#59: 5 Ways To Transform Your Executive Sponsor Programme

Executive Programmes are at the heart of every Enterprise Customer Success team.

The goal is to:

• build a strong relationship at the decision-maker level
• elevate you from a vendor to a partner

But the problem is that most Executive Sponsor programmes SUCK (I wrote about this here)

They were created using an old formula from a time when customers were working with a handful of tools. Nowadays, companies use over 300 SaaS tools, and every single one of them wants to engage at the highest possible level, using the same lacklustre formats.

It’s simply not feasible for any executive to invest time on each of these relationships.

Over the past few weeks, I have talked to CS Leaders across some of the top SaaS companies to learn about their executive programmes and to gather ideas on building a modern executive engagement programme.

In this newsletter, I’ll share some of the lessons from those conversations and give you 5 ideas to build an Executive Sponsor Programme that decision-makers love.

What is the Executive Sponsor Programme?

It’s important to differentiate an Executive Sponsor Programme from overall executive engagement.

An EBR for example, is an engagement you would like the executive to attend. However, it’s not part of the executive sponsor program per se.

The Executive Sponsor Programme is about matching executives from your business with key executives across your top-tier customers to build a deeper connection and relationship.

Let’s deconstruct it:

• Matching Executives: Pairing executives who are often counterparts or have a strong potential of learning from each other. Ie. CMO with CMO.
• Top Tier Customers: Top Tier can mean very different things depending on your company. It can be MRR spend, a particular company size, a high-potential customer, or a logo you value for your marketing efforts. Independently of how you define it, they should be the cream of the crop.
• Build a deeper connection and relationship: This is not a transactional engagement. It’s not about your product. It’s not even about the problem you solve. This is about executive learning and networking.

Miss any of these key blocks and you’ll likely see engagement dropping.

For example, if you match your VP of Customer Success with the customer’s CFO, the CFO might not feel they have much to get from that engagement. Now.. If you match them with your own CFO, that would be a much more appealing prospect.

Who is the Executive?

While all of us would love to have a 1:1 relationship with the C-suite of our top customers, the reality is that most executives won’t be able or want to engage 1:1 with every company they do business with.

A few things will determine how high you need/get to go:

1. Company Size: If your customers are Fortune 500 companies, the likelihood of you getting to the C-Suite is low. But you don’t need to, because the C-Suite might be too far removed from the decision process.
2. Company Structure: Are they a decentralised business, where you have multiple units budgeting and buying separately? Or do they have a central decision maker? Your customer’s structure could completely reshape your sponsor programme.
3. Product Reach: If you are a platform product like a CRM, chances are that you have individual executives for different departments such as marketing, sales and services and each holds a veto vote in the buying process. But if you are a single-department solution, you’ll likely only have one executive making the investment call.

Ask yourself, who signs the check?

That’s who your target executive should be.

(Don’t forget to record this information in the CRM, which allows you to tailor your customer experience per persona).

The biggest mistake companies make here is to “accept” the person below the executive as an executive POC in the programme. This is often the business leader that heads up the front line and is using your product daily.

The problem is that this POC is over-serviced.

They have a CSM, webinars, your annual conference, the community etc. They are already bought in. Investing your executive in this POC isn’t going to move the needle where you need it.

What do Executives want?

From my interviews with CS Leaders and years working with executives, I learned that 3 things motivate them to engage:

1. Networking: Meeting peers and developing a network of people that can open new doors.
2. Learning: Insightful discussions about challenges and opportunities they face in their organisations.
3. Status: Being part of an elite or exclusive group that makes them look important and impressive.

A mistake people make is thinking that executives want an opportunity to share feedback or make product requests.

At this level, if the executive has to come to another executive with product roadblocks or constructive feedback about their team’s experience, many things have gone wrong before it.

A great executive sponsor programme should completely avoid everyday-ness.

Executives at your top-tier customers aren’t likely to be using your product.

They are either getting reports from their team on the results your product enables or logging in to see a dashboard.

Focus on fulfilling their needs for networking, learning and status.

5 Innovative Ideas for the Sponsorship Programme

• CxO Club: A super exclusive community for your top tier C-Level executives. Recurring events with top-tier executives and highly curated content for a small number of executives. This should not feel like your average community event, it should feel like being part of a secret club. (Gainsight has this phenomenal club for CS Leaders)
• Exclusive Dinners: Host intimate dinners for a handful of executives in satellite cities every few months to simply connect and get those executives together. Find the hottest place in town, book a private room, or hire a renowned chef and curate a menu for the night. This should not feel like a normal dinner out, it should feel like a Michelin experience (Get inspired by Deloitte's CEO Dinners)
• Luxury Retreats: Once a year, organise a luxury retreat to get executives to step away from their every day and think BIG (ie. unpack market disruptions, innovative technologies etc). The agenda should have top-tier speakers, thinkers and authors only. It should get an executive excited to invest 2 days into it. 
• Offer An Executive to Speak: Most executives host a quarterly meeting/offsite for their leadership team. Finding great speakers that hit the right tone to inspire the teams is not always easy. Offer an executive from your company to lead a session or be at a panel/fireside chat.
• CxO Podcast: C-Suite leaders are often on-the-go people and when I asked them what type of content they prefer engaging with, the most recurring format was podcasts and audiobooks. Consider packaging C-level grade content in 20-30 minute podcasts that they can listen to while working out or driving (Salesforce has an Executive World Tour). They might even love to participate! 

Whatever you do avoid landing pages, automated emails, inbound material etc. Invites and content should come directly from your executive's email address and feel like they are one of the only people getting it.

If these programmes sound like huge investments, it’s because they are!

But what do you get out of it?

An engaged executive that:

• values your business as a thought leader and partner
• has a genuine relationship with your leaders
• feels a connection with your brand
• Is likely to talk about your brand in their circles (boards, investors etc)

And that my friends, is why the executive sponsor program exists!