# How to Get to the C-Suite Without Losing Your Existing Relationships | Ask Jeb Blount

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Sales Gravy
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ksKgBNXsq0
- **Дата:** 15.04.2026
- **Длительность:** 18:23
- **Просмотры:** 168
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/46013

## Описание

Most account managers know they need to get higher in their accounts. The problem is they are terrified of damaging the relationships they already have. In this episode of Ask Jeb, Jeb Blount helps account manager Jeremiah Wren figure out exactly how to break into the C-suite across his 270-account book of business without burning the contacts that are already buying from him.

If you manage accounts and your company is pushing you toward bigger, more strategic conversations with senior executives, this episode will show you how to get there the right way.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount: https://amzn.to/2Y2e3rW
- OutBound Conference: https://outboundconference.com

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Jeremiah Wren is an account manager in the architecture, engineering, and construction technology space. His company wants C-suite conversations about AI and industry disruption, but 75 percent of his accounts have no executive relationship in place. Jeb breaks down how to pos

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Welcome back to the Sales Griby podcast. It's wisdom Wednesday where you drive the agenda because on this segment of the Sales Griby Podcast, you bring your biggest sales challenges and Jeb Blunt delivers his best answers. Those answers, they come straight from the trenches because Jeb is not just teaching sales. He's out there prospecting, closing, and leading sales teams every single day. Let's take that next caller. All right, Tim, who do we got up next on the show? — Well, Jeb, next up we have Jeremiah Ren, and he is from Cersei, Arkansas. — All right, let's bring on Jeremiah. Jeremiah, how are you doing? Tell me what's going on in your world, Jeremiah. Yeah, Jeb. So, uh, our organization is starting to focus more on like big picture conversations and sales discovery that's targeting like seale positions, higher level, uh, executives and things. As an account manager myself, you know, I have a responsibility and a want to grow my accounts in a way that's like in line with the business and the vision that our business have. Most of the people that I speak with on a day-to-day basis are not seale positions. They're much lower purchasers than that. But I want to be able to have the conversations, you know, the quarterly business reviews and and discussions and things with the people that we're looking to target. So my question here is how can I essentially get into uh a conversation with those higher level individuals uh those sea-level positions without tarnishing the relationship that I have with the existing purchaser because we still want to retain that business but also move up as well. So what does that look like and where should the focus be there? First of all, congratulations because it is an honor to meet an account manager that wants to actually grow their accounts. Because if you think about the growth formula, it's land new accounts. It's expand the ones you have and retain them. And most account managers are focusing on retaining and not expanding. And so your interest in that, your focus on that, I think is solid. And I think your company's desire to move up the chain into the seauite is also important. But let me ask you a question before I answer your question. Why does your company want to have those bigger conversations with the seauite? A lot of the stuff that we're looking at kind of moving forward in our industry is going to be like very like paradigm shifting. A lot of how our industry does work now within the next you know 5 6 years is going to be drastically different to how it functions now. being able to have that conversation at a high level and then present, you know, this is kind of how we can help prepare you for that shift or this is how we can make sure that you're on the right side of it so you don't get left behind isn't really something that's going to be as beneficial to a lower level employee that isn't going to have the decision-making power or the drive to make that decision as much as like a seale individual. Can you tell me a little bit about your industry? I work in the AEC industry. So, architecture, engineering, construction, design, that sort of space there. The company that I work for is a technology partner for that industry. So, we help, you know, firms with any sort of issues that they're having, you know, top to bottom. If you can think of it, we've got a way that we can help out with it. The big push right now is, you know, with everything moving towards AI is that, you know, we want to help customers in this industry that we have, uh, make sure that the data that they're going to be feeding into their AI is set up the best way possible because that's going to net the best results. Okay. And those are the sorts of discussions that we're looking to have at a high level. Gotcha. Makes perfect sense. Now, why are you afraid that the people that you deal with that going and talking to the seauite about that is going to upset that relationship? So from a personal level, I'm a newer account manager. I come into the account manager role from the customer service world, you know, working in call centers and things like that. And so to me, it seems as if I'm telling the purchaser that we have that like, hey, I don't think you're qualified to have this conversation. I need to talk to somebody else. Like I'm essentially escalating on them, which can have, in my experience, a bit of a negative uh connotation associated with it. I don't want to put forward that, you know, this is any sort of a dig or a negative at that person. I just want to make sure that I'm talking with someone that can make the most of the conversation. I don't want to have to be in a situation where, you know, we kind of go over everything with one person and then at the end of it they say, "Oh, well, you know, this is a great conversation for my VP. " And then, you know, we have to kind of do it all over again. I want to make sure that I'm acting as efficiently as possible. And so if there is a way for us to essentially just target sea level like let's just kind of see if we can get there uh is my thought. Now I may be thinking backwards on it and it may be something that okay I've got to you know take the steps to get there but

