Five Minutes With VITO by David Mattson

by David H. Mattson

VITOtm is the Very Important Top Officer, the person with the ultimate veto power. VITOs control every decision that s made in ever enterprise in your sales territory. If you want to sell and live large, you must get to VITO and launch the proven Sandler Selling System that will turn VITO into one of your business partners forever. Sandler Trainingsm and VITO Selling have combined over 80 years of sales know-how, 1,200 hours of audio and video programs, 5,000 pages of training materials, and direct experience in training over 15,000,000 sales people...and distilled it all into one concise, power selling resource. Five Minutes With VITO is the definitive guide for sales people who want to start where they belong at the top.

In this book you ll learn how to use the Sandler Selling System in all of your interactions with VITO How to land an appointment, bond and build rapport with VITO How to establish up-front contracts with VITO How to create allies in VITO s rank and file, including their Gatekeepers How to leave voice mail messages that get call-backs...from VITO How to make powerful presentations to VITO How to control your sales process...and influence VITO s buying process How to compress your sales cycle...and increase your average deal size.

Genres: Business

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2008

Reviews

[Garry Haslewood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of the better Sandler books. There are many great ones including the rules and Digital Prospecting but this one is just meh.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book I wish I'd read before I met a prospective client, who was CEO of his large organization, and blew it. The VITO of the title is the CEO of the org, or equivalent senior executive with purchasing power and management clout. "Very Important Top Officer" is the conceit behind VITO. The book tells you how this person thinks and operates.

Naturally, of course, you must wade through the exhortations of the charismatic preacher style of writing that is common in this genre. It's rather like being yelled at in a lecture, which isn't surprising as I'm sure there are workshops and seminars you can sign up for where, indeed, you can be bellowed encouragingly at.

Perhaps this won't be so useful for you: as with all books, this came at a particular time in my growth. My notes, with varying degrees of comprehensibility, follow:

Do this for hard and soft value: (THE MEASURABLE BENEFIT TO MY VIP CUSTOMER WAS THAT WE...) (AND WE DELIVERED THIS BY MEANS OF A UNIQUE PROCESS THAT ALLOWED THEM TO...)

Benefits first - advantages second.

Pitch style, incorporating "balanced gain" showing how you get what you want without giving up what you have, and time-bounded: Based on experience dealing with marketing initiatives in your industry...we suspect we could increase targeted consumer awareness of VITO, Inc.'s products by as much as 30%...while REDUCING marketing costs...within the next 90 days.

Work on this, turning it into a short (35 word max) pitch: "Five CEOs in your industry trust and rely on us to enhance shareholder value and dividends by increasing new business revenue by as much as 15% - while containing operational expenses. Time-to-value? 90 days."

VITO priorities: increase revenue, increase efficiency and effectiveness of employees & processes, reducing expenses, and compliance.

Quotes from happy customers. Good: similar industry. Bad: competition. Seek permission to use, and never lie (duh).

Big idea, name, then next-step with time. "What's the fastest way for us to find out if our proven process could be of greater interest to you and your team by the end of this calendar month?

Pain: problem, reasons, impact. "What do you feel is the cause of it?", "What have you personally put into action to remedy this situation?", "And did that meet your expectations?", "How much has this situation cost you and your [operation], [shareholders], [customers], [suppliers] in the past [quarter]?", "How do you personally feel about that?", "Have you decided to resolve the situation at a later date?", "If we could help you (eliminate your problem) by (using X strategy), what would that mean for you personally?", "What would that give your operation an opportunity to do?", "How important is that between [now] and the [end of this month]?" ....

"At this point would you rather have one of your key advisors take a closer look at this, or would you rather move forward with our conversation right now?"

Shunts: CE pushes you to subordinate, response being to know subordinates ahead of time.

The emphasis on preparation was what particularly put me to shame from this book. The hardest part of moving from product to sales is that the emphasis is on the customer, and you should know as much as possible about them before you start talking to them. Prepare so you can talk about them and how they'll be better off after buying from you ... I need this tattooed in my eyelids.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valuable advice for the initial conversation when selling to top decision-makers.