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Contemporary Times Does your sales staff have trouble reaching the decision-maker on calls? Are they frustrated at being stopped by the gatekeeper time after time? A new sales toolkit by Leslie Buterin entitled Reaching the Top Dog: how to get to the million-dollar decision-makers contains valuable tips to help your sales staff clear this hurdle. This user-friendly toolkit is designed to help sales professionals learn how to consistently schedule executive-level sales calls. The goal is to help sales professionals spend more of their selling time in front of multimillion-dollar decision-makers and less time with the people who have little decision-making authority. Buterin asserts that when sales people consistently fail in their attempts to schedule calls with the right person, they become frustrated, lose momentum and eventually rely on their face-to-face networking skills. In the highly competitive staffing arena, this can be a dangerous pattern. Adding new business requires getting in to see the decision-maker. And Buterin feels that staffing sales pros have a great story to tell--a valid assertion that their services can reduce work force costs for clients. Getting that story out in the right way to the right person is a central theme in her new book. She claims one of the biggest obstacles in selling to the wrong person--the executive assistant. She feels that sales people can be their own worst enemy when taking the approach of trying to sell their service to an executive assistant or justifying the need for a meeting with that individual's boss. That tactic destroys credibility and puts sales people in the same boat as all the others sales people vying for that company's business. She states, "sales professionals need to remember that the executive assistant's job is to deliver important information to the executive, not make a decision. However, if you, the sales pro, treat the assistant as a decision-maker, a decision will indeed be made-No! She suggests that sales professionals start by helping the assistant deliver the information, which describes the benefits to the prospective Client Company in language that makes sense to the assistant. Buterin's claim is that assistants are accustomed to giving the executive choices and asking for decisions to be made. According to Buterin, even the slightest change in phrase is useful. For example, an assistant is more likely to respond well to the statement, "We want to see whether or not we can reduce your work force expenses." While an executive, who has the authority to make a decision, will react more positively to the bolder statement of, "We can reduce your work force expenses." Other suggestions from the Tool Kit - be bold, but not too bold with the gatekeeper and above all, treat the gatekeeper with respect. Buterin, an author, professional speaker and 1998 NATSS InterAction seminar leader, speaks regularly to temporary and staffing service sales professionals nationwide. She is founder of Top Dog Consulting. |
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Leslie Buterin, founder Top Dog
Consulting |