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

if there's any way to like eliminate a few you know saves time makes things more efficient. I think that the more people you can have the conversation with inside of an organization the better. I think that the mindset of hey just get me to the seauite I'm gonna have this conversation about these future things that are going to be changing the world but they're really not actualized at the moment but I'm just trying to get you prepared for that like if you have that conversation and it's not until next year that you're bringing this out you've kind of missed an opportunity if you started looking at these organizations and said let's think architectural right AI is going to impact architectural in a big way it's going to speed things up it's honestly going to make architects way better and way more efficient Although some architects are going to think it's going to take away their creativity, right? But in your space, especially because these companies need efficiencies in their world because they run on pretty thin margins, these conversations going to be important. So if you were to sit down with your person and say, "We are embarking on an educational campaign to help our clients completely understand what's coming down the road in AI. " And we want to have those conversations with multiple levels in your organization so that we can help everybody see how this is going to impact them and help everybody sort of get a forward look at the major changes that are coming in the industry. We're looking to have those conversations and can you help me figure out where we would start? That person may say, "Well, start with me. " And you go, "Great. Let me tell the story. " And you tell them and they're like, "Wow, that's amazing. My VP needs to hear that. " and you go, "Perfect. Get me connected with the VP. " You want to be careful. Don't get stuck anywhere and say, "Great. Well, if we get the VP, can we get your CEO or your CIO on? Can we get them on? " Well, let me see. Getting them excited about it. You're not pitching a product. I mean, if you're pitching them something to sell and only the person that can make the decision is the seauite, there's a completely different strategy for that, right? But if you're shaping the battlefield, as they would say, for future sales, like future spend, there's no harm, no foul, in meeting with as many people as you can in the organization and getting them all excited about it because you don't exactly know who's going to be the person that's going to end up being your champion or your coach in that moment. And the best thing for you as an account manager is that you get super multi-threaded inside these organizations with different relationships. So if you have to tell the story a hundred times before it's time to sell it, that's good for you. The organization is talking to you. You're winning. How many accounts do you have total? — It's uh about 270ish. — And if you segmented those accounts out, how many of those accounts do you absolutely need to go up level to the seauite — that I don't already have an existing relationship with the seauite? It's probably uh about 75% of them. — So yeah. So we're not talking about a heavy lift for you to do this. So it's not tell the story, get them engaged like they want to have a meeting and talk more about it, you know, they want to bring your boss down and talk about it. If they're doing that, they're telling you this means something to us. We're enthusiastic about it and you're setting the stage. The big thing is going to be positioning. If you feel like going just straight to the seauite and having this conversation is disrespectful to the person that you got a relationship with, then you got to position it to them as a win. Now, if they think that you're going to go to the seauite and sell the seauite something, they may block you because their biggest fear is you're going to either take their power away or you're going to waste their time, right? So, if you go to the seauite and waste time, you injured their credibility in the organization. They don't want that. Some cases, they want to hold all the power. Okay? So, if you have that trepidation, just sit down and talk to them. just position it as information that CEOs are super interested in right now because everybody's focused on AI and you got to make sure that the person who is doing the purchasing when you say AI it's not a threat to their world right so you know if it's like we're going to get rid of half the people in your firm you probably want to change that messaging because they're not going to let you through now in the situations where someone's blocking you and it's not reasonable that they block you in those cases you need to start thinking how do I break into the seuite if I think that going there is going to damage the relationship overall. In other words, if I go there a competitor might come in behind me and I might lose the account. If you feel that way, the way you want to handle that is I know you've got a manager or a leader. In those cases, you're talking to your contact. Your manager or leader goes to the seauite for you and makes the call to get in. And that way you have plausible deniability that you actually did that make sense. they can just go around you in cases where you know you're dealing with somebody and they're lower level and they're buying from you and they're not super responsive and you need to get a relationship in the seauite but they're just going through the motions buying from you on a regular basis just go to the seauite you're not taking anything away from them you're not selling anything it sounds like right now to the seauite soon you will but right now you're selling information you're selling insight you're selling ideas you could even say look I want to do a seuite workshop on how AI is going to be impacting the construction architectural

