Why are sales leaders typically the biggest d*cks to sell into?

I dread selling into sales leaders for a multitude of reasons...they know all the objections, the too have sold and pass judgemnt, they likely don't like being sold to..and most are pretty arrogant.


Nothing grinds my gears more then getting an "unsubscribe" or a "remove me from your list" from a sales leader...I lied, nothing grinds my gears more than getting the above response from a sales leader and who once a BDR.


Tips to land well with sales leaders?

๐Ÿ”Ž Prospecting
๐Ÿ’Œ Cold Emailing
๐Ÿ“ž Cold Calling
13
GDO
Politicker
3
BDM
Sales people make great buyers imo. This because they know what to ask and what objections they can use.ย 

Are they dicks or difficult to sell to?

if they are dicks. Well fine. No opinion on it then.ย 
DaveGreen
Arsonist
2
Head of Sales
From my experience, sales leaders are great to sell to. At least if they're not one of those stuck up, 'look at me - I'm VP' types of people. But doesn't that apply to all?

Just make sure to really know all about your value add and be genuine. Sales people, like no other smell bs from miles awayย 
SaaS_Queen
Good Citizen
2
Account Executive
Completely depends on the stage of the process for me. Early stage / cold calling it's probably a 50/50 chance that they'll be a dick or if you're good, they recognise a strong pitch and give you a chance.

Later stages of the process, I'd say they're easier to deal with than say CTOs because they know the process, know what you'll need and there's less messing about. Yeah they'll drive a hard bargain but that's just good business.ย 
Kinonez
Celebrated Contributor
1
War Room Enthusiast
Pitch them, sales leaders love to hear other sales leaders talk sales. We learn from them and itโ€™s nice to be on the other side of the table.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
1
๐ŸฆŠ
Sales leaders prefer you come to them with thorough research and due diligence.ย 
RedLightning
Politicker
1
Mid-Market AE
Tighten up your pitch and make the cadence emails a bit more relevant/tailored.ย 

Start writing down what your company does in one sentence. Keep trying to slim that down by removing a word here or there.ย 

Sales and marketing leaders can tell when you're actually putting in effort on the email side of things and are much more critical of a generic email than the average prospect. Conversely, they love good cold outreach.

They're harsh to what the consider poor outreach. If they're harsh to you then they're likely considering your outreach poor (some people do just suck though).ย 

I'm pretty blunt when I prospect sales and marketing leadership. I'll open with something like - Hey X, this is red lightning at blah. By the way, this is a cold call do you want to take it - If they say no, then they wouldn't have listened to me either way. When they say yes, you have permission to pitch and the pattern interrupt is strong enough that you've actually got their attention.

Good luck.ย 
Rallier
Politicker
1
SDR Manager and Consultant
Curious what your cadence looks like. In my experience, if you have solid outreach you won't receive these short type of brush offs
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
Later stages of the process, I'd say they're easier to deal with than say CTOs because they know the process, know what you'll need and there's less messing about.
Smithy
Politicker
0
Director of Sales
I like selling to sales leaders, but you need to be on point with your intro pitch early doors or you will get destroyed and, as someone else said, your research better be on point too
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
0
โ˜•๏ธ
You need to be ON your shit if you want to sell to sales leaders. As you said, we know all the tricks you're going to pull because we pulled them once as well. If you're going to try to sell something to us then be straightforward, understand my needs as a buyer by doing solid discovery and research, and make it SUPER EASY for me to buy from you.

We do not intend to be assholes, but we also can see through skeezy shit from a mile away. If you come to the table having done solid prep and are willing to cut the bullshit then you are going to be more successful getting through the cycle with us than if you try to drag us through some 4-step process.
Queen_of_the_funnel
Opinionated
0
Director of Sales Development
I'm hard to sell to because I don't like when sellers take the "lazy" way out.ย 

If the seller does a little bit of research and weaves it in while conversing with me, the conversation will almost always result in a next call or a demo. I do give a shit and will listen if the effort is put into trying to gain my attention.ย 

BUT if anyone tried to just send me a template -- I either write back telling them that they should try a little harder and what that would look like or I delete it as fast as it hits my inbox (time permitting)ย 
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
0
ISR
I hate this career path. moving hunters into farmer roles.
Error32
Politicker
0
ISR
I've heard of inbound reps going to outbound, but not the opposite
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