Joshua Oigara, then newly minted CEO at KCB Bank, said in an interview: “To run a business you don’t have to be a specialist. It is more of a job for a generalist. The bank can hire the best accountant or marketer it needs. The CEO is a captain.”
The CEO has specialists leading every business function: Finance, IT, Human Resources, Sales and Operations. Which begs the question: if the CEO has people to do what needs doing, what is this you, a salesperson, will say to get his ear?
Read: Making salespeople CEOs may not help firms
Because, when you pitch to him, depending on his demeanour, he will politely, or not, redirect you to the role holder. “I’m happy to hear about your evacuation (security, banking) services, but the person you should be speaking to is our Safety Manager (Security Manager or Finance Manager). My PA will direct you to him. Thanks for coming in.”
And why? Because what you’re pitching is specific. What he is, is a generalist. Selling to C-suite executives means addressing a general thing, and that thing rotates around three levers: reducing cost, improving efficiency and increasing savings. All three are business-wide. A fourth, gaining rapid necessity in the 21st Century, is customer experience – which results from how the three are managed.
How to sell to a CEO (a generalist)
For example, to the question, “We’re experimenting with AI to make telesales calls. What do you think?”, realise what he’s actually wondering is this: “Will this AI alienate my customers and kill conversion rates faster than it cuts my payroll?”
You responding, “The idea is brilliant. The only thing to keep in mind is how to balance customer experience with improving efficiency,” will see him pause to ponder.
Notice, the issue of the scores of existing tele-sales staff at risk of losing their jobs is not in play here. Productivity is.
In the CEO’s eyes this is not an ethical debate about job displacement -that’s HR’s job. To him, it’s a purely pragmatic equation. The tension is between short-term cost efficiency and long-term revenue protection. Meaning, will the savings from the cost of employees, adversely affect my customers’ experience, and therefore, revenues?
That is how to sell to a CEO.
Now savings and costs are money related. So “We can reduce your fuel costs by 20% with our fuel with additives.” is a hook and solution that will get his attention. And that’s what you want: a hook and solution.
Because ultimately he will still send you to one of his people, you want him to send you there invested – not just out of courtesy.
The four levers: cost, efficiency, savings and customer experience
As seen, cost and savings are comparatively clear. That is not to diminish cost at all – in fact, cost is a significant concern for any CEO, from SME to multinational, and everything in between. Efficiency, however, needs unpacking. Examples of efficiency include risk, continuity, reputation, and sustainability.
Efficiency can also be a matter of speed: time-to-market (FMCG-speak for how long it takes to get a new product to the customer); time-to-resolution (say, the turnaround time for a customer complaint to be resolved); and time lost to friction. A CEO doesn’t think in “faster software” or “better workflow”; he thinks in days, weeks or quarters a bottleneck costs him.
So when you say, “We can cut your customer onboarding from 14 days to 3,” you are not selling a process improvement, you are selling recovered revenue (lost in the extra 11 days) and a competitor-beating advantage. That is the language of a generalist.
Pitching sustainability and ESG
The same applies to sustainability, which many salespeople mistakenly treat as niche. To a CEO, sustainability is continuity: a supply chain that holds, a clean audit, a brand that survives a scandal. Frame your offering as “green” and you’ll be sent to the Sustainability Manager. Frame it as “protecting your license to operate and your access to capital” and you’ll get the CEO’s ear, for a sentence or two. That is all you need.
So try this pitch: “Your ESG score has been flagged in your annual reports owing to safety preparedness following the unfortunate mining accident that killed two of your staff. We can help you regain the score with our world-class evacuation services. We have done this with (name of two other mining companies). If this is something you’d like, please refer me to your Safety Manager.” What he hears is risk reduction and business sustainability, which ESG measures.
Had you gone straight in with “Our globally renowned evacuation services…” he would quickly have dispatched you to the safety specialist he has – the Safety Manager.
Which is fine, but it regretfully misses a golden opportunity to accelerate the sale. Coming from an invested CEO, the message would have come hurtling top-down. Now you have to work against gravity, huffing and puffing up the mountain hoping to get the CEO’s consent.
How to sell to a CEO: time is not on your side
Now the CEO’s attention is not the prize. It is the accelerant. The prize is a decision made lower down, with the CEO’s blessing already attached. When the CEO says, “This sounds worth exploring, talk to Sarah in Operations,” Sarah does not receive a cold call. She receives a warm mandate. That can save you months of huffing and puffing.
So lead with the business-wide outcome, not the specialist feature. When pitching cost efficiency and customer experience to a generalist, reduce it to one of the four levers and attach it to something he is committed to or struggling with – and you already know from your research.
(You don’t want to be asking him, “So what are you struggling with…?” That tells him you haven’t done your homework and triggers an immediate deflection to a specialist.)
Then ask for the referral yourself: “I’d be glad to walk your Safety Manager through the details. Would you be comfortable introducing us?” That single question converts a polite deflection into a warm handoff. And lets him do what he does best — decide.
And do not overstay. The CEO is a generalist by design, and generalists tire quickly of specifics. Make your point in a minute or two, secure the referral and leave. The specialist meeting is where the sale is won, but it is won faster because the generalist opened the door.
How do you sell to a CEO successfully?
The CEO’s job is to allocate attention across the whole business, not master any single function. Impress him with breadth, not depth. You are not there to prove you know evacuation procedures better than the Safety Manager. You are there to prove those protocols protect the outcomes he is measured on.
Get that right, and the CEO becomes your sponsor rather than your gatekeeper. Get it wrong and brace yourself for a lonesome huffing and puffing.
The generalist does not need to know how the engine works. He needs to know whether the car will get him there, on time, without breaking down, at a cost the board will accept.
Sell that, and the specialist meeting becomes a formality. Sell anything less, and you have mistaken the captain for the mechanic.
If you would like to have your sales team sell more (or receive a free sales eBook), we can help. In order for us to do so we propose a free consultation meeting or a call. If in agreement please complete the form below and we will get in touch after receiving your details, none of which will be public. Thank you.
You may like to see our sales traning programs