- 9 months ago
Tag's Decision Maker Guide
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00:00hey everyone i'm tag chriswell i'm the regional digital sales director i'm based out of tampa
00:13florida and i'm going to talk about decision makers today and the importance of starting
00:17the conversation in the right place when we're prospecting so our agenda that we're going to
00:23cover and discuss is going to be the three key fundamentals for prospecting for new business
00:28influencers versus decision makers and the difference of how to decipher the decision
00:34maker guide itself going to cover some questions from the team and lastly the key takeaways from
00:41today but first the spirit of this guide is to help you create a path of positive momentum as
00:48your discovery conversations build into presentations and closing business hopefully after today will i
00:55will have provided you with new ways to think about shaping and leading your prospecting efforts
01:00so that you're talking to and engaging the right people and putting yourselves in the best position
01:06to be successful and win a lot of new business if you're using this guide effectively i promise you're
01:12going to avoid taking no's from somebody that cannot tell you yes i can't express that enough
01:19so first the three key fundamentals are going to be volume asking for the business and talking to
01:29decision makers so volume we have to have a high outreach activity level you have to keep your lead
01:36list fresh constantly giving yourself new prospects to call on then asking for the business it's
01:44self-explanatory isn't it but believe it or not a lot of people don't do it you have to
01:49ask for the business after you present the prospect isn't always going to hold up a sign and jump up
01:55and down and say close me i'm ready to buy you have to ask for the business and lastly the theme for
02:02today is talking to decision makers okay we have to be talking to the right people you can be making
02:09a ton of volume a ton of calls you can ask everybody that you talk to for the business but guess what
02:16if you're not talking to the right people decision makers that can tell you yes you're not going to
02:23close a lot of business folks so we have to talk to the right people it's last but not least the most
02:31important thing you can be a mediocre seller you can not do a lot of volume but if you're talking to
02:39decision makers at the least you're going to close some business you're going to put yourself
02:44in a position to win some deals but you know what let's be elite sellers let's do all three
02:49so volume ask for the business talk to decision makers all right before we jump into the decision
02:56maker guide let's look at the difference between an influencer and a decision maker because quite often
03:03they walk talk act and can look the same okay but an influencer is someone who does not own the budget
03:11or have autonomy to make the final decision however they can impact the outcome so um they're not
03:18terrible to have involved we work with influencers a lot uh common influencer titles are like director
03:25of marketing marketing manager but the decision makers we have to stay close to them we have to try to
03:30get them involved the decision maker is the one that sets owns and even can reallocate the budget
03:37and can tell you yes autonomously these are owners ceos senior vice presidents executive vice presidents
03:45regional vice presidents executive directors i think you all get the point now how can you identify
03:51the two so the best advice that i can give you is that we should always at some point in our discovery
03:59conversation ask what the decision making process is like on their end and who is involved that's how you're
04:06going to find out how long the process takes what the process is and who all is a part of that decision
04:13so without further ado here is the decision maker guide the common theme here is that the smaller the
04:20business the higher you want to go and remember when in doubt go high i'll say it again when in doubt
04:29go high so for your small local businesses with one to 20 employees real simple we're going high we're
04:37going to the president ceo owner a lot of cases with local businesses we're working directly with the
04:42owners with medium-sized local businesses ranging employee size 21 to 75 employees or 75 to 150 employees
04:52we're looking at um going whoever reports directly to that president or go to that vp that reports
04:59to the senior vice president or executive vice president and then lastly our companies that have employees
05:06between 150 to 500 employees typically um with us working with smbs this is going to be a national company
05:14with a regional presence so we're going to go after that regional vp or market director nine times out of ten
05:21i want to make some one thing clear um every situation every business every conversation is going to evolve
05:29differently and it's going to have slightly different structure this guide is just that it's a guide
05:35it's not um it's not ironclad it's going to ring true approximately 80 percent of the time for the
05:43the verticals that are listed on this page and and then some but you know the the the spirit is is to
05:50be starting the conversation high um to be close to the decision makers getting the decision makers
05:56involved early on as a part of the process get introductions get them involved and around when you're
06:04presenting um so they're in a part of the process of making the final decision if we're not working
06:10directly with them the entire way if we are working with an influencer we still have a line of
06:16communication with these high level decision makers because we started the conversation with them
06:22all right on some questions i asked the team to provide me some questions just because i wanted
06:29to provide a little more context play devil's advocate on some questions that you all might have
06:34again following this session if you have any questions or want to brainstorm feel free to follow up with
