Jamal is the founder of the Enterprise Sellers Community and has helped hundreds of sellers to sell the largest deals of their lives.
He is also one of the featured experts in our newly released "The CEO's Playbook to Complex Sales". Here are his top three takeaways from his contribution.
1 / Don’t aim too high when contacting big companies
If you manage to engage a super senior executive and get them on a call, you might successfully excite them about your value proposition. They may even promise to connect you with the right person on their team.
However, there's a significant risk that that person will not respond or will not have anywhere near the enthusiasm the super senior executive had.
When that happens, the trick is to ensure you’ve maintained a path back to the senior executive.
2 / Don’t be too late reaching out to senior people
Getting power as early as possible is really important to close larger strategic deals.
“Either you pitch them, and they bite, and then you know you’ll have senior interest, if not senior support, along the way.
Or they’ll say, ‘sorry, this isn’t on our roadmap’, or ‘this isn’t what I would do’, or ‘you’re not the vendor I would choose.’
And that is good news, as you’ve saved yourself nine to 18 months of tying up your best people into a complex deal that will drain your resources.”
3 / Keep an eye on the Economic Buyer
You can’t rely on a formulaic linear sales play when going after complex deals.
The landscape is much broader, and the number of stakeholders is higher.
If things aren’t moving, even if you’ve engaged senior executives, it’s likely because you haven’t involved the Economic Buyer early enough or created a strategy that addresses their particular concerns.
