Enterprise Decision Makers only make this mistake once………….once

Attn Enterprise Buyers: Have you ever used your @work email to signup for an enterprise product? Trial, freemium, download, whitepaper, etc? Guess what happens next…….

(NOTE: since you’re reading this you’re likely a sales or marketing professional. Unless you buy a lot of enterprise software, the above isn’t you per se, but it certainly is your prospect’s viewpoint. Go ask your VP Engineering their buying process as they likely have purchased lots of enterprise software)

• Your phone rings 60 seconds later, “Hi this is Bob, how can we help you?”
• 5 seconds later, you get a generic email saying “Thanks for signing up. How can we help you?”
• If you don’t answer the phone or reply to the email you are now set into a cadence of unrelenting automated power dialers and automated emails which will last forever until you reply “unsubscribe” or yell at the Sales Rep to remove you from the call list.

Enterprise Decision Makers make this mistake once……..Once. So what do they do (hint: they use a non-work email ie @gmail/@yahoo) and how do you effectively sell in this situation?

Typical Enterprise buying behavior is:

1. VP (decision maker) knows we have a problem and need to investigate solutions
2. Assign research of viable options to a direct report (DR) on their team. “Go see what options are available to solve X and get back to me with the top 3 in a week”
3. DR does some research and asks colleagues for potential solutions. DR then signs up for 5 products to initially begin educating themselves.
4. DR picks 3 that seem viable and brings those options back to the VP
5. VP then goes and signs up for the 3 recommended solutions to investigate which ones are worth looking at deeper. Do they sign up with their @business email for this initial look?

If you can identify these prospects either through your own research or Sonar, then this next step is CRITICAL. If bob4324@gmail.com is Bob Smith a VP at your prospect account, you can’t simply email their personal email and say “Hi Bob……how can i help” because that is creepy.

As a sales / marketing professional you know this Account is likely a great fit for your solution, but the VP / DM has chosen to be in “stealth”. You do know the PERSONA of the VP though and can position yourself to add value, without explicitly calling them out.

Now you have to slow down and be more thoughtful + helpful in your approach. What is the single highest value thing you can present to this Persona (VP)?

If you know the title, company, industry, etc (either through your own research or Sonar) then you can strategically position the content or teaching point that speaks clearly to this Persona.

VP/DMs want to learn so if your teach them something on the first outreach that is hyper targeted, typically an email exchange will begin. Within 2–3 exchanges after you’ve earned the respect of the prospect they typically will then identify themselves as “You’ve been very helpful. Let’s move this discussion to my work email : bob@bigco.com”

Be helpful, be mindful, be timely and highly targeted when you have an identified Decision Maker on the line.

That will differentiate your sales + marketing approach from 99.8% of the other teams who are using “Pray & Spray” techniques with templated, automated, low value emails and auto dialers.

If you’re selling to Enterprise Decision Makers, you need to first EARN the right to communicate with them. To be a Trusted Advisor : click to tweet

How to identify Enterprise Decision Makers faster? Sonar