Sarah Mercedes (Osborne)

First, seek to understand. What is each stakeholder's stance, but more importantly, why do they have that stance? What are their priorities, what are their concerns and what are they looking to accomplish with their vision of a given strategy? Once you understand that, it will be clear to see where their perspectives align and the conversation can flip from one of debate to one of solutioning. The key is making the conversation centered around solving for the priorities, concerns and goals of ea ...Read More

Sponsors are critical for career progression. When you think about the best persons to lean on for sponsorship, you should be thinking about someone who is already bought into you and would endorse you to others within the business. You want to also ensure that this person is well connected and has a "voice at the table" that you don't have a "seat" at yet. Then, you need to ask that person for their support. Most importantly, you then need to create value and as mentioned in another response, e ...Read More

Be prepared: C-Suite folks are busy people- don't waste their time. Ensure you are prepared for every meeting you have with them. Anticipate the questions you would expect them to ask and have your answers ready to reply with in real time. Be clear and concise: It goes a long way in terms of how you show up to the C-Suite if you can articulate what you need to say in a clear and concise way. If you are taking the time to prepare, this should be easy enough to accomplish.  Properly prepare them: ...Read More

If you're getting objections that early in the sales process, it's a red flag. It's critical in sales to disqualify and to do it as early as possible. Time is your greatest asset. Of course, if your prospect is asking questions or voicing concerns as part of their due diligence, answer and address, but if you are getting objections or push back, my advice would be to go negative and say something along the lines of "It doesn't seem as though this is the best fit. Would you agree?" If they do not ...Read More

"How does solving this challenge/capitalizing on this opportunity/addressing this need impact the business overall?" It's so easy to confuse surface level challenges that often times only impact users as the actual "pain" that the company is experiencing. The C-Suite at your prospect's organization are only going to approve a purchase based on a strong business case tied to key business impact, not based on individual user inconveniences or preferences. If you don't have business pain, you likel ...Read More

The simple answer is that I didn't. However, it didn't take long for me to realize that in order for me to accomplish what I was driving on personally (both internally, as I thought about promo paths at the companies I've worked for and externally, when selling into other companies), I needed to ensure that I understood what the respective C-Suite cared about and find a way to tie my goals to their goals. For example, when thinking about my career progression, I make sure to align the projects a ...Read More

The biggest thing you need to make sure to do when looking to ask something of the C-Suite (or anyone really) is to first ensure you know what that person cares about. The path of least resistance in getting approval of something you want is for the person you need to win over seeing how they also win if they give you what you want. If you understand what the C-Suite cares about and can clearly articulate how if they give you more resources, you will be able to influence them getting what they w ...Read More

With any job you want, the best thing you can do is to do the job without having the job. You want to show the hiring manager that you are a de-risked candidate. If you are a sales rep wanting to become a sales manager, you could start doing things like driving broader org initiatives based on problems and opportunities you or the business identify. You could start coaching other reps, booking time with existing managers and learn how they forecast or use data to understand the health of their b ...Read More