When selling to the C-Suite, many sales conversations begin with practiced clichéd questions along the lines of “What’s keeping you up at night?” or “We’d like to know about your priorities.” This approach, we have learned, only annoys the CXO! Anyone belonging in that conversation should have done their homework and know their priorities and what keeps (or should keep) that executive up at night. One executive made the point, “This is a business, not a University. It is not my job to educate you.”
Typical notions of ‘Discovery’ will not apply here unless your questioning starts deeper into the CXO’s specific interests and concerns.