How NOT to Sell to a C.I.O..

If I could give an I.T. salesperson 5 pieces of advice, it would be these:

1. Don't Swing for the Fences.
I know you're excited to get a meeting with the C.I.O. but set your objectives short of selling him or her on the first try. It won't happen.

2. Don't try to sell me a solution looking for a problem.
The fastest way for you to lose credibility is to try to sell me somethng for which I have no need whatsoever - or to deceive my assistant to get the meeting.

3. Never cold call a C.I.O..
It simply won't be responded to. In my experience successful salespersons develop relationships at the Manager or Director level, build some support for your solution and are then introduced to the C.I.O. by internal management. You arrive with much more credibiity, if you're "sponsored" by one of my staff.

4. Don't come to me to understand how your company can help me. If you don't know that before you enter my office, you're wasting my time.
And yet this happens more often than you'd think. I personally was called by a major CRM software company monthly, for a year. I was called by different people each time and told them that we were customers of a competitor. Undaunted, the calls continued, until one day I asked what CRM system the caller used.

"Our own" was the answer.

"Then you don't use it very well, because I've told the last six callers we use a different system!"

The calls stopped after that.

5. Understand that even if you've built a better mousetrap, I need to understand all the transition costs. Corollary: Good enough is usually good enough. What I have deployed and functioning trumps something new, almost every time. So come prepared to address how to get "from here to there".

And understand too, that the C.I.O. will double your transition cost assessment.