How to Connect with the C-level Executive

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>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Hi my name is Gerhard Gschwandtner and welcome to Selling Power's Daily Report. Today we are going to continue our conversation with Tim Askew CEO of Corporate Rain. So how do you break through the barriers if you wanna get a connection established to a CEO for one of your clients?

>> Tim Askew: Well again we only do very high level sales which is different than perhaps sales in general but our approach is very soft sell we don't we're not in a rush about it. Normally we just start ours is a letter writing process we have a whole strategy for doing it but we I know I suggest people usually start just by asking did you get Mr. ABC's letter? There are many answers to that all of which lead to relationship. People will sense whether they want to be talking to you or not. People want to talk to us because we treat them the way we want to be treated. Incidentally this letter is designed to be read in 5 seconds we write. It's gonna insultingly over simplify our clients most of the time.

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Gerhard: What would a letter typically say?

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Tim: Well it would go basically want a meeting in 2 weeks you know who you are, some authenticating clients, maybe 2 case studies emphasizing money. I mean there's nothing brilliant about this but this is what we do, percentages, no creativity, nothing that makes the company wonderful really but just pure results like 600% improvement in sales or whatever their deliverable is then in the last sentence I Gerhard am gonna call you next week but Gerhard doesn't call Tim, your personal assistant, your manager of new business calls who's a you know a high level person representing the first part to close the sale.

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Gerhard: So you get involved in the sales funnel.

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Tim: Correct. Another way we do it is we do city blitzes for some of our clients. They are companies that just keep sending us around the country like we'll go to Minneapolis and we'll hit you know I don't know 3M, St. Jude's, Striker whatever is there and you know we'll you know if they give us 100 companies we usually get them 6-8 we working with maps so they're not going all over, you know 100s of miles between meetings. Then they'll go there we'll go work in San Francisco. They go to Minneapolis, we'll do the same thing we'll get them 6-8 meetings usually if they give us 100 to work on. Then they go to St. Luis they go to San Francisco that's another way we work.

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Gerhard: People are very good in generating a lot of activity and they fire hose the market with a lot of messages.

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Tim: Yes.

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Gerhard: And instead of creating more messages they need to think about better ways to engage the customer.

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Tim: Right narrow it down to stuff that's really ripe and put that energy, particularly their personal energy. You only have so much time at the top levels I mean even if it's several executives who make the rain it's and think about where your time should go. A lot of people hire us just because they don't like the ego. You have to be willing to take a certain amount of rejection. I mean you're a sales expert, you understand. I mean a lot of it is you know rejection is our middle name.

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Gerhard: And a lot of people need to reframe the word failure. Failure is not a destination. It's not a destiny. Failure is just a 1 time event and you need to look beyond that.

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Tim: Right both as a lifetime and as a salesman. I totally agree with that Gerhard.

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Gerhard: Thank you very much Tim it was very enlightening.

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Tim: Thank you Gerhard.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====