06:39me directly but here's some questions that we have from the team so first why is it important to
06:44pre-qualify or identify who the decision maker is and not just call and walk in or ask who handles
06:51marketing well there's more to it than that oftentimes there's someone who quote unquote handles marketing
06:58but still doesn't set or manage the budget and can't make the buying decision autonomously so again we want
07:05to dictate the momentum and the path of our conversations with businesses this is why we want to start the
07:12conversation at the level of leadership or ownership where we know the autonomy lies so even if we get
07:19pushed off to the lower report we know we've got the decision maker involved in the conversation
07:25when we get that introduction from that decision maker to the influencer it completely changes the
07:33dynamic of that conversation it gives us more credibility and more momentum leading into that
07:39conversation with that influencer it also allows us access to that decision maker instead of being
07:46closed off from them so since we started the conversation with that decision maker we're keeping
07:51them involved we're keeping them cc'd even though we're working with the influencers and now we can
07:56rope them back in for our presentation and our proposal come decision time
08:03so you've identified the decision maker and after you've had the initial discovery call a needs
08:08assessment meeting you learn that there are other decision makers involved in making the call
08:14how do you handle this well this isn't necessarily a bad thing though we would typically love to have
08:20all parties involved in making the decision present for our initial meeting in a perfect world at some
08:28point during the cna you know we've discussed you should always ask about the decision making
08:32process so the fact that you've learned this now um and discovered everybody that's involved is good
08:39you now want to make sure that everyone is present for that next meeting for you to present your
08:45proposal otherwise you're left at the mercy of relying on whoever you pitch the single decision maker or the
08:52influence or possibly to then basically go and sell it to everyone else and we're the experts on this
08:59folks so we definitely want to be the ones presenting to the decision makers so we can impact them directly
09:06not relying on somebody else do our job for us
09:10so what happens when you don't pre-qualify the decision maker
09:16now you've pitched someone that's not the final decision maker
09:19and they tell you no is there a process to follow to go above them and try to close the deal
09:27i wouldn't recommend it uh at this point unfortunately there's not much we can try to do
09:36and win this specific opportunity you're kind of cooked you can't go over influencers head if you've
09:42not already established a direct line of communication with the decision makers typically without ruffling
09:48feather so in this in this situation i'd recommend that you wait for the next opportunity to bring to
09:54that company and make sure the next time you start with the decision maker i know this can be very
10:01frustrating because oftentimes when this happens that that influencer um or that non-decision maker
10:08comes back and lets you know that they aren't moving forward with your your proposal and if we're doing
10:13our job the way that we should we're going to ask why not we're going to ask what's the objection
10:18what's standing in the way of us doing business with you of earning your business and many times they
10:24won't be able to give us a definitive answer or objection to even overcome because the boss the
10:29decision maker simply said no without explanation so this is why again it's so important to start high
10:37because your conversation is always going to have the down downhill momentum from the top the decision
10:44maker is going to be involved you already have the open line of communication with them so then
10:50you know what if the influencer comes back and tells you no and they don't have an explanation
10:54then you already have a line of communication set and it's not going to ruffle feathers if you circle
10:59back to that decision maker that you've already built rapport with and ask them what's standing
11:04in the way of us earning their business so lastly what if you connect with the right decision maker
11:10according to the guy but then you get pushed off to work with someone below them on the chain of
11:15command quote unquote influencer and you know i think we've alluded to this a little bit before but
11:20um this often will happen and why while ideally we'll be working directly with the final decision
11:27maker throughout the entire process it's very common that this be delegated so if and when
11:34this does happen always ask the decision maker to introduce you to the influencer that they are
11:41delegating to this way again you have the credibility and the momentum by having the boss request that the
11:49conversation happen with the influencer and now even though you're not working directly with the
11:55decision maker for that discovery call and needs analysis conversation you should still continue
12:01to copy the decision maker on all your correspondence so they're still looped into the process and request
12:09their presence for when you are presenting your proposal okay folks so our key takeaways for this afternoon
12:16start the conversation in the right place we want to get the decision makers involved when in doubt go high
12:24and avoid taking no from someone that can't tell you yes and if we're using the guy the way we should
12:31we're gonna avoid doing that so that's all for me today folks i really appreciate your time i hope you found
12:37this to be helpful if you have any questions or want to brainstorm on any upcoming projects please feel free
12:43anytime to reach out me directly and have a great afternoon i'm gonna turn things back over to ashley
12:50you
12:57you
12:59you
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