Introduction

One of our MOST requested guests is back for Part 2! Tony Parinello is the bestselling author of Selling to VITO - the Very Important Top Officer. A sales veteran, Tony knows how C-suite leaders think, what they look for in a sales conversation, and what it takes to get them on your side in a deal. Today, Tony is diving even deeper into this critical topic for sales success in 2023, when multiple C-suite leaders are getting more involved in every deal. John McMahon and John Kaplan talk to Tony about VITO priorities and how to win consistently with this stakeholder group in a game-changing episode for both sellers and leaders. Dig in and get in the mindset of how your team should be approaching these high-stakes conversations. 
 

Here are some key sections to check out: 

5:00 What’s on VITO’s To-Do List

6:50 How to make sure you’re targeting the right VITOs

10:00 what a company owes its sellers

12:20 Speaking the language of VITO

25:40 The three outcomes to strategize around when you try to reach VITO

33:25 The right questions to ask VITO

34:50 Voicemail best practices

44:52 Active listening

54:00 The problem with premature questions

55:20 VITO Call Objectives

1:05:40 How many slides do you need for a VITO presentation?

Additional Resources:

• Listen to the Part 1 episode with Tony: https://forc.mx/3SxR5pu
• Tony Parinello on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sellingtovito/
• Selling to VITO on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Selling-VITO-Very-Important-Officer/dp/1580622240
• Register for the Selling to the C-Suite Webinar Series: https://forc.mx/3xZdFO9

HIGHLIGHTS

• VITO parameters in the sales process
• Accountability and Ownership
• The importance of speaking the language of the process
• The importance of opening statements
• The 3 best outcomes of contacting VITO
• The power of VITO’s voicemail
• The right questions to ask
• Call objectives for your first call
   

QUOTES

Tony - Forget the word “I”: “Forget the word ‘I’. The up word ‘I’ should be totally out of your vocabulary like, I wanted to know where, I was wondering if or, I had an idea. These executives, these VITOs don't care about us until they understand what we could do for them, and so take the word ‘I’ out of your vocabulary, just replace it with the word we or our.”

Tony - The importance of having a process: “Every successful VITO has a process in place for doing everything they want to measure and achieve. Processes are critically important for us to show VITO that whether we're leaving voicemail messages or we're sending them correspondence, we need to follow an identifiable process. So VITO sees what we're doing and can identify with it. So this is why examining our sales process and examining our prospecting process is so critically important.”

Check out John McMahon’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064

Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. 

This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. 
 

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