I know this. Calling at the Top is the only way to go.
But, working at Hubspot, there is more demand for people that want to talk to us than we can handle. We're doing our best to contact everyone and see who is really serious about investing in their business to generate more leads from their online marketing activities. But we can't call everyone in a timely manner. Some of these people are lower level employees at bigger companies, not really able to make decisions. Some are CEOs.
The other day, I gave one of these lower level employees a demo of the product and we agreed that Hubspot would help her achieve her her personal business goals at the company. If she could make the decision, she would have bought right then. She was convinced. So, our next agreed upon step was to talk about who the decision makers would be, so we can get them on board together. Most salespeople skip this process letting the internal person run with "information" to their bosses. Usually this fails because the lower level person lacks the knowledge about the product as well as the sales skills to identify what is important to each decision maker. I explained this to her as best I could. She agreed to chat with me before going to anyone. But, then "being so excited" she went and talked to her TWO bosses. Like squabbling parents, they both deflected to each other and she's left sitting home on a Friday night, instead of having Hubspot at her fingertips and getting a raise a year from now because we helped her meet her goals and the company goals.
Obviously, this is a disaster. It's salvage-able and I told her I'd help her if she'll listen to me this time. But, it's going to be more difficult now.
Then, five minutes later, I dialed up another lead that wanted to talk to us. I almost deleted the lead because it looked fake. It's a big company for their industry and a very successful guy who is the CEO. Someone I've heard of. I dialed him up and got his secretary and said "Oh. I was expecting to get John Smith". She says, "I can connect you." and checks to see if he's available. She comes back and asks, "Can I ask who's calling?". I say "Peter Caputa". She checks with him and puts me through. I said hey John, delivered my positioning statement and then went into my line of questions asking him about his business. At the beginning of the call he said he had 1 or 2 minutes. After ten minutes, he asked me if we could schedule a call to talk more.
Here's the thing. I know we can help both of these companies tremendously. I can tell just by looking at their site and seeing all the low hanging fruit they have. It won't be hard to attract more visitors and convert more visigtors to leads and sales. And I know we have a solution that can help them do that.
And here's the lesson: It's just so much easier to call at the top. Even if you have a few hundred thousand low level people who want to talk to you.