3 Differences Between Normal Sales And Executive Sales

Executive Sales Training is important because it is very different from normal sales. If you want your team to succeed at executive sales, you need to ensure that you arm them with the right techniques and information. Here are the 3 main differences between them;

1) You Aren’t Selling to the Consumer

Selling something to the consumer directly is very easy because you can simply talk to them about the personal benefits they will have if they buy the product or service. In executive sales, you focus on the benefit to the organization, which means the things you focus on during the sales pitch are completely different.

There are often no emotional attachments involved – you have to focus on the business benefits of your product or service and nothing else. The emotional attachment can be between you and the executive team. You may create a friendship with them, but the product/service being sold must be sold on the basis of organizational benefits.

2) The Process is Longer and Happens over Multiple Conversations

A big part of executive sales training is teaching the sales people how to keep a conversation going throughout different times you talk. Sales to the executives may happen only after the 9^th or 10^th time you talk to them. On the other hand consumer selling often happens on the first or the second call. 

When you are talking directly to the consumer you go in guns blazing with a hook because you know that they may agree to buy in the next few minutes. With executive sales, you know that no one is going to give you a huge sales project after you talk to them for a few minutes. 

That may happen in cliché Hollywood movies but not in reality. That is also why executive sales training focuses on ensuring that you have multiple leads in development which may or may not pan out over a long time.

3) Executive Sales are Relationship Based

The most important factor in Executive Sales Training is creating relationships with the customer. You will be going through multiple meetings and conversation with the executives. They need to not just know you by name but also trust you when they are deciding to buy from you. This means that in many of the meetings you will not pressure them or focus on selling them the item or service at all. 

Instead you will focus on creating a rapport with them so you may sell something to them weeks or months later. Relationships are also the key to repeat sales which are more common in b2b sales. Most of the products and services being sold to companies are things the company would be interested in purchasing again and again.

You cannot just take someone who is good at a sales job and expect them to shine at an executive sales job without the right executive sales training.

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