“Revenue, Cost and Capital Vital to CEO’s Sales Decision Making” ---- SPS Speakers

Sept. 10, 2012 - PRLog -- Speakers at this year’s annual Sales Performance Summit (SPS) have advised sales professionals to focus on three important areas that are of utmost concern to top executives while making decisions, in order to be effective in closing sales deals with such executives.
The three key areas are:  how to increase revenue, reduce cost and make judicious use of capital. If their sales pitches are built around these, the speakers said the barrier of selling to high-level executives would be easily broken.
Speaking at the event with the theme “Understanding the CEO’S Mindset – How Executives Make Buying Decisions", Mr. Oliver Nnona, CEO, Profiliant Development Resources Limited, organisers of the summit, noted that lack of basic details about the mindset of an average CEO and decision makers make selling to them an uphill task.
He said: “Most sales professionals don’t realize the conditions under which decision makers work. They wake, eat and sleep under pressure. There are different kinds of pressure from the board, shareholders, staff and other stakeholders. Their major concern day and night while making decisions is how to meet the expectations of these sets of people.
“When you need to sell anything to them, be it product or service, you must bear in mind that they are looking for things that will increase their revenue, reduce their cost and help them make effective use of their capital. If these criteria are met, it’s easy to strike sales deals with them.’’
Dr. Maxwell Ubah, a management consultant, urged participants to do a thorough search on the company they are prospecting: its financial state, problems, competition, among others, before approaching such company’s executives with any solution. He noted that any proposed solution that doesn’t address the critical needs of a CEO would not be entertained.
On his own part, Mr. IdorenyenInang, former Managing Director, Samsung West Africa and CEO, Corporate Shepherds, said that the ability to recognize the key influencers in an organization would go a long way in determining the success of any sales pitch. He also enjoined sales persons to acquaint themselves with the politics that are at play in the company they are prospecting in order to navigate any potential landmines. The former Marketing Director of Cadbury Plc further said that salespersons need to build multi-level relationships across different cadres so they could take advantage of insights and leads that such could deliver.
Earlier in his keynote address titled “Winning Sales Organisations”, Mr. Roger Snow, Vice President, Miller Heiman, said any company that focuses on satisfying the needs of their customers are more likely to succeed than those that don’t.

SPS is the premier business event in Africa focusing on the sales and business development function that is crucial to most organizations in the B2B arena.
Since 2008, over 2000 professionals worldwide have attended the annual summit which now holds in four continents across the globe. The international conference focuses on the sales and marketing profession.
Appealing to decision makers in sales, sales operations, finance, human resources, and others responsible for increasing sales and improving sales force effectiveness, the Sales Performance Summit focuses on three key sales performance management problem areas facing organizations today: sales effectiveness, sales performance improvement and sales talent recruitment and retention.