Selling your services to decision makers is challenging, at best, and nearly impossible at worst, especially when speaking of the translation profession since the “industry” is saturated with so many people and companies vying for the same piece of the translation pie. However, it doesn’t have to be difficult and, in fact, might be easier than you think if you understand a few business principles.

Decision makers are paid to think about the bottom line and improve their organization’s business results. Regardless of how the media, the industry, or other translators and industry players portray these industry executives, their primary concern is to improve their business and stand out in a sea of thousands. This means that they eat, sleep, and think about how they can increase sales, market share, customer loyalty; reduce errors, costs, and employee turnover, as well as improve productivity, employee engagement, retention, customer service and more.

How do your translation products, services, or solutions address one of these issues?

Decision makers deal with ever-changing priorities. Improving customer engagement may be a top priority today but tomorrow that same executive may be faced with cutting hundreds or thousands of dollars in expenses due to the needs of an ever-changing market. That might mean that they will sometimes go cold after expressing initial interest in your solution and perhaps you will never hear from them again if they think that you will not add value to their company’s bottom line.

Do you have a strategy in place to keep your solution current?

Decision makers are extremely busy people. The average business executive arrives early to the workplace and stays late into the evening. They get tons of calls every day, receive twice as many emails, and their attention is usually in too many places at once. This will mean that you will need to maximize every minute you have when you connect with them. That is to say — if —  you connect with them. This applies to all forms of communication, including telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings, which most translation industry executives do not appreciate since time is in short supply and every minute counts. So make it count!

Do you know EXACTLY what to say if and when you connect with these individuals?

Decision makers usually rely on others to help them get their work done. Contrary to popular belief, executives rarely make decisions on their own. They often defer to other people on their team and ask for feedback, references, and sometimes even professional dossiers compiled from various sources, including peers and other people with intimate knowledge of the individual. This might mean creating a professional network of people and involving them in your conversations and including them in the decision-making process.

Do you have the ability to sharpen these skills?

Decision makers don’t like to make mistakes. A major mistake can have a long-lasting effect on their reputation or careers,  they can even knock down and destroy entire companies or “at a minimum”, the careers of a few people within that same company. Bearing that fact in mind,  this means that their decision-making process will be affected by a number of factors which means you will need to uncover them during your conversations.

How will you reduce your prospective client’s risk factors?

Some decision makers have HUGE egos, though, for the most part, most company executives have healthy egos, which is perhaps one of the things that helped them achieve their status. This means that you will need to be confident in your own abilities when presenting your pitch and selling your translation services. The important aspect to remember is to not back down when you’re being challenged. In fact, doing so could prevent you from closing the deal, since most decision makers and their managers want to deal with people who know what they’re doing and believe in what they’re doing.

Are you confident enough to deal directly with those decision makers?

Executives and managers spend the bulk of their day in meetings and attending to all the important stuff. If you ever get a chance to visit their office,  observe the higher-ups and take notice of what they’re doing . Chances are you will see them dashing from place to place and, perhaps, from meeting to meeting. Your prospects are in the same position. They aren’t sitting at their desk waiting for you to give them a call.The key is to remain proactive instead reactive.

Are you persistent in your efforts to connect and stay connected?

Most key players and upper-level executives have more than 45 hours of work facing them and, as I stated earlier, time is in short supply. Several executives have expressed their frustration and sentiment in polls, articles, and other various sources time and again declaring, “I have too much work to do, how will I ever get caught up?” or “The last thing I want to do is to take a call from someone selling me something or from a translator looking for work!”.  With that in mind, you will need to give these individuals an extremely valid reason to want to meet with you or take your call.

Is your approach effective and getting the job done?

Some decision makers receive about 100 emails on any given day of the week. Many salespeople, including translators, use email as their primary form of correspondence and doing so can be ineffective, and hurting their odds of getting the right results, since most decision makers simply don’t have time to respond to every email and sometimes delete most of those that make their way to their inbox  The managing director of a translation service company once stated that she prefers a quick introduction with the most important information quickly outlined so that she could revisit the matter at a later date, if necessary.

Do you use a number of effective strategies to connect with decision makers, or you are doing it all wrong and hurting your chances of moving forward?

Decision makers always have the big picture in mind. Stop focusing on your own products, services,  or company, and start looking at your prospective client’s BIG PICTURE. Most executives don’t get bogged down by all the small details of their business. On the contrary, they pay others to take care of the details.

Can you clearly visualize and discuss the big picture?

In the end, making the mistake of asking the wrong question or having a shortsighted view about top-level issues may prevent you from reaching your goals. Before taking any steps, think about the big picture and how you will respond to each question, and then shape your approach accordingly.