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Home » Blogs » Management & Strategy » Memo to Sales Managers: Don't Let the CEO Make a Sales Call
Ian Heller, Real Results Marketing

Memo to Sales Managers: Don't Let the CEO Make a Sales Call

By  Ian  Heller
March 17, 2010
More about:  MDM Blog,  Management/Strategy,  Sales & Marketing
Whatever opinions this customer expressed to your CEO are likely to drive big changes in your company even if they are not very important in the scheme of things.
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I bet I can describe the last sales call your CEO made:
  • You carefully selected the customer he visited
  • The customer was very large and important
  • The customer loves your company
  • You scheduled your CEO to meet with high level contacts
  • This sales call made a big impact on your CEO
 
The bad news is that this artificial experience likely made a big impression on your CEO who probably concluded it is somehow relevant to the real issues your company is facing. Whatever opinions this customer expressed to your CEO are likely to drive big changes in your company even if they are not very important in the scheme of things.
 
This happens too often. The CEO calls on a customer who says, “I think you should sell widgets,” and the next thing you know, your whole company is driving to become the leading widget distributor even if this is number 158 on the list of most important projects.
 
I know it’s hard for you to break this cycle. When you ask your salesperson to take the CEO on customer visits, he understandably selects large, happy customers who will speak well of him and the company. This is a natural tendency and it’s hard to fight because your sales reps aren’t stupid. They know that if they take the CEO to a dissatisfied account, it may be the first unhappy customer the CEO has ever met. Heretofore, your CEO had heard about such creatures, but they existed only in folklore – like Big Foot. Suddenly, here is this huge, hairy, bad-smelling dissatisfied customer standing in front of him and it’s understandably quite a shock. None of your sales reps wants to be the one to introduce the CEO to Sasquatch.

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I once worked with a large distribution company that had separate and distinct operations in the eastern and western hemispheres. Each hemisphere had a strong operating unit with a unique brand name and hardly any customers bought from both. However, the CEO visited a couple of “global accounts” and somehow decided it would helpful if the company operated under one brand name. As a result, he put the entire corporation through a very expensive and distracting rebranding exercise that did nothing to improve the company’s competitiveness. Money needed for important projects like enhancing the website and printing more catalogs was poured into the branding initiative instead. The company wound up changing the names of both business units thereby confusing all of its customers (except perhaps the two the CEO talked to). The distributor lost ground in the marketplace and ultimately the CEO “left the company.” Soon thereafter, the branding project was undone and both operating units went back to their original names. 

This wasteful and damaging exercise occurred because the strategy wasn’t driven by sound research and data. It was driven instead by the limited and artificial experiences the CEO gained by calling on a few customer CEO’s. 

You can try to solve this problem in two ways. First, you can demand that your marketing department produce ongoing and comprehensive market intelligence, allowing him to get direct input from a large number of diverse customers. This will give your CEO access to lots of useful data to drive decisions, plus some regularly scheduled focus groups he can attend. If your CEO is timid about these interactions, he can simply sit in the research facility’s viewing room, safely behind the thick wall of glass separating him from any Sasquatches that wind up in the respondent pool.
 
The second solution is for you to get your CEO to go on lots of sales calls and arrange for him to meet with all kinds of customers: large, small, happy, disgruntled, etc. Once your sales reps know that there is no punitive follow-up to taking the CEO to a wide variety of accounts, they will treat your top executive to a rich set of experiences that will truly help guide him towards good strategic decisions.
 
So by all means, take your CEO to meet a large variety of customers as frequently as possible. But try not to let him meet just one.
 
Unless it’s Sasquatch.

Ian Heller has worked with distributors for more than 20 years, serving as VP, Marketing for Grainger, Newark Electronics and Corporate Express. As the founder of Real Results Marketing, he has consulted for many leading distribution companies, focusing on strategic planning and multi-channel growth initiatives. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

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