Nic Read’s first book, Selling to the C-Suite (McGraw Hill, 2010), is the result of a 10-year global study – the largest of its kind – to learn how executives get involved in the corporate buying cycle, and what salespeople need to do to become Trusted Advisors at that level. Sales thought leader Neil Rackham (author of SPIN Selling and Rethinking the Sales Force) wrote the book’s Foreword, citing it as “worth its weight in commission checks”. Global response to this book as a tentpole event for the sales profession marks it as something rare and welcome.
Born in the UK and raised in Australia, Nic anchored a suburban newspaper column at age 14 and planned a career in broadcast journalism. A summer sales job irrevocably changed this path when he became fascinated by the psychology, science and art of dealmaking. After an early career selling behind the counter, door-to-door, and on the showroom floor, he went on the road as an account director with an advertising agency, later moving into management.
At 21 he negotiated distributor rights with NEC and Motorola, and invented the model of selling mobile phones with a price tag of $10,000 through retail kiosks when they were a new technology, building the company one person at a time until it became a national enterprise. After selling this company to a global telecom brand, Nic hired several hundred telemarketers and opened a purpose-built call center for outsourced lead generation to the financial services industry, later acquired by a national financial services brand. His model for demand creation via a call center also became a template the industry adopted as a standard.
His middle career saw Nic headhunted by the chairman of The Pirbic Group, Britain’s oldest sales consultancy, where he worked across the UK with the Boards of private and listed companies to solve their revenue growth challenges. His work focused on executive mentoring, go-to-market sales strategy, demand creation, pipeline reporting, and re-engineering out-of-date sales and marketing systems, processes and skills. For several years he was based in Germany as sales operations manager for software giant SAS Institute, working across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
His later career saw Nic following the wave of globalization to Asia following China’s entry into the WTO, where he lived as a local and immersed himself in the business cultures of Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney, consulting to companies that include Celestica, Cisco, EMC, Fuji Xerox, KPMG, Microsoft, National Australia Bank, Schlumberger, Symrise and other multinational companies expanding in Asia and around the world.
Nic has served as visiting professor for the Hewlett Packard Business School in Beijing China, was retained as the Executive Director for Ernst & Young’s revenue growth & risk services practice, and has been awarded the International Business Award for Best Sales Trainer by a panel of judges that include Donald Trump, Gary Hamel and Tony Robbins. He has also delivered keynote and other presentations for the Strategic Account Management Association, the Selling Power Sales Leadership Conference, the HR Directors Forum, the Sales Leadership Summit, the Human Performance Institute, the Ernst & Young CEO Revenue Growth Series of Seminars, and other public events for the past 20 years.
Author of award-winning sales training workshops sold in more than 40 countries, Nic now runs international consulting firm SalesLabs from New York. He also serves on the board of HE3, a cleantech company developing technology to harvest potable water from the atmosphere to solve the world’s water crisis, and is advisor to the HopeDolls Foundation, a not-for-profit children’s charity.
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Nic Read’s first book, Selling to the C-Suite (McGraw Hill, 2010), is the result of a 10-year global study – the largest of its kind – to learn how executives get involved in the corporate buying cycle, and what salespeople need to do to become Trusted Advisors at that level. Sales thought leader Neil Rackham (author of SPIN Selling and Rethinking the Sales Force) wrote the book’s Foreword, citing it as “worth its weight in commission checks”. Global response to this book as a tentpole event for the sales profession marks it as something rare and welcome.
Born in the UK and raised in Australia, Nic anchored a suburban newspaper column at age 14 and planned a career in broadcast journalism. A summer sales job irrevocably changed this path when he became fascinated by the psychology, science and art of dealmaking. After an early career selling behind the counter, door-to-door, and on the showroom floor, he went on the road as an account director with an advertising agency, later moving into management.
At 21 he negotiated distributor rights with NEC and Motorola, and invented the model of selling mobile phones with a price tag of $10,000 through retail kiosks when they were a new technology, building the company one person at a time until it became a national enterprise. After selling this company to a global telecom brand, Nic hired several hundred telemarketers and opened a purpose-built call center for outsourced lead generation to the financial services industry, later acquired by a national financial services brand. His model for demand creation via a call center also became a template the industry adopted as a standard.
