The primary obstacle for young salespeople in enterprise deals isn't their age, but their lack of deep business acumen. They struggle to speak the language of C-suite executives or understand their world, making it impossible to build the necessary credibility for a complex sale.
Bypass C-suite gatekeepers by interviewing lower-level employees who experience the problem daily. Gather their stories and pain points. Then, use this internal "insight" to craft a highly relevant pitch for executives, showing them a problem their own team is facing that they are unaware of.
Junior reps can leverage their inexperience by approaching lower-level employees with a humble "Teach me" or "Help me understand" posture. This disarms prospects, turning a sales pitch into a collaborative learning session that builds rapport and extracts valuable internal intelligence for later use.
Instead of failing with hard-to-reach C-suite targets, new reps should engage easier-to-access, adjacent personas (like insurance brokers). These conversations serve as low-stakes training, rapidly building the specific industry language and knowledge needed to credibly approach senior decision-makers.
Without customer logos for social proof, pitching features is ineffective. Lead messaging with operational insights gathered from lower-level employees inside the target account. Frame the conversation around improving concrete metrics like costs, risks, and speed, using phrases like, "Here's what your team is telling us..."
For a new product, don't choose between targeting executives or end-users; do both simultaneously. While mapping the C-suite (top-down), engage lower-level employees to gather intel and build internal champions (bottom-up). This dual approach creates pressure and relevance from both directions.