Today, I want to talk to you about reaching decision makers. You know, the ones who sign the big checks … not the person you get funneled down to so your deals never leave the starting gate.
Before we even get ankle deep, let me step you through a small exercise that I hope illuminates your light bulb by the end of this.
Reverse Engineer Your Last Big Deal
Think back to a recent big deal you signed where there were multiple decision makers involved.
Got that image in your head? Do you remember the details of how it all went down?
What kind of company was it? What were their revenues at the time you started prospecting them?
What was the big problem they were looking to resolve?
How many decision makers ultimately got involved in that deal?
Who did you originally talk to, though?
Was it a cold call, email, referral, lead magnet follow up, trade show, lunch and learn or what?
How did you A) find that person and B) gain access to talk to him or her and C) further the process?
The Million Dollar Question
Now, here’s the illuminating question … the money maker if you will:
What do you think would have happened had you simultaneously contacted all the decision makers involved in that particular deal at the very beginning via a letter?
Think you’d have gotten a favorable response?
Do you believe it would have benefited your client to have most, if not all, of the decision makers involved from the outset?
This is something I teach in the Case Study Program. I call them the “Ivy Mike Letters,” and they’ve been opening doors for clients and me for well over a decade.
Ivy Mike Letters are responsible for getting meetings with companies such as: Papa John’s, KFC, Humana, Wellpoint, CHA, Procter & Gamble, plus many more.
Would getting an audience with companies like that benefit you?
A Powerful Tool Used Improperly Can Be Extremely Dangerous
A word of caution before you get too excited – when done haphazardly, Ivy Mike can backfire on you.
Just sending an Ivy Mike without proper training can be devastating to your prospecting efforts because the letter will get prominent decision makers’ attention quickly to the point they’ll often call you before you even have a chance to follow up.
Handle the initial call wrong, and your odds of ever getting a meeting with anyone within that company who can authorize a check are slim at best.
I remember making this critical mistake with a large hospital chain years ago, and the decision maker phoned me in a very agitated state. It was almost as if he wanted to fight me, which had never happened until that particular day.
Frankly, it caught me extremely off guard because I simply wasn’t prepared.
Needless to say, he wasn’t keen to meet with me at all, and the hopes of getting an audience with his organization went down the drain in less than five minutes.
That’s what can happen when you do this “half-cocked” so to speak.
My Failures Can Help You Succeed
Luckily, I have learned a lot over the years on how to fine-tune the Ivy Mike Letters and how to properly respond to calls from seemingly irritated decision makers.
Believe it or not, rocking the boat CAN work to your advantage when you know how to flip the script.
No, I’m not talking about using trickery or any fancy NLP language patterns. I’m talking about good old common sense and re-framing the conversation to help others see things more “objectively” without picking a fight.
Your Turn – How Could Ivy Mike Help You?
The question I will re-ask with a slightly different framing: what would happen if you reverse engineered your biggest deals and found the commonalities in them so that you could target multiple decision makers simultaneously?
Do you believe your time to a deal would shrink?
Do you think decision makers would appreciate your efforts to streamline the process?
Go ahead and share your comments below so we can get a group dialogue going.
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