Don't ASS-U-ME that the founder or CEO is a man. More women are starting home-based startups and leading corporations because awareness is better that this an under-recognized issue.
Major accounts sales tip for selling to executives, particularly CEO
Sales to executives is a whole different kettle of fish: THINK numbers if you're meeting/have audience with a CEO=Chief Executive Officer | Chairman of the Board + keep your meeting request including any PowerPoint presentations to 20 minutes with Q&A at the end = Practice practice practice doing your presentation in front of audience of colleagues who can constructively give feedback. Even if you don't make it to Q&A you HAVE to ask PERMISSION to extend time allotment or reschedule to continue the conversation - that allows them the chance to absorb your initial presentation and come up with questions as it would apply to their company
Always send a thank you note: or two
1) Email recapping what you told them, any comments or feedback -- take a colleague or manager on the call (no more than one other for total of 2) to write notes and itemize NEXT ACTIONS by BOTH parties in the meeting (who agreed to do what) - reiterate what your next appointment will cover - ask for their input and edits or additions; 2) anyone else that may be needed to attend the meeting (i.e. Marketing Executive/Ops) to allow the CEO to get their input and evaluation extra set of eyes and ears and opportunity identifier.
2) send a handwritten card thank you note - it can be generic but better if you have cards printed with logo and your contact details - like a postcard or put in an envelope with a stamp and your own handwriting with Personal&Confidential on seal side. Here, you make a social comment like - have a great vacation, day on the golf course, board meeting, union sit in - you get my point?
Before each meeting, you send an agenda beforehand, with time length beside it - to show that you are only going to take the 20 minutes allotted. Ask for confirmation of agenda and whether they have anything to add, or people to add. If they say they want to invite one of their executives, offer to send an email, coordinating event with the CEO copied in. That is called leveraged selling in my book (don't know if there is such a term in sales?)
When you end the 2nd meeting with a more gelled action plan from both sides, again you follow up the meeting with notes, next steps, action owner, timeframe and again confirm the follow up timeline - 90 days on the third Friday in January, for example -- giving both parties plenty of time to gather needs or cultivate services or proposal with estimate, costs and timelines. Or topics that were tabled for the sake of time.
Sales to executives is a whole different kettle of fish: THINK numbers if you're meeting/have audience with a CEO=Chief Executive Officer | Chairman of the Board + keep your meeting request including any PowerPoint presentations to 20 minutes with Q&A at the end = Practice practice practice doing your presentation in front of audience of colleagues who can constructively give feedback. Even if you don't make it to Q&A you HAVE to ask PERMISSION to extend time allotment or reschedule to continue the conversation - that allows them the chance to absorb your initial presentation and come up with questions as it would apply to their company
Always send a thank you note: or two
1) Email recapping what you told them, any comments or feedback -- take a colleague or manager on the call (no more than one other for total of 2) to write notes and itemize NEXT ACTIONS by BOTH parties in the meeting (who agreed to do what) - reiterate what your next appointment will cover - ask for their input and edits or additions; 2) anyone else that may be needed to attend the meeting (i.e. Marketing Executive/Ops) to allow the CEO to get their input and evaluation extra set of eyes and ears and opportunity identifier.
2) send a handwritten card thank you note - it can be generic but better if you have cards printed with logo and your contact details - like a postcard or put in an envelope with a stamp and your own handwriting with Personal&Confidential on seal side. Here, you make a social comment like - have a great vacation, day on the golf course, board meeting, union sit in - you get my point?
Sometimes, they are the founder: the person who discovered, invented, created, narrated a product or service that provide a solution that solves a problem.
CEOs is a leader of an organization.
CEOS are often the head of an organization or corporation voted in by a Board of Directors to be the Chairman of the Board. That is who runs the Board Meetings where the Board is tasked with guiding the company, setting rules of the company, setting targets and defining success.
Toastmasters is reputable because of its singular goal: to help people speak publicly.
It is also a treasure trove and wealth of information on how to do several things: like Chair a meeting properly.
TIP: How to facilitate or chair a meeting by a CEO:
* Sets the agenda – allocates topics, schedules, time
* Communicates the agenda beforehand
* Invitations: who – will attend the meeting
* Schedules presentations – designates speakers
* Sets the style of conduct – Robert’s Rules of Order or round table
* Controls the meeting: keeping people on topic
> watches the time so it keeps within the Agenda
>tables topics that run past time slot – tables means agreement that it will become a main topic for the next meeting, creates a committee to review the topic and sets the completion deadline – defines the results – results by a narrative report, a power point presentation, or a committee who will investigate and report back by a specific time.
* arranges for a scribe or note-taker or minutes of a meeting (which is then transcribed and sent to the Chair for a) distribution and follow up; or b) reviewed at the next subsequent meeting – getting votes for adoption, approval or edits
* if a vote is given, someone states the matter being voted on in the form of a motion and then the chair secures a second to the motion, followed by clarifying the verbiage on the motion for the Scribe and for voting purposes. Confirms names and spelling for motion-er and second-er to be captured in the minutes, record of the meeting.
* If a motion and vote is made – decides on what way a motion is cast: by ballot, by nods, by hands, by yeah or nay, etc.
* Confirms whether the motion is approved and by what count: how many for and how many opposed and how many refrained (stickiness means you keep track by name of who is pro and who is against and who didn’t vote)
* An organization sets rules and procedures which are then incorporated as ByLaws or Corporate Governance procedures.
