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BUSINESS NEWS CLUNE CONSTRUCTION COMPLETES CONSTRUCTION OF EATALY’S FIRST WEST COAST LOCATION IN LOS ANGELES Clune Construction Company has completed construction on Eataly L.A., a vibrant Italian marketplace designed by Studios Architecture , at the newly renovated Westfield Century City shopping mall in Los Angeles. This new location is Eataly’s first West Coast store. “Our team is excited to have played such a key role in creating Eataly’s first-ever West Coast location,” said Clune Construction Executive Managing Director, West Region President Bob Dahlstrom. “The project was very detailed and required precise coordination of many

local construction trades, imported materials and client vendors directly from Italy. We would like to thank everyone who worked on the project and made it a success.” Eataly L.A., a LEED certified project, features an expansive, three-story, 67,000-square-foot space with four restaurants, multiple kitchens, nine take-away food counters, a cooking school, retail space, and two chilled wine storage rooms. The space also featured two interconnected spiral staircases to link three floors within the marketplace. Clune worked with an out-of- state manufacturer in Minnesota to fabricate the stairs, shipped them to Los Angeles in

large pieces and then carefully installed them into the space with the use of a crane. The in-house greywater system was designed to recycle water, significantly reducing the amount of drinkable water the store uses for flushing toilets and watering plants by up to 33 percent!. Founded by Oscar Farinetti, Eataly is an artisanal Italian marketplace that features counters, restaurants, and a cooking school. The unique environment invites guests to “Eat, Shop, and Learn” about high-quality Italian food and drink as they taste dishes, find ingredients, and take classes.

STEVE BISTRITZ, from page 11

Here are some tips that you can use to demonstrate your value: ❚ ❚ Raise relevant questions and share business perspectives that are new to the executive. ❚ ❚ Suggest something provocative and compelling – this gives the executive a hunch that you might have something to which it’s worth listening. ❚ ❚ If you’re an incumbent salesperson, point out potential limi- tations of your solutions in light of changing demands, with ideas to make improvements, thus enhancing your credibility. If, after meeting with the executive, she sends you down to a lower-level executive within her organization, don’t push back, but make certain you do the following: ❚ ❚ Ask the executive for an introduction to the person, be- cause this is far better than you having to call them cold. You can also leverage the fact that their boss sent you to talk to them. ❚ ❚ Ask them what they hope you will achieve with their sub- ordinate, and what additional people are suited to have the discussion with you. Turn it into a networking opportu- nity. ❚ ❚ Ask to reconnect with the executive to review how what you hear from their subordinates compares to the level of readiness in other companies you’ve solved the same prob- lem for. Executives typically like to know how their com- pany benchmarks, so use the occasion to demonstrate your value as someone with insight beyond their silo walls. The lesson to be learned: Being sent down to lower-level execu- tives can gain you credibility with them and, in return, it can gain you credibility with the executive who sent you down to them! The bottom line is that executives are looking to build relationships with salespeople who deliver significant business value and are responsive and accountable to them. Those types of salespeople are demonstrating both capability and integrity, and when that’s done, the salesperson is able to establish credibility with the executive. DR. STEVE BISTRITZ is the founder of SellXL and has more than 40 years of high-tech sales, sales management, and training management experience. He just released the second edition of his best-selling sales book, Selling to the C-Suite . Visit his website at sellxl.com.

❚ ❚ Suggest a meeting with an equivalent level executive from your organization (like-rank selling). ❚ ❚ Accept redirections to meet other executives or people of lower rank, but always ask for an introduction to be made and request a follow-up meeting to review the outcomes. ❚ ❚ Schedule a meeting with an executive to communicate past value delivered or to confirm your ongoing value. ❚ ❚ Contact the executive when there’s any significant event in the customer’s market unrelated to the current sales cam- paign. Executives like to know that you’re thinking about them, even if there’s nothing for you to sell. “In some companies, getting calendar time with a senior executive may only take place if you contact the executive assistant or the executive’s secretary. You simply can’t get on the executive’s calendar by contacting them directly.” The stakes are high if you cannot access the relevant executive for the sales opportunity – the relevant executive defined as the executive who stands to gain the most or lose the most as a result of the application or project associated with the sales opportunity. Some of the latest data from companies whose sales cycles are nine months or more indicates that it can cost more than $200,000 to pursue an opportunity, whether you win or not. That’s a significant sum to bet on selling to low-level managers. If you can’t get past the gatekeepers and meet the relevant executive, it may be prudent to walk away and not only save the cost of a sale you can’t win, but enable yourself to pursue an opportunity you have a much better chance of winning. There’s one other word of caution that bears mentioning at this point. Don’t attempt to circumvent the gatekeeper unless you have a high degree of confidence that you can obtain the meeting with the executive. Once around a roadblock, a salesperson will be quickly tested. CXOs told me that salespeople who get past their roadblocks on a cold-call receive five minutes to show they can add value.

THE ZWEIG LETTER May 21, 2018, ISSUE 1249

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