Are You Selling to VITO? (part 2)

Continuing what we started yesterday with Jill Konrath:

Part II: Are you selling to the very important top officers? Should you be?

On Tuesday, I posted Part I of my interview with Tony Parinello, co-author of the newly released book, Five Minutes with VITO. Here's the conclusion of our conversation. (Download a PDF of the entire discussion.)

Jill: What other mistakes do you see people make when selling to the VITO.

Tony: They don't acknowledge VITO's gatekeeper – the private assistant of a president, CEO or owner. Forget about those stupid ridiculous tactics you've learned about how to get through, past, over, under or around the gatekeeper. They don't work.

So here is the next secret. Let's say you reach out to VITO and their private assistant picks up the phone. Just treat the private assistant as if they were VITO, but just don’t call them VITO.

Whatever you were going to say to VITO, say to that person. Because guess what - when VITO is not there, they are running the company. They are keeping things in check. They're a matched set with VITO, so whatever you'd say to VITO, you say to VITO's private assistant.

Salespeople do stupid things. When they're calling VITO and his private assistant picks up the phone and says, "Ms. Importante’s office. May I help you?" – the first thing the salesperson says is, "Is Ms. Importante in?"

The gatekeeper is going to say no - even if VITO is sitting right there looking straight at here. The gatekeeper is going to say no.

Jill: That's right.

Tony: Now some sales books say that if you get three no's in a row, you're on your way to a sale.

Jill: You feel like I do on that, I hate no.

Tony: It doesn’t make sense.

Jill: The goal is to eliminate the no's, not to transform them.

Tony: Exactly. Not even to invite them. Inviting a now is crazy. Salespeople need to stop the madness. It's like hitting your head against the wall. Does that feel good? No!

And don't say, "Can I leave a message?" That's a second no. Or don't ask, "Will VITO be back later this week?" Now you're on your third no and you're toast.

Jill: Yeah, three strikes and you are totally out. You're not one step closer to a yes. You're totally out.

Tony: So if the gatekeeper picks up the phone - call them Tommie’s – you would say something like this, "Tommie, what do you think of this idea? We've helped five other CEOs in your industry to increase revenues while at the same time control their expenses. Is this something that you and Ms. Importante want to accomplish between now and end of this month?"

Jill: That sounds like something she would be interested in.

Tony: There you go. And here's the thing. Tommie says you do, you do. It's so simple. Just follow Tommie’s lead, because if you make sense to Tommie she knows what to do.

Jill: So should a salesperson ask Tommie what the next step is?

Tony: The smart VITO seller knows what the next step is. The smart VITO seller knows that if they had VITO on the line, VITO would probably say to them – and let's again use copiers – "You know, this makes sense. I want you to talk to my CFO or I want you to talk to my COO. And the smart VITO seller knows the names of the people – the CFO or COO before they even pick up the phone.

If Tommie doesn't know who to send you to, you can say, "Well how about sending me to Mr. Jones, your COO." It's better to invite the shunt you want rather than settle for who they send you too.

Jill: Okay that is good.

Tony: It is not rocket science. If it was, I never would have been able to reach mastery at it.

Jill: You are funny. Okay, I have some other questions for you. Your book is called Five Minutes with VITO. Why five minutes?

Tony: It's really not about five minutes with VITO. It's about a lifetime with VITO. But it is what you do in those first thirty seconds, in that first dialogue with VITO.

You know how to get there, what to do once you there. It's a coauthored book and it's an exciting book, We took the appointment-getting strengths of VITO and married them with the sales process that Sandler has been teaching since the early sixties. By Five Minutes with VITO is really about the beginning of the relationship with the person who is ultimately going to say yes or no.

Jill: So when you say five minutes, you're talking figuratively or are you talking a five minute phone conversation or five minute meeting?

Tony: Well, it is more of a figuratively. You know five minutes with VITO is really all you need. Actually, when it comes right down to it, the VITOs of the world know in the first minute if they're going to invite you in or not.

It's just that salespeople are not smart enough to ask the questions, "Does this make sense? Do you want to take the next step? What you looking for in a business relationship? How do you measure one business relationship over another?

These are the harder questions that you can ask a VITO in that first five minutes that you would never think of asking anybody else. Could you imagine going down to the facilities manager you know out in the trailer in the parking lot and asking them on the first sales call if they are going to do business with you?

Jill: No.

Tony: No way! They want you to jump through all the hoops. They want to see a demo. They want a 90-day free trial. There's no end to it. So these are not the kinds of questions you ask anybody but VITO.

