We doubled our average deal size YoY and “getting higher” in accounts was one of the main contributors.
Today’s post is a little bit longer than average, but I’ll teach you exactly how to position conversations with execs in your accounts – while building your champion’s confidence in you as a seller.
First, understand that asking your champion to connect you with an exec is not an easy request.
They risk their reputation when they connect you with an executive.
No one wants to bring their boss (or a their bosses’ boss) to a meeting and get a slack “why am I here?” halfway through.
Here is a three step framework to build their confidence enough to schedule the exec meeting, followed by a template/example you can use immediately:
1) Have a valid and specific reason for your request to meet with the executive
“We want to get their feedback” is not sufficient.
2) Detail what will be expected from all attendees (not just an agenda – specifically what role each attendee will play)
Executives won’t attend meetings where they are passive attendees.
3) Share your plan to make sure it’s a successful meeting
De-risk the ask by showing a route to success.
Here’s what the request could sound like on a call:
“Tony, it’s been great working with you to identify how LaunchDarkly could help your dev team mitigate risk of AI application deployment.
We don’t want to go too much farther into an evaluation though without a better understanding of how our work would impact the broader engineering org – we want to optimize for the long-term.
Typically the CTO is the best person to speak to long-term architecture goals. We’d love to bring Angela onto the next call to bring her up to speed on our goals and planned implementation to see where she would recommend adjustments to fit with her vision.
We don’t want to waste her time: we’ll prepare an executive summary she can review before the call so we can make the most of the conversation. The main feedback we’ll want from her is related to the milestones we’ve discussed – now is the right time to change those definitions or timing.
To ensure the call is successful, we’ll also include an executive from the LaunchDarkly solution architect team – that way, any questions she has can be addressed during the call.”
We also leverage exec to exec outreach to start these conversations.
Here’s a very simple email I recently sent that immediately got a response, validating that we were on track with their executive team priorities:
I lead a few of our global sales orgs at LaunchDarkly – I understand you’ve worked with us before. Thank you for your support and current consideration!
My team has caught me up on [redacted]’s evaluation. We are tracking well through trials and technical workshops.
I’d love to connect and ensure our teams are focused not just on short-term technical criteria but also on requirements for long-term success.
Would you be open to discussing? If so, feel free to share availability and I’ll do my best to accommodate. If easier, [redacted/my EA] can share availability from our side.
I’m seeing even mid-size purchases require approval from VP+ level.
And we definitely aren’t winning six-figure+ agreements without access to the C-Suite.
Hopefully these simple approaches will help you navigate higher in your accounts to support larger wins.