* When a vote is taken, and approved, then the Chair assigns who will ensure the new motions, rule or governance will be updated or added to said rules or corporate guidelines. Who communicates the change of rules to everyone. Decides who is informed of any changes and in what manner? (i.e. traditional mail, email or website)
Today’s CEOs are more accountable for the organization’s reputation.
What exactly does a CEO do? Today, he’d better be digital! READ MORE: http://www.optioneerjm.com where I’m writing a blog about it using the outline of the cartoon below, in progress. FYI @optioneerJM was suspended by @Twitter > please #RT so my 20000+ followers know and to follow me under @1960to65 … it’s fine everywhere else @optioneerjm on @Instagram @Facebook @Pinterest @reddit @LinkedIn @Quora
My latest cast of characters whom I named: Jerigo Smartie
He’s tough, he’s a bit brash, he can laugh at himself because he knows
what he sees in the mirror. Jerigo is unapologetically honest, to a fault: he
doesn’t always pick the best moments to state what’s on his mind, he is not
mean-spirited, so other less stronger folk, could be offended by his banter.
He enjoys telling stories, he usually has an audience. They may be rapt with
attention or gasping in surprise. Rarely indifferent are those who get to meet him.
Scoundrels and devilish are those who try to cross him. His punch is mightier than his belch
AND IT’S LOUD!
I started radiation today.
It comes down to mind over matter.
If I am totally honest, the whole thing terrifies me: breast cancer.
I rant and I write and I reflect on things. It evolves into a banter that comes across on this thing, my website, my blog: the exorcism of my soul.
Funneling of thoughts
An exercise in exhausting my brain.
So I can bear and move on to face fate’s grace.
The hill I climb is steep.
Losing my breath
As I have to suck in a deep one, and when it is almost 20 seconds, exhale.
When I’m feeling overwhelmed or emotionally,
I had trained myself to stop and take two or three deep breaths.
So I wouldn’t explode
or implode with emotions
Who would want to say facing cancer is anything but terrifying?
It puts us on an even playing field.
Cancer doesn’t care whether you’re black, white or polka dotted.
Adapted by a line from Dolemite on NETflix original – a light- hearted film, if you can see past all the “titties”. Charming Eddie Murphy to the very end – back on top, in the middle of the flick, and to the bottom of my heart – so glad to see him return! Murphy’s like a familiar buddy, whom you hadn’t seen since you don’t know when. So glad you bumped into him, because he’s someone you always could count on enjoying spending time with.
This fun frolic of slipping back to the 70s, when I was just a girl, from turning 10 on 1971 and graduating from high school in 1979. I lived in a rural area, a hick town by some standards. I wouldn’t say that. Nor a red neck attitude either – the influence of the close encounters with the air base, strategically placed. That polished off a lot of the rough edges.
Eddie Murphy and team (great to see Wesley Snipes again too!) give a superb flashback of the 1970s black culture hip – African American lifestyle and vibe. Filled with dreams and ambition that some might have said beyond his capabilities or capacity. Dolemyte is a play on a famous word that became rampant in the 1970s, was it because of that funny tall guy on that show? (See, I will have to go search and then I’ll be back in days, hours later)
A “Dynamite” of a movie is the most I can say.
Although crude, rude as a Motha-Fu**er, it reaches your funny bone. Back to the days when “titties” were added to humor in so many ways. People didn’t flip out over bare breasts back in the day. (Probably because, like me, their impressionable age of television was a one-size fits all category, before channels and longer ago than remote controls, you had to watch what was on at the moment, where at the later hours there could be a comedy sketch with “titties” flitting across the mini screen as the norm.)
My narrative is scattered and meandering these days, it seems.
Suffice to say that a format and place to find a home for my imagination is awesome.
No amount of gratitude could be written or said.
Thank you for reading.
And for not writing to tell me to try something else besides writing, it may not be my thing.
Maybe I have that same Dylomyte attitude!
Don’t let anyone else tell you that your talents are untrue.
If you have one audience member or one reader, then you honor them with gratitude.
By continue writing, or creating, or painting, or sketching, or imagining …. or disrupting your own world.
The secret sauce to my sales was always disruptive.
Yet it really wasn’t difficult.
Paying attention to the client or customer,
and figuring things out, with their help.
Can build long-term relationships, and advocates
more obscure.
Sticking with it when the operation around you was doing a tantrum
because they may have to think outside the box.
I usually knew it was doable, it wasn’t necessarily an instinctive thing.
Sometimes you just have to ask a lot of questions …….
and then pay attention to the answers.
Maybe I’ve become distracted, not necessarily paying attention to what I know
or what I hear. My thoughts could be already flooded with who knows what.
I posted elsewhere:
The best handwritten sign I’ve ever seen in my career was Xerox when Stephanie left a note:
I am not your MOTHER!
CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS
_________________________________________
When I formed my dream team while managing a branch operations for @RILEYS – we all took turns. A week at a time. Even, I, as the Queen Bee (Branch Manager), took my turn. May always tried to pitch in, because she was the den mother.
I didn’t do it because I was a woman ~ I did it because I believed it was best to lead by example.
To every women out there who cleans up a corporate kitchen (because you can’t stand how disgusting it gets) …. hold your head up high.
That’s what makes us rise above the boys: because we need to do what needs to get done and worry about who gets credit later ~ which easily ends up being the boys.
p.s. I blog about random stuff on www.optioneerjm.com and about sales and social media on www.blogspot.optioneerjm.com as Jeannette Marshall @optioneerjm – currently suspended by Twitter – I know not why (still trying to figure out) but around 23,000 followers and great stats on Pinterest audience and growing daily on Instagram
