The last edition of The Founder Playbook covered sales legend Armand Farrokh’s framework on how startups can sell B2B using the bottoms-up champion selling strategy. To re-read that piece, you can find it here.

To refresh your memory, the “bottoms-up” strategy includes four key steps:

1. Find a champion
2. Win their peers
3. Win power
4. Make sure it works

Most of the time, we have to work our way across the line and up to the executive level. But what if you get an introduction directly to the executives?

In today’s piece, Armand explains the top down yo-yo strategy to best engage the CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs types. 

Let’s dive in. 

Top down yo-yo strategy

When Armand was the Director of Sales at Pave selling compensation management software, the executives he needed to target were: 

1. Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) 
2. Chief People Officer (CPO)
3. Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

But these leaders don’t always know what’s going on down at the front lines. So if you peppered them with a million discovery questions like: 

• How are you running this compensation cycle?
• How did you set up your total rewards program?
• How are you doing X or Y or Z? 

They’re probably not going to be able to answer many of these “how” questions. These executives will punt you to their department leads and not want to talk to you anymore. 

What you want to do instead is run an executive-level discovery. This is where you present a convincing point of view based on things that you see about their organization. Let me show you what I mean.

Once you’re in a first meeting with the exec, set the tone for the conversation. In the example of Pave, Armand might say, 

“Typically when we talk to Chief People Officers, we hear priorities like how it’s really hard to keep good talent. Or how the competition for talent is really hard. Or how startups often overpay for folks. 

We can talk about the solutions, features, and benefits that Pave offers all day. But all of those things are going to be in a vacuum if I’m not supporting any of your priorities. If we were going to dig in and unpack a couple of things with your team after this call, what are some things from a compensation / total rewards / retaining talent domain that are really important for you as a CPO?”

We’re not digging into the nitty gritty or asking any “how?” type of questions with executives. Instead, Armand started with their highest priorities.

He listened intently and wrote down their responses. After they told Armand what their highest priorities were, he asked for introductions to their department leads. 

“Can I get introductions to your Head of People Operations and your Head of Total Rewards? I’d love to understand what they’re doing to support those priorities that you mentioned. And I’d like to understand how we can further unpack what Pave is able to do to attach to those priorities. Then I’ll come back to you with a recommendation based on what I learn from them.”

💡With the bottoms-up champion selling strategy, you’re finding information from employees at the line and presenting it to executives above the line. In contrast, the top down yo-yo selling strategy involves you asking the executive for permission to find problems that they don’t even know exist yet. 

Once you figure out the exec’s priorities AND uncover the problems that are blocking those priorities through your conversations with department leads, then you can present the findings back to the executive. 

Armand could say something like,

“Hey, I talked to your team. You said X, Y, and Z are important. Here are some things that are preventing them from achieving those priorities that you wanted. And here's how Pave can best support your team to accomplish your highest priorities.” 

This is such a compelling offer because someone is doing the work of uncovering gaps in your organization on your behalf, with your highest priorities in mind. If I ran a company and someone did this for me, it’d be difficult for me to say no. 

To sum up B2B selling

The bottoms-up champion strategy and top down yo-yo strategy are two frameworks that have helped Armand predictably win deals at early-stage startups. 

Use the bottoms-up champion strategy when you need to sell to someone at the lower levels of management and work your way up to the executive level. Use the top down yo-yo strategy when you have an introduction directly to the executive at that company.