Communicate Successfully with Executives

Learning Objectives 

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Use your discovery information to create an impactful message.
• Mold your message using best practices for the audience.

Communicating with executives is an essential part of the customer-centric conversations (CCC) model. These conversations can occur both with internal and external executives. Let’s look at how to have effective customer-centric conversations with both types of executives.

Frame Communications Based on Your Audience

When you prepare to speak to an executive, it’s important to meet their needs. Communication is personal. It’s important to deliver the message in a way that matches the executive’s preferences and focuses on what’s important to them.

Remember, when you meet with an executive, follow these best practices.

• Be concise.
• Be transparent and clear.
• Provide sentiment if applicable.
• Frame for your audience.
• Focus on your ask, solution, or recommendation.

Before you walk into an engagement with an executive, it’s important to know about the individual. To prepare, answer the following questions before the engagement.

• What drives them personally and professionally?
• What do they care about when it comes to the customer?
• What’s the ask? What do you need from them?
• What are your areas of responsibility? What are the executive’s?
• What are your business priorities? What are the executive’s?
• What are the relevant metrics to your goal?
• How is your performance measured in this engagement?
• Why should an executive care about the solutions you are proposing?

These questions can help you look for specific information during discovery. Discovery isn’t just about the company, but also the individuals with whom you are going to engage.

For internal executives’ discovery, check out:

• Scorecards, measures, and what their compensation deliverables entail.
• Topics they have championed this fiscal year.
• Talk to their executive assistants—they usually have helpful information.

For external executives’ discovery, check out:

• Their LinkedIn profile and any available resume.
• Company goals, visions, and mission statements.
• Personal support for any charities, causes, or communities.
• Contacts within the company—they usually have helpful information.

Remember to also prepare open-ended questions for the executive, as opposed to closed yes/no questions. For example, asking, “Are you happy with our partnership?” is a closed question which doesn’t lead to much new information. Instead, ask, “What can we do to make our partnership better?”

Another great technique when communicating with executives is the Rule of Three. This technique can help regardless of which type of executive you are engaged with.

1. Be attention-getting and memorable: Your message or point of view gets their attention and is memorable.
2. Provide the three most important reasons: Ensure they hear the most pressing three priorities before the conversation ends.
3. Project logic, confidence, and decisiveness: You sound logical, prepared, confident, and decisive when you speak.

What Matters to Internal Executives

Let’s discuss some top-of-mind topics you may encounter with internal executives. Knowing these generalized priorities can help you use your discovery information to tailor your message.

Internal Executive Sponsor, Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President 

What do I care about?

• Understanding the customer and their business
• Knowing the key stakeholders and their sentiment towards our product
• Understanding our product’s place in the long-term company vision

Internal Sales Executives and Sales Teams 

What do I care about?

• Understanding the customer and their business
• Locating opportunities to grow
• Understanding what the customer wants or needs for sales to be successful
• Finding out what will lose the deal or customer

Internal Product Executives 

What do I care about?

• Understanding the customer and their business
• Solving issues with current products
• Determining if our product is sustainable at the company
• Implementing solutions

So what kind of conversations could you have with one of these internal executives? 

• You can highlight a success within your account to a regional lead (RL), portfolio lead (PL), or senior vice president (SVP).
• Have a conversation regarding growth opportunities with a sales executive.
• Provide an update of your account to an RL/PL/executive sponsor.
• Prepare an executive for an engagement with an external executive sponsor, senior vice president, or executive leader.
• Discuss a product with a product executive.
• Request an executive’s help with an account for a specific situation.

These are just a few examples, but whomever you encounter, remember to frame your message around their priorities.

Another tip for working with an executive is to highlight the pain point which matters most to them. If you are speaking to an internal sales executive, for example, be sure to highlight how your product might help them close a deal. This bottom line up front (BLUF) move helps to speak the executive’s lingo.

What Matters to External Executives

Now let’s look at what external executives typically focus on and how to craft your conversation around their needs.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) 

What do I care about? 

• Shareholder value
• Corporate growth
• Revenue growth
• Corporate philosophy & culture
• Driving company vision

How to approach me:

• Focus on our partnership
• Be direct and to the point
• Provide insights
• Lead with outcomes

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

What do I care about?

• Sentiment
• Simplification
• Digital transformation
• Relationship between business and information technology (IT)

How to approach me:

• Tie Salesforce to the overall vision of the company
• Provide actionable and small wins. A CIO’s tenure is historically short, and they usually want to accomplish a lot during their time.

Chief Operating Officer (COO) 

What do I care about?

• Day-to-day operations
• Implementation issues

How to approach me:

• Give the details
• Provide asset utilization numbers and unit costs
• Discuss sales performance

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Innovation Officer, Digital Transformation Executive: 

What do I care about?

• The overall experience for the consumer and users
• Customer interface
• Product management
• Market share/gross
• Margins and product growth

How to approach me:

• Discuss conversion rates
• Provide ideas and solutions
• Share customer stories
• Avoid technical details

Use the discovery framework of Risk, Outcome, Challenge, and Ask to pull out the information that matches your executive recipient’s priorities. One of the main focuses of the CCC framework is outcome. You can use key phrases to share solutions, such as:

• "I learned from your annual report that..."
• "As a customer, I had this experience..."
• "Your stated objectives for the year are…"

Listen Actively

As you transition to solutions, make sure to use active listening skills for true collaboration. Have you ever been on the phone with someone and realized they weren’t listening to you? You could say anything and they would reply, “Uh-huh,” or “Yeah.” This is easy to spot, and customers can see this as well. Typically this happens when they are focused on what we want or need to say next, rather than truly listening to the other person. 

To tell if you are actively listening, do you:

• Provide your undivided attention? Don’t let your mind wander.
• Note nonverbal cues, such as eye contact, head nodding, or leaning forward?
• Give brief verbal affirmations such as, “I see,” “Sure,” “I understand,” and “Thank you?”
• Show empathy when appropriate through statements such as, “That must have been really difficult for you”?
• Remain curious through insightful questions?

It’s important to use rephrasing or mirroring. This means using different words to acknowledge, restate, and assess your understanding. Leaving room for questions and checking in with the customer helps create a conversation, rather than a one-sided presentation. 

For example: “I see three key takeaways from this detailed summary. You mentioned earlier that you were not seeing value out of the engagement. Tell me more about that now that we’ve reviewed the details together.”

To connect appropriately, review these questions before you engage with the customer.

• What do you feel like you could help them learn?
• What is important about the insights from your discovery that you uncovered?
• Are there flaws in their current situation that will prevent them from achieving their initiatives?
• Is there an effective business insight you have discovered?
• Can you make this personal?

Now you’re ready to use the techniques you’ve learned in this module to connect with the customer through collaboration. Collaborating with your customers creates a vision and a shared perspective. Sometimes, you require executive partners to achieve this. Having customer-centric conversations develops an environment where the customer feels more invested in building a solution with you. Placing the customer at the center and using the CCC framework will help make this collaborative relationship a reality.

Resources

• External Site: I’m OK, The Bull Is Dead 
• External Site: How to Talk to C-Level Executives
• External Site: What You Should Do When Meeting with a CEO
• External Site: The Rule of Three