In my opinion, this is one of the top challenges facing salespeople today. Let’s say you are give a handful of major account to crack. Let’s say IBM is on your list. If so, this might be the man with whom you need to meet. (This is the real guy, folks. I looked him up.)

Jon C. Iwata

Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications

IBM

How do you get a meeting with Jon? Certainly, picking up the phone and cold calling have virtually no chance of success. So what can you do?

What we recommend is that you patiently and gently earn his trust before you contact him. Once you’ve earned his trust, you chances of getting a face to face meeting improve dramatically.

Here are 8 things you can do to gently connect with him and begin to earn his trust prior to your call.

1. Does he write a blog? If so, post a comment.
2. Is he on Twitter? Follow him. Learn what he tweets.
3. What do you have in common? Schools, employers, residence, church, etc.
4. Send him an interesting article with a hand written note.
5. Follow IBM on Linkedin
6. Follow IBM on Facebook
7. Attend an event at which he is speaking
8. If you do call, be very, very gentle. You are not selling. Use the call to gently engage, especially with his assistant.

What do you think? Do you have other suggestions – we’d love to hear them. And we love to read your comments and invite you to share this on social networks.

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