Overall 3 Stars of out 5: ***
I was recently encouraged to read Selling to VITO, a thought-provoking guide that compels you to drive all your sales from a new starting point – the top. VITO stands for Very Important Top Officer, which is the CEO of the organization to which you are trying to sell. Instead of selling into accounts you originally perceived to be “at your level”, Anthony Parinello says start with the one and only final decision maker in the organization, and have them eventually redirect you to one of their key team mates in charge of execution, such as CFO, CTO, etc… as best correlates to what you are selling.
I found the book quite interesting and insightful. It had a few good reminders on how to work with time-limited VITOs and lots of great instruction around maintaining the right mindset. He also has entertaining names for other players in the sales process, like “Mr Seymour, who wants to just “see more” of what you have to offer but never buys. Although I’m not an official sales person, I do recognize the value of salesmanship with other leaders in my every day work. I believe this approach helps you work better with leaders in your organization as a result. And of course anytime I am working with leadership outside our organization, this mindset will certainly apply.
The thing I like to remember when working with leaders, at least those with the right mindset, IMO, is that the role they have in the org is just another critical role in the company. We all have specific roles to fill, we’re all trying to do a better job, and we’re all humans with ups, downs, struggles, and aspirations. No one is better than anyone else and thus we should be comfortable discussing things on equal terms.
Selling to VITO does a good job of communicating that while teaching you to respect just how truly limited a leader’s time really is. This book is a bit more about high level mindset than I would like to see, but it does a good job of providing some tangible techniques to deliver on its promise. I’ve been toying with the idea of a “meat and potatoes metaphor for ranking a book. A book that is all meat would be 100% tactical and no strategy. A book that is 100% potatoes would be all strategy, “rah rah go team” phrases, high level junk with no concrete examples of how to actually execute on the recommendations. Selling to VITO is a decent mix of “meat and potatoes”.
If you would like another sales book that has become a bible of the selling world, read, or even better, listen to Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Zigler. I have repeatedly listened to this treasure not only for his great sales techniques but also for the compelling storytelling Zig puts forth. He was a world-class orator and entertainer, and his series delivers on both teaching and entertainment value. I was introduced to his work when I was a young salesman in The Southwestern Company (mid 90’s), and his work still holds true today.
I tend to listen or read business or technical books all the time, but I am not an affiliate marketer. You can see…