His middle career saw Nic headhunted by the chairman of The Pirbic Group, Britain’s oldest sales consultancy, where he worked across the UK with the Boards of private and listed companies to solve their revenue growth challenges. His work focused on executive mentoring, go-to-market sales strategy, demand creation, pipeline reporting, and re-engineering out-of-date sales and marketing systems, processes and skills. For several years he was based in Germany as sales operations manager for software giant SAS Institute, working across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
His later career saw Nic following the wave of globalization to Asia following China’s entry into the WTO, where he lived as a local and immersed himself in the business cultures of Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney, consulting to companies that include Celestica, Cisco, EMC, Fuji Xerox, KPMG, Microsoft, National Australia Bank, Schlumberger, Symrise and other multinational companies expanding in Asia and around the world.
Nic has served as visiting professor for the Hewlett Packard Business School in Beijing China, was retained as the Executive Director for Ernst & Young’s revenue growth & risk services practice, and has been awarded the International Business Award for Best Sales Trainer by a panel of judges that include Donald Trump, Gary Hamel and Tony Robbins. He has also delivered keynote and other presentations for the Strategic Account Management Association, the Selling Power Sales Leadership Conference, the HR Directors Forum, the Sales Leadership Summit, the Human Performance Institute, the Ernst & Young CEO Revenue Growth Series of Seminars, and other public events for the past 20 years.
Author of award-winning sales training workshops sold in more than 40 countries, Nic now runs international consulting firm SalesLabs from New York. He also serves on the board of HE3, a cleantech company developing technology to harvest potable water from the atmosphere to solve the world’s water crisis, and is advisor to the HopeDolls Foundation, a not-for-profit children’s charity.
Selling to the C-Suite: Getting to the Right Decision-Maker, with the Right Message, at the Right Time
It’s the goal of every salesperson: Getting access to senior client executives – the C‑Level decision makers responsible for approving top-dollar deals.
Selling to the C‑Suite provides all the insight you need to: gain access to executives; establish trust and credibility; leverage relationships and create value at the executive level.
Nicholas will also reveal when executives personally enter the buying process and shed light on what role they play.
“It’s our observation that most traditional wisdom about selling to executives is actually at odds with what executives themselves tell us works,” write Read and Bistritz. Selling to the C‑Suite provides field-tested techniques to put you well ahead of the competition when it comes to making those multimillion-dollar sales you never thought possible.
Combining extensive experience with proprietary research, Read and Bistritz (co-authors) have fundamentally changed the game. The rest is up to you.
Market Acceleration Planning (The MAP): Building a Sustainable Revenue Growth Plan for Your Company
Target Opportunity Pursuit (The TOP): How to Pursue & Win Career-Making Deals
Demand Creation: How to Create Leads Ready to Close vs Leads That Waste Your Time
Hiring the Right Talent: Eliminate Hiring Mistakes and Grow a Better Business
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK "The business world is drowning in a flood of sales books. The trouble is that most of these books are about how to sell, without a clue about how customers buy... This book is different. It is firmly rooted in how people buy and so it works." — Neil Rackham, Author of SPIN Selling
"Those new to executive sales will find a game plan they can use immediately. Veterans who regularly call on executives will use this book to sharpen their game." — CHIP BRUBAKER, Vice President-Americas Sales Readiness, CA, Inc.
"Selling to the C-Suite uncovers what were once 'mysterious secrets' of effectively approaching and building long lasting relationships with relevant executives. It is a no-nonsense playbook for a win-win sales approach, credible, applicable and powerful." — RAFAELA REYES, Senior Training & Development Manager, Brother Internationa
"As an educator on the college level teaching professional selling, I found this book to be invaluable if you are interested in learning how to sell to the top executives. Not only does it help you understand when to engage the executive, it also tells you how to get access. If that was not enough the book also focuses on how to create value and build credibility with the executives." — DAN C. WEILBAKER, Ph.D., McKesson Pharmaceutical Group Professor of Sales, Northern Illinois University
