hi it's Tony parinello the author of selling to Vito the very important top officer thanks for continuing to listen to my best-selling book if you have any questions about what you're learning don't hesitate to go to Vito's sales training comm and join our Vito community in the meantime here's your next chapter enjoy Chapter four replicant replicate replicate the definition of replicate according to dictionary.com to repeat duplicate or reproduce Vito rule number seven a process isn't a process unless you can replicate it replication is the gold standard when it comes to selling to Vito it's the culmination of all the work you've been doing in the past two chapters and everything you'll be learning in this and subsequent chapters success in sales like success in any other field is the result of preparation hard work and a process you can replicate do you remember the network of influence and authority we talked about in Chapter 1 let's look at it again of course Vito sits at the very top of the organization Vito has the ultimate veto power over absolutely everything that takes place in the organization what I want to draw your attention to now though is not the eagle perched at the top but the resident of linoleum bill who sits pretty darn close to the bottom of the organization this is the person I call Seymour Seymour can be male or female Seymour heads titles like datacenter manager head IT supervisor programmer Research Analyst engineer fire purchasing agent pet accountant programmer get the picture Seymour's our scientist analyst Troubleshooters and technical gurus as good as they are at what they do and as important as they are within the organization they tend to drive us salespeople nuts why because they always want to see more hence the name Seymour Seymour wants to see more presentations more analyses more data Seymour wants more site visits more demos and more freebies Seymour wants more boxes of donuts with little sprinkly things on top whatever it is you could bring to the table Seymour wants more of it in fact I'd even go as far as to say that it's Seymour's mission in life what Seymour doesn't do at least not without great difficulty is make independent decisions at work about purchases or anything else in their capacity as subject matter experts Seymour's day-to-day job function often includes investigations of the different initiatives that need to take place in order to have a successful output of whatever beto incorporated outputs they find flaws they identify trouble spots they alert people who do make decisions to potential inconsistencies it's been my personal experience that Seymour's are like hangers in a closet they tend to multiply you don't always know where they come from but you do know there are more of them this morning than there were yesterday if you set up a meeting with one Seymour when you show up for the meeting at the appointed time they're likely to find five or six Seymour's eagerly waiting to see you whenever you hear the words Seymour I want you to think of the person in the target organization who always loves to discuss the details functions and future set of what you sell enjoys auditing and correcting the design of what you sell has better ideas or improvements that could be made to what you sell ask questions that require you to do some or a lot of research to answer once free stuff from you tell you not to contact anyone else in the organization tell you that he or she has the last word in the decision-making process a side note have you ever noticed that vetoes rarely make this claim even though it's absolutely true in their case Seymour's on the other hand make a habit of telling sales people how important they are and how impossible it is for the project to move forward without their personal approval see more only rarely returns your calls in a timely manner after the first interaction you have with him has anything really good to say about what you sell tells you what's really going on in his wife tells you how much money is in the budget tells you who else he's looking at introduces you to anyone else Seymour never makes a decision on his or her own authority please keep all of these dmort rates in mind as we move forward the most important part of the upgraded and refined sales process you will be building for yourself in this book is also the simplest to remember and thus the simplest to replicate it's called the veto dance doing the veto dance means taking the first steps in your sales process outreach initial voicemail and follow-up and voice to voice contact with veto rather than with Seymour or anyone else it's that simple let me be really clear I'm not saying you must eliminate Seymour from your sales process if you forget all about the Seymour's they'll find a way to get even with you they will SAP Taj anything and everything you try to sell you want to keep Seymour's involved you don't want to begin your sales process with them here let me repeat that you want to keep Seymour's involved but you don't want to begin your sales process with them the Vito dance is about putting Vito intentionally and proactively at the very front end of your sales process no matter how you initiate that process in the first step you will always put Vito first whether you're sending a letter a postcard email leaving a voicemail message or kicking propaganda leaflets out of a low-flying ultralight that's buzzing over Vito's parking lot when you reach out you will reach out to Vito first you will leave a voicemail message for Vito you will make the initial voice to voice contact with either veto or Vito's personal assistant I will show you exactly how to do all of that I can tell you from my own personal experience and the experience of over two and a half million other salespeople that three very good things will happen when you hold yourself accountable for doing and replicating the Vito dance number one you will get bigger initial sales up to fifty four percent bigger as demonstrated by many of Tony's major clients why would your initial sales size grow when you put Vito first because everything is bigger in Vito's world the office the desk the responsibilities some people might even say Vito's head is bigger when Vito sees something he or she is personally convinced will help achieve any one of the big strategic initiatives in play between now and let's say the end of the fiscal year Vito doesn't do a small play Vito wanted everywhere it can possibly help as a general but reliable rule when Vito's buy they buy big number two you will close deals faster typically 50% faster this too is only logical Vito's are fast thinkers who take action quickly once they've examined all the angles they are not going to wait around for anybody to do anything just for the sake of waiting they're going to issue an order and buy whatever it is they want to buy so yes you'll be selling stuff a whole lot sooner DeVito then you would if you were waiting around for stealing so here's the story so far you'll be landing bigger deals in less time and that's going to yield fatter Commission checks and over quota performance sooner number