Photo credit: Fotolia_10995733_XS.jpg
Filed under: Big Wins
I couldn’t agree more with this post. Executives in general, and CEO’s in particular, should be very careful about which deals the “parachute” into to start with. In many cases they can do more harm than good. And bragging about it afterwards is just poor form.
I’ve seen very successful salespeople completely demoralized by the parachute drop. Thanks, Dave.
Dave,
I enjoyed this post. I’ve seen a lot of CEO’s in my time who say that they know sales, who know marketing, who know customer service- yet they come from a finance or accounting background. They don’t understand why everything can’t get done right away or to their standards… A recent CEO I worked with was very reactive and we were constantly dropping everything to do an “insert CEO name” project. This was actually a contributor to our “sales prevention” plan and not our grow sales plan.. I hope a few CEOs read this!
Thanks,
- Marci Reynolds
Thanks, Marci. Pass the word around….
Wow,
I have seen that exact scenario several times in my sales career.
Many sales executives stress selling “value” and then give away the farm when they are in the hot seat.
Thanks for confirming my observations over the years.
Scott Marker
20-year B2B sales veteran
Author & Speaker
Dave – great topic and spot on analysis. Sales is the most misunderstood area in an org.
[...] 12, 2009 · No Comments New post at Dave Stein’s blog, “Hey, Senior Executive. Think You Can Sell? Read This First”, raises an excellent point that many, many people have been talking about over the last few weeks, [...]
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This is a super article.
Working closely with a CEO in international sales, I have got to know his parachute tendencies and try to use it to my advantage (sometime it works… sometimes it doesn;t).
– First up, bring in the senior leader earlier for a decent opportunity, not just when its screwed up
- know what the rules of the game are in terms of discount…. the 3rd time a CEO does this it’s a pattern not a one off (our CEO is sometimes called Chief Discount Officer)
- know how to get the most value from including the CEO with minimal demands on his time by calling the shots on how he’s involved (“I have this awesome opportunity – would you like to say hello for 20 minutes – here’s all you need to know about the deal in 3 bullets?”
Anyway, there some huge misconcpetions regarding sales and for now it gives me some great humorous material to blog about:
http://www.iloveclosing.com
Joking aside, sales desperately needs to catch up with its peers in marketing in terms of how they are percieved within an organization.
Keep in touch
TC
Keith, Scott, TC. Thanks for your comments.
TC. http://www.iloveclosing.com. Pretty funny!
Hey Dave -
Appreciate the article, very true. Leveraging the CEO can be a great tool, especially for a challenging deal that would require the company to step outside of the “comfort zone” of standard products (speaking from experience). Plus, if the CEO promises to deliver the undeliverable, then the salesperson is off the hook.
One point – If you’re working for a great company the CEO should already be competent and charismatic. Plus, they write the commission checks once that deal comes through, discount or not… so why not let them land a deal for you if its already bust?
Here’s the reason CEO parachuting is a problem. They think selling is easy. If they can do it, why can’t you? So they don’t really look at the challenges sales has, whether the right people are running the organization, or how to build long-term competitive advantage through sales effectiveness. If they can rescue deals whenever the fire alarm rings, and it’s not only a sale but a big ego boost, why look at things strategically?
Now, from the salesperson’s perspective, so long as the CEO doesn’t show disrespect to the rep, their job, for the moment, has been made easier. But what has improved in the system so that that rep can win the deal themselves next time? Probably nothing. That’s why this is a problem.
Thanks for your comment, Eric.
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[...] been reading some great posts – such as this one by Dave Stein – and I’m conscious there’s a lot of info out there and some great thought leadership. The [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dave Stein, John Caddell. John Caddell said: RT @davestei: Hey, Senior Executive. Think You Can Sell? Read This First. http://ow.ly/EXRG [...]