1.Get the latest information. Since May of 1996, all US publicly traded companies have had to file their annual and quarterly reports electronically. Go to www.sec.gov and pull down their 10-Q’s and 10-K’s prior to making that phone call.

2.Practice Fundamental Football. Use the information you gather to understand your prospects industry and its competitors. Using a concept called the Fast Five, you can, in the course of about five minutes, uncover the key metrics you need to accomplish this understanding. Some examples of what you are looking for in these metrics include trends in net working capital, Cash2Cash cycles, and efficiency metrics like revenue per employee and asset turnover.

3.Uncover their Profit Strategies – Value selling is deader than disco. To sell your product in today’s marketplace, you have to align your value proposition to your prospects Profit Strategies. Your approach will be different if your prospect is pursuing a Buy the Business Strategy versus an Innovator Strategy, versus a Right Sizing Strategy or a Sell the Service Strategy. It is important to understand what specifics will allow you to recognize the various Profit Strategies, and how this impacts your sales strategy.

4.Find out what causes the executive supports. Try searching for your prospect by name by pulling on www.guidestar.org. Many C-Level executives sit on non profit boards, like the Division President that I was targeting in 2002. I queried his name on guidestar.org and found that he was on the board of a certain charity. I pulled down the IRS 990’s and found that the organization had done quite well, and had some interesting strategic initiatives.

5.Prepare a C-Level pitch. In order to effectively present your analysis, you have to understand what executives are like, how to get in front of them, and how to present your project so that is becomes Secretariat, while the competing projects are seen as Mr. Ed. Speaking in terms of “hurdle rates" and sensitivity analysis will allow you to paint the picture that will get your deal sold. Finally, if you don’t have board experience, you need to couch everything you do in the spirit of the board of directors.

Using the tools outlined in Think Like a CEO – Sell To Any company in Any Industry…Better and Faster than a Harvard MBA, will help you to develop a winning sales strategy whether you are calling on a privately owned company, or a Fortune 500 behemoth. Thinking like a CEO will allow you to get into the head of the decision maker and drive revenue. Listen to Ricardo Hirata, CEO, of Mexico’s Keisen Consultores. “Think Like A CEO is a "must read" for any business executive who wants to sell his ideas to top management or the board. It’s a guide that will help open doors to the top decision makers and create. Check out the book at www.thinklikeaceo.com