Top Down Selling

Of all the sales training classes that I teach, by far the most popular one is my Top – Down Selling program. I am asked to speak about this one subject more than any other by all sorts of groups and sales organizations. Before I get into this topic, some information about my background might be in order.

Prior to starting McCann Motivations in 1998, I spent six years in Navy nuclear submarines, seven years with New York Life, and twenty years with Johnson Wax. Fifteen of those twenty years were spent in the training department, which was the best job I ever had. I loved it!

My responsibilities involved training all new Johnson sales people in the Northeast. That later expanded to the entire east coast. In addition, I conducted motivational programs for large end user customers like Kodak, US Air and Notre Dame University. We would offer supervisory training and other motivational programs to these customers at no charge as a value-added benefit for their having bought our products. As a trainer I learned a tremendous amount of information about how our products were manufactured and how they performed, and about selling techniques. As our VP of Sales once said, “You have to learn it before you can teach it.”

In 1996, the training department reorganized and I went back into sales. My target market became large supermarket chains and the large national contracting companies who cleaned these types of retail accounts. My biggest client was Safeway Supermarkets in WA, OR, ID, MT, and AK (Sarah Palin country). I also had responsibility for Albertson’s Supermarkets, Eddie Bauer and Nordstrom Department stores. My target “buyers” were now high-level buying influences that each had responsibility for as many as 250 – 300 retail outlets. This was totally different from the work I used to do as a salesman and then a trainer working with local distributor sales people. In those days, we used to call on individual end user accounts like schools and hospitals or nursing homes.

Selling on a direct basis to retail chains was my first experience with top – down selling techniques. Our goal is to get in to our accounts at the highest level possible. We need to introduce our company and ourselves to high-level buying influencers so that we can be positively positioned with them for future selling. A critical point here is that these people, who are at the highest level of responsibility within an organization, have limited knowledge about the products that we are trying to sell to their company. A sales person who attempts to present product at this level is making a deadly mistake. All we need to do at this point is to spend a few minutes to make a personal introduction, exchange business cards, describe how we work these types of accounts, and get this person’s thoughts on the direction we should take to begin selling within the account. I will have more ideas on this in my next Blog.

For example, if you are talking to an Executive Vice President of Operations of a retail chain, chances are pretty good that if this VP ever did mop floors, it was many, many years ago. Floor maintenance programs and products have changed dramatically since the VP's days on a mop. If we started pitching our products to this level buyer, we may only cause them to be embarrassed by not knowing what we are specifically talking about. This is true if we are selling computer products or insurance, or any other product line. Products usually have nothing to do with these high level buyers but are normally the responsibility of people far lower on the organizational chart within the organization. These other buyers are the people that we will talk to about our products and services.

Our main sales goal for these introductory, high levels sales calls is to “get invited back” into the account. We are looking to be personally introduced to lower level buyers within the account – the people who actually use our products, but who are often very busy and could be difficult to get to see. When we are introduced to these lower-level buyers as a result of our contacts with upper level management, there is NEVER a problem getting in to see them. This top – down approach allows us to manage the account in two directions: vertically from the top down, and horizontally in any direction that we want or need to go.

In my next Blog, I will review the different types of buying influences that exit in all of our accounts. We need to be “positively positioned” with each of these buyers. In some sales situations, we may need to involve each of these different buyers in order for a deal to come together. We will not be able to do that unless we have some sort of positive business relationship with each of them. We will review each buyer type, what their needs and concerns are, and discuss how to contact each of them during our sales process.