There Is No Title that Says “C-Suite” or “VITO”
It's become fashionable to talk about “Vito” (Very Important Top Officer) in marketing, thought it sound more like a mob leader to me. People also throw around “C-suite” as if it denotes some exclusive gathering areas of executives, like ancient pterodactyls' mating grounds.
The fact is, in professional services, we should be selling to “buyers” who are people with P&L (profit and loss) responsibility or who head major staff areas (finance, information technology, and so forth). Buyers can move money around despite pre-allocated budgets. If you're dealing with Fortune 1000 companies, it's unlikely you'll be marketing to or working with the CEO of, say, JPMorganChase or Toyota. In 40 years of Fortune 500 consulting, I've worked with the CEO three times. I worked with Merck for 12 years and HP for 10, for example, and met the Merck CEO once and the HP CEOs never. But I had dozens of buyers in each company who talked to each other all the time. (And people who talk about the owner of a closely held firm as the “CEO” are just confusing things.)
So stop the vague “C-suite” or VITO because many of the people who are high potential buyers have various titles, like “director,” or “head” or even “manager.” Stop pretending there is some magic door through which you must gain access. Ask yourself, “What is my value to this organization, and who can afford to invest in it?” That person will always have a common title: “Buyer.”
