6 Expert Sales Tips to Secure Meetings with Executives and Exceed Targets

New research from ValueSelling Associates, Inc. provides sales and marketing professionals with six actionable prospecting strategies to capture attention and secure time on an executive’s calendar and six insights on how to meet/exceed sales quotas. Key findings highlight the importance of personalization and research, value proposition clarity and creative engagement techniques in successful prospecting. Additionally, the research underscores the need for innovative sales frameworks, team collaboration and continuous learning to achieve sustained business growth.

Over the past five years, ValueSelling Associates interviewed more than 350 US sales and marketing executives over 300 episodes on its podcast, The B2B Revenue Executive Experience, asking every guest two pivotal questions:

“As an executive, you’re a prospect for many sales professionals—what captures your attention and earns time on your calendar?”
“If there’s one piece of advice you could share with revenue executives to help them hit or exceed targets, what would it be and why?”

ValueSelling Associates analyzed responses to these questions—distilling over 600 game-changing insights into practical advice for revenue leaders and their teams in today’s newly released ebook, "Innovate or Stagnate: Lessons from 350 Revenue Executives."

“The sales profession has seen seismic shifts—from the rise of remote sales to the proliferation of AI over the past five years,” said Julie Thomas, president and CEO of ValueSelling Associates. “Despite everything that has changed, prospecting advice from the world’s leading revenue executives remains remarkably consistent."

Prospecting Advice: Know Your Prospects. Engage Your Prospects. Earn Their Trust. When asked, “What captures your attention and earns time on your calendar?” podcast guests responded with the following:

Personalization and Research: Tailor outreach efforts to the individual's specific interests, challenges, role and industry—use this knowledge of the individual prospect to engage in meaningful ways that resonate on a personal level.
Value Proposition and Clarity: Use clear, concise communication that directly addresses how a product or service can solve a specific problem or add value to the prospect's business.
Creative and Engaging Techniques: From video prospecting to strategic gifting to leveraging social proof and referrals, creative outreach opens doors—don’t overlook humor or personal touches, either.
Persistence and Follow-up: Never give up after the initial contact—employ strategies for keeping the prospect engaged over time and recognize the importance of timing and multi-channel outreach.
Understanding Customer Needs and Challenges: Before reaching out, conduct enough research to understand the prospect’s business and their likely needs, challenges, and goals.
Building Rapport and Trust: Focus on establishing a genuine connection and trust with the prospect through authenticity, empathy and understanding—show genuine interest in the prospect's success.

Insights for Meeting and Beating Sales Targets: Stay Curious, Collaborative and Put the Buyer First.When asked for one piece of advice to help revenue executives exceed targets, podcast guests responded with the following:

Embracing Change and Continuous Learning: Commit to the continuous pursuit of knowledge to remain competitive—staying ahead of the curve through personal development enables you to adapt to evolving market conditions and remain competitive.
Buyer-Centric Strategies: Always prioritize customer needs—focus on empathy, listening to customer stories, aligning solutions with their challenges and advocating for a customer-first approach.
Personalization and Authentic Engagement: Focus on tailoring interactions and solutions to meet each customer's unique needs and preferences—this requires genuine communication, understanding the customer’s context and creating meaningful connections.
Leveraging Data and Analytics: Creating a robust analytics engine grounded on a single source of truth improves strategic decision-making, optimizes sales processes and offers advanced insight into market dynamics.
Collaboration Across Teams: Foster synergy between sales, marketing and other departments to drive sales and enhance customer experiences. Revenue teams must align goals and work collectively with unified strategies to improve revenue results and the customer experience.
Innovative Sales Frameworks, Techniques and Tools: Choose the right sales methodology and tech stack to drive sales efficiency and effectiveness—the right combination unlocks innovative approaches to prospecting, selling and closing deals.

“It’s striking that 27% of revenue executives highlighted change and continuous learning as the single greatest driver of hitting and exceeding sales targets when asked an open-ended question. It shows that future success hinges on the right habits,” said Thomas. “Buyer-centric strategies, personalization and authentic engagement emphasize the most human elements of sales success: professional growth, change readiness and authentic human-to-human connection.”

For sales and marketing professionals looking to stay ahead of the curve, the "Innovate or Stagnate: Lessons from 350 Revenue Executives" ebook provides a synthesis of expert advice and serves as a testament to the enduring principles of successful sales strategies amidst technological and market changes. Download your copy today to transform your approach to sales and revenue generation.

About The B2B Revenue Executive Experience Podcast The B2B Revenue Executive Experience is a podcast hosted by Carlos Nouche and Lisa Schnare who dedicate each episode to helping executives train their sales and marketing teams to optimize growth. Whether you’re interested in increasing margins and growing your market share, enabling your teams to compete on value rather than price, hiring new employees, or trying to stay at the forefront of the latest in sales and marketing techniques, this podcast will give you the tools and skills necessary to win in a B2B marketplace. Each episode features an interview with a thought leader or practitioner, discussing topics like: value selling, B2B sales, sales enablement, sales performance, marketing enablement, increasing revenue, increasing margins, increasing market share, sales strategy, and more.

About ValueSelling Associates, Inc.ValueSelling Associates is the creator of the ValueSelling Framework®: the sales methodology, training and toolset that aligns your revenue engine with a common language and enables sales professionals to compete on value, not price. Since 1991, ValueSelling has helped hundreds of thousands of sales professionals realize immediate revenue growth and achieve results they never thought possible.

ValueSelling offers bespoke training to FORTUNE 1000, mid-sized, and start-up companies that includes eLearning courses, instructor-led workshops (virtual and in-person), microlearning and on-demand reinforcement in over 17 languages. ValueSelling programs provide globally scalable and sustainable tools, skills, and processes for sales teams, executives, and all customer-facing professionals to effectively engage, qualify, advance, and close more sales with higher margins.

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