We’ve all been there: walking the tightrope, trying not to tick off our contacts while aiming to widen our net. It’s not about going rogue or stepping over people – it’s about including them in the journey. Here’s how…
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You know that I’m a huge advocate of getting multiple stakeholders engaged, and the pushback that I receive consistently from sellers is, oh, I don’t want to go over my contacts head.
I don’t want to go around my contact.
I don’t want to tick them off because they think, you know, then they’ll stop me from getting anywhere inside the organization.
And I understand that we don’t want to make anybody mad, but you have to remember a couple of things.
It’s helpful for everybody to have more people engaged.
This is the best way for you to help the customer.
So that has to be your mindset.
Second of all, you’re not excluding your contact if you do this correctly.
I am not a fan of just going around or going behind somebody’s back, because that is a good way to make them angry.
What we want to do is include them in their communication.
Use getting access to other people as your secret sales weapon.
Tell them in order for us to be successful or how we do business is we’ll need to talk to A, B and C people.
Would you like to be engaged in that process with me, or would you prefer I go at it alone? That way you’re including them and you’re giving them the choice.
Another way to do this is to ask questions to your contact that you know they can’t answer.
And when they say, I don’t know the answer to that, you can simply ask, who do you think knows? They’ll tell you, well, that’s probably the finance department.
Hey, great.
How do you suggest we get the finance department involved.
Or, Great.
I’ll have to talk to the finance department.
Would you like to do that with me, or would you like me to go at it alone? When you phrase the question that way and give the customer the contact, you’re talking to a choice.
They will gladly engage in that conversation.
They will either say, no, you can just go on your own – I don’t want to be a part of that or no need to be.
Or they’ll say, yeah, let’s have that meeting – I’ll set it up.
But either way, it’s a win for you.
You’ll decrease dramatically the amount of pushback you get, and it shows that you’re working in the customer’s best interest in helping them get the information that you need in order to improve their business.
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