How to Get an Appointment With Anyone -- Including the CEO

Everybody knows that it's more effective to sell "top — down" than "bottom — up." The real question is, when you're in sales, how do you get the people at the top to WANT to meet with you.


Here's a very effective technique that worked like a charm for me back in the early days of my career when I was still "wet behind the ears" selling magazine advertising. I call it "The Vest Pocket Research Technique", here's how it works:

Step #1: Select your sales target

Step #2: Get the contact info of 20 prospects for your sales target

Step #3: Create a short survey. The goal is to ask questions that will provide interesting thought provoking results. Here are some sample questions I would ask.
  • When you think of ___ (category of product/service of your target) who is the first vendor that comes to mind?
  • What other vendors can you name?
  • Who does the best work in ___ (category of product/service of your target)? Why?
  • Who does the worst work ___ (category of product/service of your target)? Why?
  • What are the most important factors when you make a decision to purchase ___ (category of product/service of your target)? Why?
  • If you could give vendors in ____ (category of product/service of your target) a piece of advice what would it be?
  • Do you have any plans to buy ____? If so when? How much do you anticipate you will you spend?
Step #4: Call the contacts from Step #2 and conduct the survey. Have it take no more than 3-4 minutes. Get 10 completed surveys.

Step #5: Call the CEO or Sr. exec you want to meet with.  Explain that you have some market research about their company that,  while not scientific, is very instructive. Give some of the highlights and close for the appointment, like so:
"Mr. Shapiro, this research produced some very interesting results. What I learned during these calls included:  What companies in your sector had top of mind awareness, who is perceived as doing the best (and worst) work and the buying factors that are most important to them when making a purchasing decision for ___. And, I've even got the names of people who've told me they're going to be buying ___ in the very near future and how much they have budgeted to spend. When would be a good time for us to set up a meeting for me to share my results."
Not only has this gotten me meetings with CEO's when I was a jr. sales rep, but I've walked into these meetings to find the CEO and 4 of his staff with them waiting, with notepads, to hear my research. 

It's a relatively quick way to completely change your relationship with a client/prospect. One second you're a peddler, then next your valuable business partner.  And, when you have that kind of relationship, when it comes time for them to buy your category of product/service,  who do you think they're going to be most inclined to buy from?

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Posted by Larry Genkin at 1/22/2009 2:55 PM
Categories: Sales
 

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