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Nothing can be compared to the power of working directly with C-suite executives. Theseaccounts drive the direction of their businesses....

Is your executive engagement strategy built on personas?

“What do the executives I’m targeting have in common?”

What’s top of mind among your target executives?

As most ABM-ers know, events can be a powerful way to engage the C-level executives you’re targeting. But it’s not a simple matter of “if...

Sales is an interesting line of work. Sales professionals are often measured by how they meet company goals and quotas, but ultimately,...

Let’s get right to it: Personas aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

In business, relationships are everything.

Googling someone before a meeting has become an unwritten rule of business, but to gain an edge in C-level sales and account-based...

Sales professionals are accustomed to prepping for a meeting or presentation, but executive research adds value to the rest of your client...

2021 has been quite the year, to say the least. At Boardroom Insiders, it has been one of resilience, growth, and validation.

According to Harvard Business Review, the number of people involved in B2B solutions purchases grew from an average of 5.4 in 2015 to 6.8...

From the time we’re quite young, we’re assured by the adults in our lives that there are no stupid questions. That may be true when we’re...

If you’re a tech vendor selling “digital transformation,” one of the best articles you can read right now is a piece by Thomas M. Siebel in...

Salesforce is a company I follow very closely. Given their phenomenal growth and the fact they are a longtime customer of ours, I read...

Warning: This qualifies as a professional rant. When it comes to sales intelligence and business “data” providers, buyer beware. What...

When we hear the term “customer service,” B2C scenarios tend to come to mind. For most of us, this might involve an online chat session...

Hi, everybody. We're talking today about C-Suite selling success stories. My name is Sharon Gillenwater, and I'm the founder of Boardroom...

There’s no worse feeling than being unprepared for a meeting with a C-Level Executive. Their time is valuable and if you blow it, there are...

It's 2017 and IDC sees a future where C-Level executives are going to be more central than ever to critical technology buying decisions. ...

Are any of your customers involved in corporate spinoffs? Sales and marketing people are always advised to keep an eye on potential mergers...

Is C-Suite engagement a priority in your sales strategy at your company? If so, you are probably having discussions about how to scale. ...

Every day we hear from sales leaders about how their sales teams are overwhelmed and under prepared when it comes to selling to C-suite...

There’s no escaping the fact that we live and conduct business in a social world. Harnessing social technology is clearly now a mandate for...

Enterprise sales teams struggling with C-Level executive selling should take a page out of the management consultant’s playbook. Because of...

We preach a lot about the value of knowing as much as possible about your customer. Having deep insight into their goals and concerns is...

Day in and day out we conduct deep research on the c-suite so you don’t have to. We look for CXO insight that helps sales and marketing...

In a recent post we outlined how Salesforce is closing bigger deals faster by engaging CXO decision makers—all the way up to the CEO. Many...

As marketers and sales pros, we find irresistible the promise that technology tools will make our jobs easier and help us win more...

So, you’ve landed a meeting with a long sought-after customer. Chances are you’ve already done some research to get your foot in the door,...

On a February 2016 earnings call, Salesforce execs crowed about having “the absolute best quarter we have ever had,” capping off “a...

The time has long passed since a sales team could assume that a great presentation about their product or service would get them the orders...

How prepared are your sales people for their hard-won meetings with prospective customers? According to IDC, nearly 57 percent of B2B...

As you’re strategizing for new business, your staff is probably gathering data, pulling together sales materials, and practicing delivering...

Come 2016, you’ll find new faces in many CEO offices. Organizations like Starwood Hotels, Owens-Illinois, LL Bean, and others have...

The Tyranny of “No Decision” The biggest threat to closing your next big deal may not be the competition. Your biggest threat might be...

I know of no one who doesn’t get at least a little bit of the stomach flutters before a cold calling session. Still, as nerve wracking as...

Have you heard the one about the veteran sales manager – the one with at least 25 years of experience -- who remembers the days before...

You and your prospect likely have a lot in common. As someone who sells to Fortune 500 executives, C-suite occupants and other high-level...

A career in sales can be very lucrative. So much so that many people try their hand at it at least once in their careers. Yet if success in...

As salespeople, we don’t like to think of ourselves as solicitors. We are providing solutions that we truly believe in (or should anyway),...

Your database is full of potential customers, some with a higher closing probability than others, but they all have one thing in common:...

The goal of sales is to convert prospects into customers, but not every prospect should make the cut. Just because you can do business...

There’s a big difference between a strategic sales pro and a product jockey. Product jockeys wear what they are selling like a name tag,...

The past decade has seen a technological revolution across all industries, and healthcare is no exception. Technology has quickly become...

The old way of selling is dead. People don’t want to be sold to anymore and they don’t want to waste time with uninformed salespeople....

This week the Wall Street Journal's CIO Journal ran an article by two Bain & Company partners entitled, Why Enterprise Technology...

Jeff Henley, Chairman of Oracle Corporation, recently told Forbes that many companies have elevated strategic digital transformation...

According to one industry insider, "A lot of CDO (Chief Digital Officer)-type roles are borne out of frustration of CEOs who know they need...

According to the Harvard Business Review, "marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most technology-dependent functions in business." A...

We've written in the past about why personas, while useful, are no substitute for CXO intelligence.

If you get butterflies heading into a meeting with a CXO, you are not alone.

In our meetings with enterprise sales leaders, we notice a lot of heads nodding around the room when we talk about:

We have been reading a lot lately--and hearing from our customers who sell cloud-based solutions--about the demise of the enterprise deal.

Why Our Product Should Make You Uncomfortable

There's one thing I really need to get off my chest:

When it comes to meetings with C-level executives, a whole new level of sales readiness is required. Unlike your mid-level customers who...

Selling to CXOs? What if you could access CXO priorities and personal interests right from Salesforce.com? Now you can, with no hassle, no...

With the availability of increasingly robust CRM systems, we're hearing a lot lately about "360 degree" customer programs, which involve...

If you're in sales at any level, you know the feeling of being "handcuffed" with a customer. It's when you know a purchase decision will...

Enterprise Sales and Marketing: Can't We All Just Get Along?

How “Last Mile” Research Can Help You Close Deals—and Save Your Skin

Your customers' priorities are ever-changing.

The first thing to remember if you are trying to engage a CXO is that they are unimaginably busy. They are also surrounded by people...

When does executive insight become critical to your company's future?

Every day we talk with sales pros and account managers who live and breathe a single Fortune 50 customer such as Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo or...

Most sales and marketing pros agree: the more you know about your customers, the better. Insinctively, most of us know that executive...

We've all been there. You have a big opportunity on the table with a major account. You know that if only you could get the CXO's...

Where I’m from (the south), “storytelling” is a term often used for slick-talk’n hucksters. People who start their tales with an audience...

Having worked on CXO-facing programs for more than a decade, I think I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't when it...