VITO RULE #0 – VITO (the Very Important Top Officer) is the ultimate approver of everything that happens in the organization, including your sale.
Why did I chose this resource?
I chose this book to initially train other people in the company and realized that it had lessons that I needed to re-read and practice in order to raise the sales of our organization.
What did you learn from it?
There are different people that we can sell to and have sold to. Our “customer segments” or people we cater to are different from who actually approves the sale. These people are VITOs. We need to become like VITOs to sell to VITOs. We need to sell using their language and provide them reason to buy from us and not from others. We need to work with other people in the sales process to continue selling effectively. Instead of going from the bottom up, we need to go to the top.
Key Knowledge
- VITO RULE #0 – VITO (the Very Important Top Officer) is the ultimate approver of everything that happens in the organization, including your sale.
- VITO RULE #1 – VITO will like me because I am like VITO.
- VITO RULE #2 – VITO will like what my product can do for him or her because it’s in alignment with what VITO wants.
- VITO RULE #3 – I am measured at my job as a salesperson in a way that’s similar to how VITO is measured at the job of Very Important Top Officer
- VITO RULE #4 – Because time is so valuable, VITOs don’t treat all potential business relationships equally, and neither should you.
- VITO RULE #5 – When you fly with VITO, everybody else in the organization follows.
- VITO RULE #6 – Be accountable to your own sales process.
- VITO RULE #7 – A process isn’t a process unless you can replicate it.
- VITO RULE #8 – Above every Decision Maker and above every decision in the enterprise, sits VITO – the approver of the sale and everything else.
- VITO RULE #9 – No Matter what anyone else in the buying enterprise has to say about some sales person’s offering, VITO can (and often will) kill that offering on a moment’s notice.
- VITO RULE #10 – VITO’s Decision Makers get paid to say yes.
- VITO RULE #11 – Influencers can’t buy jack. Never could . Never would. Never will. Period. End of story.
- VITO RULE #12 – Follow the perfect sales process.
- VITO RULE #13 – Like VITO, you have to be willing to change course as circumstances demand in order to hit your goal.
- VITO RULE #14 – What matters is not the title, but the traits you share with VITO.
- VITO RULE #15 – Selling to VITO ( also known as picking up the phone and calling VITO) is marketing, advertising, public relations, and sales all at the same time!
- VITO RULE #16 – When you create any written correspondence that you want VITO to actually process, you’ll have to make it a fast read. A fast read in VITO’s world means thirty seconds.
- VITO RULE #17 – VITOs are looking for ways to improve every area of their organization, not just the area you happen to know about and are working with.
- VITO RULE #18 – You must know which VITOs to approach and which not to approach.
- VITO RULE #19 – You must know how to approach VITO.
- VITO RULE #20 – Every piece of VITO correspondence has six specific parts, each which must stand on its own but also be logically connected to all the other parts.
- VITO RULE #21 – Its okay to make mistakes .. because none of this is life threatening.
- VITO RULE #22 – Once you complete all eight of the pre-correspondence steps, and not before, you will be ready to send your VITO correspondence.
- VITO RULE #23 – When interacting with the Receptionist Gatekeeper, you must close with the words, “Thank you!” spoken briskly and confidently.
- VITO RULE #24 – When Talking with Tommie, forget that VITO exists!
- VITO RULE #25 – The tone, modulation, and pacing of your voice will determine how easy or difficult it is for VITO to listen to (and act on!) your message.
- VITO RULE #26 -Be ready for each of the six good things that can happen during a call to VITO.
- VITO RULE #27 – You will inevitably shunted to the person within VITO, Inc. whom you sound like the most.
- VITO RULE #28 – Do not accept shunts from unqualified opportunities.
- VITO RULE #29 – Know what you want from the meeting.
- VITO RULE #30 – Don’t use more than one or two-closed-ended questions during your entire conversation with VITO.
- VITO RULE #31 – The more time, energy, attention, and money VITO invests in the relationship with you, and the better you are at demonstrating to VITO the hard and soft dollar value your products, services, and solutions, have actually delivered to VITO, Inc. in return for that investment, the less likely the account is to disconnect from you.
- VITO RULE #32 – After a good call with VITO, call another VITO immediately.
- VITO RULE #0 – Use what works; avoid what doesn’t.
- VITO RULE #0 – Set goals that are doable.
- VITO RULE #0 – Reward yourself after each accomplishment.
- VITO RULE #0 – Remember : Your ultimate accountability lies in implementing what you learn.
- VITO RULE #0 – Have a positive attitude.
- VITO RULE #0 – VITO (the Very Important Top Officer) is the ultimate approver of everything that happens in the organization, including your sale.
How are you using what you learned?
I need to become very disciplined about creating two lists – one of the VITOs and prospects from existing relationships in our business and personal contacts and two of the VITOs and prospects from new business. I am already changing my language to sell differently over social media. There’s a lot to learn, but the paradigm shift is to go from being a Sales Engineer to being a CEO selling to VITOs.
Key Changes
- Implement a better qualification process that builds good profiles for the people we want to target.
- Don’t waste time with clients that can’t afford us. Only approach clients that are worth the effort.
- Create messaging for all offering levels: Recommenders, Influencers, Decision Makers, and VITOs.
How can we as a company or individuals in the company use this?
Our company ‘s Enterprise Development practice needs to be sharp and act like VITOs with knowledge about our industry, our market, our clients, and be able to talk to the VITOs in a way that they see us as experts.
Key Actions
- Every Enterprise Developer / Sales person should read the book.
- We should set clear criteria for “VITOs”, “Decision Makers” “Influencers” and “Recommenders” and how to identify them.
- We should have a process to build better client profiles and automate it.
Source
- Name : Selling to VITO
- Author : Anthony Parinello
- Physical Book: DC Office
- Digital Book: Free Download
