I love Seth Godin’s book, Permission Marketing.  In my recent webinar on Gaining Access to Decision Makers, I recommended reading this in the context of demand generation events and selling with assessments.

Gaining permission requires demonstrating value.  In last week’s demand generation event we targeted business owners from the start (rather than going to IT).  Normally I recommend meeting with IT people to better understand the business before calling into higher level people…but in this case we set the stage to make this work.

We arranged for this event to be held at an upscale location, I was brought in as a speaker (Speaking on the trends of Data Security and Cybercrime), and a follow up program was designed to show business leaders in the local community what is going on with cybercrime and how local businesses are under fire.  Our goal was to show them, as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal, that security is no longer a custodial issue, but that companies must have someone at the executive level overseeing this and reporting right to the top!  This was a perfect segue into a business-level technology conversation.  No products,  no tech talk, and no Power Point slides discussing the hosting company’s profits, employees, or certifications.  Instead, we created a reason for attendees to meet us.  45 out of 50 signed up for an assessment…this is a powerful statement as to the value we delivered.

Business leaders don’t have time for sales pitches, product slinging sales calls, or interruption type marketing campaigns.  They do have time to hear about trends that affect their business, and education relevant to the success of their company.  This requires permission, and permission requires demonstrable value.

© 2011, David Stelzl

In just 60 minutes of presentation, these attendees were willing to stay and talk.  They received books, signed up for assessments, and looked forward to our next visit, a visit that would take place in their office, with a focus on their risks.  They wanted to know how to ensure that global cyber thieves would not victimize their businesses.    In fact, we gained permission to see them three times!  The first meeting was at the luncheon.  From there they agreed to invite us to their office, and finally, we had permission to see them a third time to deliver our findings from the promised assessment.  If a sales person can’t close business with three executive meetings and compelling justification from an assessment, a new sales person is needed.