Jill: Great. In Five Minutes with VITO, you describe a five-wave approach. Can you talk about the five waves?

Tony: There are lots of ways to get to VITO, but you don’t want to stalk them of course! Let's take an example. Say I created a special letter that VITO will read. I know because I've studied their reading habits and what turns them on and what turns them off.

So the letter is the first wave. The next step is to pick up the phone and call. Well you can do that, but you can also send something in advance your call. You can send a letter, then you can send an email, then you can send a fax, then you can call.

Or you can send the letter, make the call, leave a voicemail, leave another voicemail send a fax, so in this five wave approach. I teach salespeople how to appeal to VITO’s insights on how they make their decisions, what they read, what they won't read, what they will highlight, what they wont highlight.

I’ve done a lot of research to put this together over the years and the research has not been something you do in the laboratory somewhere. It's field proven. When we do the wave there are number of choices, because salespeople love choices. The salesperson can mix and match it to their selling style, to the industries they call on and all that other kind of stuff.

Jill: So you leave some flexibility in there for the salesperson to be who they are and to do it the way that they most comfortable.

Tony: Yeah, and if they are not that creative they can follow the path that I have created for them which generally speaking is a special correspondence that you send in the first class mail and then you pick up the phone and make contact. When you do that twenty percent of the time VITOs are going to pick up their own phone unprotected, totally unprotected.

Jill: Really, that is impressive.

Tony: Yeah and I can tell you this, half of the eighty percent you are going to get their private assistant Tommie and we already know that you talk to Tommie – just like VITO. The half of the 80%, you're going to get voicemail. All you have to say is what you would have said if VITO had answered the phone:

"Ms. Importante, if you were in your office to talk my call today at 9.30 this is what you would have heard."

Jill: That makes it easy.

Tony: Then you tell them what you were going to say – remember back to the balanced gain equation. Say that, and then add, "Ms. Importante, this topic could be important to both of us. That's why you are going to hear from me again this afternoon at 2.30. Talk to you soon."

Jill: So you are setting up the next call right then and there.

Tony: Of course. Everything you do in VITO’s world, you must take responsibility. You are the salesperson. You never say, "If you want to get a hold of me, you can reach me at … Come on, nobody is calling you." VITOs want to see that you are that determined.

Jill: It earns their respect.

Tony: Amen.

Jill: Since your first book came out in 1994 which was fourteen years ago, what kind of changes have you seen in the market place that have altered your thinking.

Tony: Everything changes. That's why we do this thing called Club VITO every week. We do a live internet broadcast called Club VITO because everything is changing all the time. Back in 1994 when the VITO movement started, a VP of sales in the telecom industry probably had a quarter of million dollar signature level of authority. Today it is probably 250 dollars.

Everything has rolled up, everything! The person you sold to last year who was able to say okay is not the person who is going to say okay this year. It can't be, so every month, every day things change.

And salespeople, listen to this – you are smarter today that you were today yesterday. You are more experienced. You are a little bit older, but you are wiser. Take advantage of your wisdom and your experience. Plug it into your sales process and show up as being the best you, you can be.

Jill: That is great advice.

Tony: Well you know what Jill, it's all good if you take it and make it yours. If you just listen to it and are saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was fun but I've heard all this stuff before" then you're falling behind. Or if you say, "We used to do something like that before" – then why did you stop? Or this one. I love this one: "We did something like that once before and it didn’t work."

Jill: Too often people just "try" it. They don't work on it. It takes a while to get good at something new.

Tony: Amen.

Jill: Right, so if people would like to read your new book, Five Minutes with VITO where should they go, Tony?

Tony: Well it is at a number of different places. It's at airport bookstores, all major bookstores, and on Amazon.com. You can also go to FiveMinuteswithVITO.com or 5MinuteswithVITO.com. Amazon probably has the best price.

Jill: Yes, they always do. And, it's a good book and it has great insights. It's fun to see that you are combining your expertise with the Sandler’s group’s expertise too. I think they have a good program.

Tony: They have a great program. When I looked out into the space of sales training, I looked for the best person to partner with and there is no doubt in my mind after all the years I have been selling, all the training programs I have seen, Sandler’s has the best in my opinion. That's why it is a co-authored book. It is the first co-authored, book I have ever written and you know it just was an exciting thing to do.

Jill: Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and expertise with me today. Tony, it has been my pleasure.

Tony: Jill, thank you and to all you sellers – get out there and sell something!

Jill: Great words to end with. Thanks once more, Tony, author of Five Minutes with VITO.

Sphere: Related Content