Welcome to our new blog, Selling to Executives.

For sales and marketing professionals alike, our objective is to share executive insights in this blog that build business acumen for credibly engaging and selling to executives. We hope you enjoy this first post.

As the critical first step in effectively linking solution value to customer initiatives lies in understanding your customer, we felt the first post for the blog should focus on one of the easiest and fastest ways to do so: Using management presentations.

No doubt you already read your customer’s annual report, specifically the Letter to Shareholders and MD&A (Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations). You may not be as familiar with leveraging management presentations often readily available on your customer’s website.

Why Management Presentations Are So Useful

Presentations that management makes to analysts and the investment community are even better than reading the Letter to Shareholders in terms of a quick, timely source for gaining customer insights.

In fact, management presentations may become the very first resource you look for to research an account and prepare for customer meetings. Two reasons management presentations are so useful:

Highly current information

Unlike annual reports and other SEC filings , management presentations are typically very current. Customers generally pull them from their web sites within a relatively short period of time to avoid risks associated with changing market conditions and evolving strategic direction.

Presented in executives’ own words

Management presentations enable you to learn what’s happening within your account directly from the executives you may be targeting to meet. You’ll be able to clearly identify customer initiatives and up-to-date financial metrics to build business alignment – all stated in the executive’s own words.

Having this kind of background on an account before making your first call provides you clear advantage. You’ll be able to demonstrate you’ve done your homework and thereby establish credibility. You’ll also be able to begin linking your solutions to the company’s issues and priorities – the issues that executive officers have identified as meaningful and top-of-mind.

Following are example presentation slides that illustrate the type of information you’ll gain access to.

Here, Level 3’s CFO not only identifies cost advantage as a key initiative, but also discusses operational efficiency, potential M&A activity and maintaining financial strength.

You can use this insight to demonstrate how your solution drives cost savings, improves efficiencies, reduces time to integration for future acquisitions, and improves cash flow – all of which, when quantified and linked to these initiatives, demonstrate your credibility.

Look for key points. In this presentation, Alltel’s Group President of Operations shares a host of potential points of alignment where your solution might help the company achieve its initiatives.

Accessing the Information

First check your customer’s Web site. Presentations are usually found in the Investor Relations section. Often you’ll have a choice of viewing the presentations themselves, reading transcripts or listening to audio archives of Webcasts. Additional online resources include Earnings.com and Yahoo! Finance, where you can access conference calls by entering a company’s stock ticker symbol.

Tip: Subscribe to an e-mail alert service. Many companies offer this as part of their investor relations effort. You’ll know right away when new information that may identify a selling opportunity.

One Stop for Valuable Executive Insight

Management presentations offer “one-stop shopping” for obtaining timely account information that can give you the insight you need to establish credibility and identify opportunities.

You may find they’re the best overall source for identifying current customer business issues and priorities.