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

engineering space in the future. This will take about 30 minutes, but it's something that you don't want to miss. You could also send a video up and that type of thing. That's what you want to do. But the big thing is positioning. So, I'm going to ask you this. Teach me how you're going to position this to the people in the organization so that they're going to be interested in listening to you. What's your message? It would be something along the lines of, and this isn't a perfected statement here, but it would be something along the lines of, you know, the industry that we're in is, you know, is currently on the verge of a shift, and we want to make sure that you guys have the information that you need in front of you in order to be prepared for that shift. You know, as we move towards more of a AI driven world, the data that you guys use is going to be of, you know, the utmost importance. And we definitely want to make sure that you're aware of how to have that structured and prepared so that way when the AI shift happens, you know, you're not left behind uh and you can stay competitive. — Okay. Now, step into my shoes as a moment. I'm the CEO of one of these companies and you just said that. How interested am I? — I mean, probably not like very interested. It's not very exciting. — Why not? — It doesn't seem like a highle kind of topic. It seems more like in the trenches. — It's in the trenches, right? So, so first of all, you want to start thinking about step into the shoes of the seauite. What are they interested in? Step in the shoes of your contact. of, you know, director level, VP level people. And then shape your message around that. So, what are CEU people interested in? They're going to be probably more like a financial kind of aspect like where's the finance come in? Um, what does this look like as far as, you know, positioning us to be more competitive moving forward and things like that? competitive, how are we going to manage cost or how can we increase sales? How can we take market share from our competitors? Like okay, so those type of things. So when you shape your message around that, you want to start thinking that way. So you might say something like this. The reason I want to spend time with you start with a reason is because there are three trends with AI that are going to reshape your industry in the next three years. and CEOs and CIOS and chief whatever the sea level officers that I talk to are incredibly interested in this because the last thing that they want to do is be caught flatfooted while their competitors leapfrog them. What I want to do is give you some key insights that will help you look strategically at the future from how you can lower your expenses, how you can increase your sales, how you can become more efficient and more competitive so that rather than your competitors leaprogging you, you are already ahead of the curve and ready to go when these new opportunities hit. All I'm going to need is about 30 minutes of your time to walk you through these key insights. And I promise you what I'm going to leave you with is going to make you excited. Do you see how I did that? And we just did that on the fly, right? So, but if we did that several times, we could work with it. And what you might do is make a recording of it. Like I might go to my phone, like just go to your iPhone, go to voice memo, and you can record it or you can just do it directly into your AI. What's your favorite AI tool? — Uh, I've been using Claude lately. — Okay, Claude's great. I love Claude. And Claude, in fact, is probably the best AI tool for this particular type of work. But think about what I just said. come up with a message and tell claw what you're trying to do you know working with the seauite and this is what I do give it all the context and ask it like what are seuite officers name the exact roles in these spaces going to be interested when it comes to AI and then come up with a couple of different messages read it into it and then say can you help me organize this now be very careful with your prompt make sure that you tell it I do not want robot language I don't want to tell them what I'm going to explain to them before I explain it to them. I'm just going to explain it to them, which robots love to do. You need to strip all that out because everybody knows what robot language sounds like and they'll know you're faking it. Okay? So, but it's a great way to like go through a couple of iterations of the message. And I could do this with you if we had time. I can just walk through this with you. I could probably do it faster than the AI can do it. But if you don't have me there, it's just an interesting way of doing it sometimes. Like yesterday morning I was coming into the office and I had chat on my speaker and I was having a conversation with it on a message that I was trying to put together and it gave me enough that then when I was done I was able to sit down and then recraft that message the way it would sound coming out of my mouth. So that's how I would look at it and then think how am I going to change or shift that message a little bit through the organization in order to get people interested because that's really what you want. Like they're not going to give you time if they don't see any value for giving you time. I think if you do it the right way and you message it, you're also going to have to figure out like if you have someone blocking you, hey, this is why this is important. This isn't taking anything away from you. The reason that I want to spend time with your sea level group is because we have specific insights that we built just for the seauite that they're going to need

