Here are my top-three pieces of advice for premium seat account executives:
1) Think about who you are targeting from a sales standpoint. A lot of times, it makes a lot of sense for organizations to try to tackle the biggest fish in the sea, but where I’ve seen a lot of reps have a lot of success is focusing on the industries that they are familiar with. What does your dad do? What does your mom do? What do your best friends do? Tackling those industries is something I’ve seen be tremendously successful for young account executives.
2) Think about how you are engaging companies. Is your personality coming through on the phone call? The idea when you get off the phone with a company should be for that company to know I just got a call from Brett Zalaski at the Houston Dynamo. Not someone from the Houston Dynamo just gave me a call. If they remember your name, you are going to have a better chance of scheduling that meeting with them.
3) Think about what the needs and challenges are for prospective companies. When you are in that meeting and having that conversation, a lot of times we pitch product, and we fight for entertainment space. Please make sure you understand what the needs and challenges of that company are, because while that entertainment budget may be defined, and it may be part of what you do, there are other budgets within that organization that you can fight your way into. Understanding the needs and challenges of that company will not just give you access to the entertainment budget, but should also give you access to a million other budgets at that company and more revenue than you could have gotten just from the initial conversation.
Good Luck!
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