1. Lead with your customer’s strategy.

Put customers first, always. Prioritize relationships over transactions.

2. Understand every customer’s financial pain and strategic priorities.

Can you hold a conversation about your customer’s finances with their own CFO? If you can’t, do you really know their needs? This isn't easy, but it’s critical.

3. Know your patch.

Your customer’s position in their category or industry matters. Speak their language. Know the news before they do, and what they should do next.

4. Solve business problems holistically.

Think big. Real pain isn’t constrained to single problems solved by single solutions. And that’s where the budget is.

5. Never spam. Ever.

The era of mechanized sales is over. Add value in every meeting, call, email, and beyond. Relevance over volume.

6. Speak at the level of the CxO.

Your approach should always level up to clear value at the executive level. That’s how enterprise deals are done.

7. Bring a point of view.

Understand your customer’s pain, based on what they say and their actual business and financial priorities. Interpret that as part of your strategy, translating how your solution addresses their needs into their own words.

8. Do more than listen–be a trusted advisor.

Listening is table stakes. You need to combine financial acumen, industry expertise, competitive knowledge, to form a valuable perspective and advise your customer. Build trust through proactivity, not responsiveness.

9. Never get comfortable.

Bring curiosity and healthy skepticism in equal measure to every opportunity. Work every day to be strategic and add value. Identify the “no” before it comes up, and proactively address potential blockers.

10. Be human.

Behind every company are its people, and you’re human too. Empathy, respect, and kindness form the foundation of every relationship.