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 18:00) [15:00]

in order not to be caught flatfooted when everything changes and it's going to change fast. And the last thing that you or I would want is that they're playing catch-up because we didn't give them the information in the first place. You see how I did that? — Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that the way that I was like originally thinking about it was from an efficiency standpoint. And that I think just only creates like flash in the pan kind of situations. And it's not sustainable. And it needs to probably be more like, you know, building a wall where we just kind of I kind of work layer by layer. And I think that's I think that's probably like you said the best way to go about it like multi-thread get in with everybody. If the entire organization is excited, that's more pressure up top to adapt and drive it. So that makes sense. And one more benefit you get from this, Jeremiah, is the more you have those conversations, the better you're going to get at it. And the more they're going to teach you about their businesses, see you as the expert or the guru or the authority so that when it's time to really start selling this, you're already going to be positioned as the person that they trust to help them do these implementations. — Okay. Yeah, that sounds like a good thing, too. So, — that's a very it's a very good thing. Well, Jeremiah, thank you so much for hopping on Ask Chev with me. Hey, before we go, you're going to help me out real quickly. We're going to do a quick plug for the Outbound Conference. You've ever heard of the Outbound Conference? — I have heard of it before. Yeah. — Awesome. Well, you need to tell your boss that they need to send you and some of your peers to the outbound conference. We'll be in Las Vegas on November 9th through 13th this year. And here's the cool thing. The conference is about breaking through buyer resistance. So, exactly what you and I were talking about, like how do we move past people who shut us down or we feel like we're going to damage a relationship if we go over their head or how do we keep the ball rolling? The perfect training conference and conversation for the people that work for your company and for companies everywhere and for you and everyone else. If you want to learn more, go to outboundconference. com. It is an event like none other. The biggest, baddest sales conference in the world. Hope we'll see you there, Jeremy. Hey, thanks. Sounds good. — All right, see you sir. When you're trying to move up the chain, the biggest mistake reps make is in asking the seuite for a meeting before they have a reason to be there. You have to earn that conversation with insights and not just a request. Just think about what keeps a CEO or COO or anybody in the sea suite up at night. Things like market disruption, cost overruns, competitive advantage, the pace of technology change. And you have to build your executive messaging around all of that. Your current contact is not a wall that you have to get around. They're a bridge. And if you treat them that way, they will help you get to that seuite conversation. Frame the upward conversation as something that you are doing for them instead of to them. Something like, I have insights that are built specifically for leadership teams that I do not want your company to miss. That protects the relationship and gives you a legitimate reason to be in the room. And if you have another question and you want to be on the show, go to salesgravy. com/ask. That's salesgravy. com/ask. And remember, at the end of the day, when you're exhausted and you're ready to go home, always pick up the phone and make one more call. I'll catch you next time on the SalesGravy podcast. Hey, I'm doing a happy dance because you watched this video. Make sure that you click like and subscribe so that you never miss one of our amazing sales training