In the U.S. there are 417 sales people for every senior executive!

Amazingly, there are approximately 417 sales people for every Senior Executive in the United States.

Definition of senior executive is;

Senior Vice President, President and C-Level (CEO, COO, CIO, CTO, etc).

What does that mean to you? -Gold Calling

It means 416 of them are going to be disappointed. -Thufir

It means differentiate yourself, focus on how your product, service or solution can fill their need/want/problem, be adaptable in your approach, be prepared to back-up your claims with proof, know your competition, talk in terms of results (not features!) and always aim for the decision maker that seems inaccessible to everyone else.

Even though there are another 416 trying to get into an account, only a few will have the balls to aim high and engage discussions on Director level.

The VITO (Very Important Top Officer) is there to do business with thmbp2; .

Tony -Tonyd

Very funny Thufir and great attitude!

... but seriously, does it mean that there is so much competition that "we" have very little chance of reaching high level exectives? -Gold Calling

The question is analogous, and I suspect you intend it to be.

If a salesperson relies on only doing business with Senior Executives and his/her market area is the U.S., then the question has context.

A friend who is a floor covering retailer recently returned from a natiional convention of his buying group. He said he was told that 3 out of every 100 households in the U.S. are predicted to purchase floor covering this year, as compared with 6 out of 100 two years ago.

If you ask him what that means to him, it would also be analogous to to the same underlying topic from the question you pose.

The answer to that underlying question in both cases is that you have to be better than the competition at what you do---which is SELL. That comes from doing the tried and true things that brings INORDINATE success in your field.

Earlier in my career, when I was competing in an arena always with the omininous presence of at least four competitors, I realized that my goal was never to get my "fair share", because a fair share meant 20 percent and that was unacceptable to me. As was my nature, I coined the expression, and made it my inner mantra to "Be twice as good as second best." The other three, whoever they were, in my mind, were merely wallpaper. That was symbolic of how I taught myself to compete. -Ace Coldiron