How to enable your CEO to sell

The average CEO allocates 3% of their time to interactions with customers and how they spend this time can more than 2x their company's sales growth & profitability (HBR).

But with busy schedules and only 14% of CEOs coming from sales & marketing backgrounds, the average CEO is more likely to take a "hands-off approach" to selling or get involved in the wrong way, unless guided and prepared by their colleagues in sales & marketing to do otherwise.

To get the most out of their CEOs, commercial leaders needs to set them up in the right way to succeed.

Companies with CEOs involved in selling grow faster and those involved in the right way grow sales even more.

It goes without saying that senior business executives (and the most senior of them) at large enterprises wear many different hats and play different role across the many parts of the business, from finance & production to HR & marketing.

One of those areas where senior executives could get involved is sales and between 2012 -2018 two professors from INSEAD and Colombia Business School gathered data from 515 people at B2B companies and were able to categorise senior business executives' involvement in selling into five different types:

1. Hands-off (28% of senior business executives): Doesn't get involved in customer meetings with the purpose of growing sales and strengthening account relationships. Believes this should be left to sales.
2. Loose canon (21%): Visits customers without notifying account managers. Makes unrealistic promises, often creating disappointment and bad impressions that are hard to repair.
3. Social visitor (19%): Focuses solely on fostering relationships and establishing trust. Does not engage in substantive discussions of business issues. May frustrate customers looking for deeper engagement.
4. Deal maker (18%): Engages when significant revenue opportunities arise or when the customer is choosing a supplier. Signals strong commitment to a particular deal; not sustainable as a sales strategy
5. Growth champion (14%): Builds strategic customer relationships through regular meetings marked by in-depth business discussions. Yields highest returns in revenues and profits. Requires robust investment and engagement; not feasible for all customers.

Two interesting findings came out of the study:

1. Sales grow faster at companies where senior business leadership is involved in selling than those where senior executives take a "hands-off approach to sales. Companies with hands-off executives only grew sales by 1,2% per year vs. 1,7 - 8,8% for those with "hands-on" executives.
2. Sales grew the fastest at companies where senior executives played the role of "growth champions", building strategic customer relations and discussing business on a regular basis, with few prioritised customers.

The challenge however for most senior business executives is time and unless they are guided and enabled by the sales leaders to have the right conversations, with the right people, about the right things, at the right times, they are more likely to do nothing (hands-off approach), do something ad-hoc (loose canon or dealmaker) or do something half (social visitor)

If commercial leadership wants the additional sales growth that comes with having their senior business executives involved in selling in the right way (Growth Champions), they need to activate, enable & prepare them to do so

Senior executives need to be set up to best play their role in driving sales growth

With only a fraction of CEOs coming from a commercial background (sales & marketing), the road towards senior business executives playing the role of "Growth Champion" in selling most often starts with two things.

1. Education on why it matters: Senior business executives understand the importance of their involvement for sales and profitability growth
2. Alignment on how much is possible: Senior business executives spend on average of 3% of their time on customer interactions and you need to know how much of their time you can use to get them activated around selling.

Three actions Commercial excellence and commercial leaders can take to get their senior business executives involved in selling

1. Prioritise for them and get it in their calendar: You make the selection of which accounts and stakeholders the CEO should prioritise their 3% of time on and make sure the regular meetings are booked in with the right stakeholders. The senior executives don't have the full picture of who it makes most sense to invest their time in or book in the ongoing interactions.
2. Prepare key talking points and prep for interaction: You prepare the brief for the executive before the meeting with relevant information, key talking points and desired outcomes for the conversation and prep the executive before the call. This is just one out of many meetings in the executives day and you need to make sure they get the most out of this one.
3. Help with debrief & follow-up: You get an oral debrief from the executive after the meeting and make sure to handle potential follow-up actions required after the meeting.

While all CEOs are assumably focused on growing sales & profitability for the companies they are responsible for, few are still aware or enabled to get involved in selling in the way that best achieves this.

Making sure they are is the responsibility of commercial leadership

Martin Mariussen, Partner Kvadrant Consulting