#685: Why Selling To The C-Suite Has Changed FOREVER With Jim Benton

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Today, we have the legend, Jim Benton, the CEO Chorus.ai. Chorus.AI is a conversation intelligence platform that teams plug into their Zoom meetings, emails and conversations to capture and understand sales interactions. Jim and Will get into how to sell to the C suite, especially during this COVID pandemic time.

“We’ve looked at data across, hundreds of thousands of meetings and different interactions. What we found was that the C suite, specifically, is involved 86% more than they were back in Q1, back in the January, February timeframe.” – Jim Benton

Identifying The Quality of Interactions

Through Chorus.AI, we are able to figure out the quality of interactions we have, as it relates to closing a sale. Since the technology is plugged in CRMs, Salesmen are able to generate data and analyze the conversations that can make or break a winning sale.

“Are we asking the right questions? Are we setting next steps? Are we talking about certain features? Are there key trigger words that are coming up? From there, we’re then connecting this data back to your CRM, back to your organisations that people can learn and really understand? What does best look like? What drives deals that win versus lose? How do we replicate those moments successfully? How do we understand our relationships?” – Jim Benton

Involving C-Suite In Conversations

Jim shares that we need to be more prepared in dealing with CXOs as data shows they are far more involved now, more than ever. In fact, CFOs are 92% more involved now, more than they were before. Reasons such as convenience to join via Zoom and tighter budgets may come to play. The important thing is, we must be prepared to involve CXOs in sales conversations.

“They want to get their CXOs, the C-Suite talking. When they get involved, they do not want to be just pitching. They really need to be asking at least five engaging questions. And again, the CXO talk more when we win deals. We need to get them speaking in these interactions.” – Jim Benton

Impressing C-Suite Execs

In terms of how much you should prepare before a meeting with C-Suite Exec, Jim shares nothing beats an honest question of “what do you want to get out of this meeting?”

“I’m a big fan of providing a quick recap, summary but with demonstrating the credibility of why we’re here, what we’ve done, the parties that are here, the key stakeholders we’re working with, and bringing someone into that dialogue versus shifting the focus all to them.” – Jim Benton

To know more why selling to the C-Suite has changed FOREVER, watch or listen to this episode.

About the guest:

Jim Benton is the CEO of Chorus.ai, is a revenue generating visionary; translating customer needs into innovative solutions. As Co-Founder of ClearSlide and later as CEO of Apollo, Jim helped create the Sales Engagement category.

Resources:

• Chorus.ai
• Jim on LinkedIn

Sponsor:

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