Many of my blog readers sell efficiency products and services to large organizations. Those of you who do sell to large organizations know how complex the decision-making chain can be. In most cases, you're not even in the room when your prospect’s organization decides whether or not to approve the project. So how do you ensure that your project will get the attention it deserves? You have to find an internal champion to be the project’s advocate, and you have to equip that internal champion with the right information and materials so that they can step up to bat for you. Your internal champion will not likely know as much as you do about your product or service. Ultimately, if you equip them with the right message, they don’t actually need to be the expert that you are. Once you know that they want to help you get the project approved, you simply need to provide them with three key ingredients:
- A meaningful and memorable elevator pitch worthy of repeating
- A clear and concise one-page narrative summary of the project
- A one-page financial summary, using proper metrics
Why these three ingredients? If your prospect doesn’t get a chance to take the floor and speak during the decision-making process, he or she can simply present the two written documents (which speak for themselves). If your prospect only has a short amount of time to speak during the meeting, the elevator pitch – which is quick, meaningful, and memorable – will capture the audience’s attention, and they’ll want to know more about the project.
Bottom line, if you make it easy for your internal champion to help you sell, you’ll have a much better chance of sealing the deal.
