Every salesperson knows the feeling. The demos go well. The follow-ups get polite replies. Your champion says all the right things. And the deal just sits there, month after month, going nowhere.
When a deal stalls like that, the problem is rarely your product or your pitch. Most of the time, you are simply talking to the wrong person. I learned this the slow way, and it cost me six months.
What is a VITO?
VITO stands for Very Important Top Officer. The term was coined by Anthony Parinello, who wrote a whole book on the idea of selling to VITOs. The definition is simple: the VITO is the person with the authority to say yes, to release the budget, and to overrule everyone else in the room.
In a smaller firm, that is often the Managing Director or the owner. In a larger company it might be a CEO, a business unit head or a CFO, depending on what you sell. The title changes. The role does not: they decide, everyone else influences.
My six months of spinning wheels
I spent six months pitching to everyone except the MD. Why? Because, well, "he was too busy." That was the story I told myself, and honestly it was a comfortable one. Talking to the people who were easy to reach felt like progress.
So I did all the things that look like sales work:
- Countless meetings with managers and department heads
- Endless follow-ups
- Demonstrations, and then more demonstrations for the next person who needed to "see it"
Everyone was friendly. Everyone liked the product. And there was no real traction. Nobody in those meetings could actually approve anything, so every conversation ended in "let me check internally" and then silence.
The pivot: three meetings with the MD
Eventually I stopped trying to win over more of the middle and found a way in to the top. I got in front of the VITO, the MD of the firm. Not ten meetings. Three.
Six months with everyone else. Three meetings with the person who decides.
Those three conversations were different in kind. We talked about value, not features. We aligned on vision, not on a checklist. He asked direct questions and gave direct answers, because he could. There was no "I will have to run this by someone."
The result was the biggest sale of my career, to date. He even asked me to work directly with him going forward. That is what happens when you earn a seat at the table where the decision actually gets made.
How to reach the VITO
"Just call the CEO" is not a plan. Here is what I would actually do.
- Ask your champion for the introduction. Be direct. "Who signs off on something like this, and would you be comfortable introducing me?" A good champion wants the deal to succeed and will usually help. If they will not, that tells you something too.
- Use referrals. A warm introduction from someone the VITO already trusts beats any cold email. Check your network, your existing customers and mutual connections before you try anything else.
- Lead with value, not with a pitch. A VITO does not care about your feature list. Open with a sharp insight about their business, a problem you have seen in their market, or a number that matters to them. Make the first message worth reading.
- Offer an executive briefing. Frame the meeting as 20 to 30 minutes of useful perspective for a senior person, not a product demo. Keep it short and sharp, and send a one-page agenda in advance.
- Be brief and specific. Executives read on their phones between meetings. Two or three sentences, one clear ask, one proposed time.
- Respect the gatekeeper. Assistants and chiefs of staff are not obstacles. Be honest with them about why you are reaching out. They protect the calendar, and they know what deserves a spot on it.
- Do not go around people carelessly. Reaching the VITO does not mean burning the manager who has been helping you. Keep them informed and make them look good in the process.
Signs you are NOT talking to the VITO
If several of these sound familiar, you probably have not met the decision-maker yet:
- They keep saying "I will need to run this by someone" or "let me check internally."
- You cannot get a straight answer on budget or timeline.
- You have given the same demo to more than two people.
- New stakeholders keep appearing late in the process.
- The person you are talking to cannot say what happens after they say yes.
- Your contact avoids or deflects when you ask to meet their boss.
- Meetings feel pleasant but nothing moves forward between them.
None of this means your contact is useless. Champions and influencers matter, and a deal rarely closes without them. But if the only people you are talking to are people who cannot say yes, you are doing a lot of work for a small chance of an outcome.
Do not confuse this with chasing every deal
Getting to the VITO also helps you qualify faster. If the top person is not interested, you learn that in weeks instead of months, and you can decide whether to keep going. I wrote about that decision in when to walk away from a sales deal. And once you are in the room with the right person, it pays to be selective about where your time goes, which is the idea behind the 80/20 rule in sales: fewer, bigger deals, with the people who can actually close them.
The lesson
If your pitch is not reaching the VITO, chances are you are losing time and energy, and the time is the part you cannot get back.
"He is too busy" was an excuse, not a fact. I never tested it for six months, and when I finally did, the door was a lot more open than I had assumed.
Find a way to connect with the decision-maker. That is where the real progress happens.