three you will win more add-on business from your existing clients up to one hundred and twenty percent more as Tony's own client based have shown do you remember the definition of a customer we agreed upon a little earlier as in someone who actually pays money for your stuff in this calendar month now that we've established that I want you to think of your number-one customer got it excellent now I want you to picture the veto who runs that organization have you ever met that veto have you ever been in that vetoes office if not let me ask you this do you have all the business you deserve from that existing customer or just the thin slice if you've answered then slice rejoice because all of that is about to change if you are willing to do the veto dance if you're committed to holding yourself accountable for implementing your own sales process if you're willing to fix what isn't currently working in your sales process and replace it with something that does work why does Vito have Jackie a major account rep for one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world had worked for Seth months on a new opportunity she had uncovered during one of her prospecting blitzes potentially it was a big deal she and her support team had spent weeks performing studies conducting analyses giving demos going up going to on-site visits and making factory tours she'd finally gotten to the point where her solution was being sent up the ladder for approval her primary contact the chief technology officer assured her that the review by the Board of Directors was just a formality a rubber stamp after all the board had approved the expense line for the project and the CTO as in chief technology officer had been told in no uncertain terms by the CEO to get it done this was good news for Jackie who was in a position to make a sizeable Commission once she got past the just a formality phase she was anticipating a check totaling just under $33,000 enough to put her in the top 10% of all salespeople for the year and win her an all-expense-paid trip to Rome courtesy of her employer for making the president's club not too shabby all was looking good for Jackie until she got this ominous text message from the CTO things are on hold as it turned out the CTO hadn't really done his homework and Jackie hadn't done her sales work the CEO had used his veto power Ben sells Human Resources outsourcing services he loves his job and his customers love him he's not in the top tier of sellers for his company but he has been making his quota for the past five years and he's been a steady performer which makes his sales manager really happy one day a midsize company in his territory called him and asked for help in developing a proposal for a big project Wow Ben thought all good thing really do come to those who wait aw he ran to work with the VP of Human Resources for months and many lunch meetings later his sales forecast showed one of the largest opportunities in his district estimated at a solid 95 percent probability to close he'd been spending a lot of time on this deal and had told his manager he expected to close it during the last month of the last quarter of the fiscal year all eyes were on Ben and his opportunity Ben's company needed this deal to close the year in the black and Ben needed the deal to make his quota for the year he had stopped doing a lot of his normal prospecting and he didn't have any other deals to speak of in his pipeline unfortunately the week before the end of the year then got word from his contact that the president of the company he was trying to sell to had decided to change his company's priorities he had used his veto power to kill the deal Ben's company finished the year in the red and so did Ben these stories are based on real events these kinds of disasters happen on a daily basis but the more important question is why do they even happen in the first place guess what your decision maker isn't really the decision-maker veto rule number 8 above every decision-maker and about every decision in the enterprise sits Vito the approver of the sale and everything else have you ever worked on a deal for a long time jump through all the hoops and then after having been told by your contact that you have the business lost it sure you have what happened Vito stepped in and exercised veto power that's what happened let's look again at Jackie's situation she didn't have all the information she specifically she didn't know that Vito and three of the board members are major stockholders in one of Jackie's biggest competitors all of her work every single minute of it was in vain she never had a shot at the deal if she'd connected with Vito first she would have figured out that in less than five minutes in Ben's end-of-the-year nightmare something very similar happened the CEO happened to have a fishing buddy whose company was bought up by an outsourcing company that outsourcing company could do what the CEO wanted done so he went with them in this case Ben didn't know that the competitor had entered the game until it was too late Ben was not in Vito's loop for Jackie and Ben the result and lesson was the same they both lost and they both learned that Vito the very important top officer has the ultimate veto power over the years I've had a lot of sales people try to tell me about exceptions to the Vito rule you just heard they say things like this Vito is only a figurehead or this Vito doesn't get involved in these kinds of decisions or we tried something like this Vito dance before and all it did was irritate my current contact let me be real frank with you these are all rationalizations dodges justifications excuses for doing things the way you're used to doing them if you keep doing things the way you always have done them you will keep getting the results you've already gotten specifically you will keep investing time effort and resources in deals that drop off the radar screen once Vito exercises their veto power if that's happened to you even once and I bet it has my question for you now is a simple one how much did that cost you forget the rationalism forget the excuses forget about what you're used to doing when you get right down to it the only reality that matters is this there is one and only one person who has the ultimate influence authority and veto power over everyone and everything in the enterprise including your sales and that person is Vito I realize that you may believe that Vito is too intimidating to approach Vito has the biggest set of responsibilities Vito typically pulls the largest paycheck and has the biggest comp plan the fattest benefits and the most perks and as if all of that warranted up Vito typically has the biggest ego of anyone in the organization these are the real reasons people don't want to reach out to Vito regardless you need Vito on your side period that means you need to reach out to Vito first if you're still uncertain about whether you can commit to this keep listening in the next chapter I'll share the six big reasons why contacting Vito's office first is an absolute must-have in your sales process [Music] you [Music]