Minus the gifts part, this is all terrific advice. As the person-in-charge-of-apps/collab at a large enterprise, I typically have 3-5 vendor meetings per week

Minus the gifts part, this is all terrific advice. As the person-in-charge-of-apps/collab at a large enterprise, I typically have 3-5 vendor meetings per week (this week I have 8... this kind of thing is probably why a lot of you hate working at/with/for large companies!), most of which I have no intention of purchasing from, but all of whom have something in their unsolicited emails that piqued my interest. A lot of times it's market research: if I'm reasonably happy with New Relic, I may still want to see what Appneta and Compuware can do for me. If I want to step up from Hangouts/Skype to something with QoS but not Telepresence grade, I probably want to learn about Fuzebox, Vidyo, Bluejeans, etc. If I'm a Google Apps customer, I am likely in touch with the kind folks behind Flashpanel, GAT, and Cloudlock. If I manage our data centers, I most likely have contacts at all the major server/storage/virtualization/infrastructure vendors. One of the most important parts of our job is to know the landscape and be able to make the best decision for our company. A lot of times we don't have the time to perform adequate due diligence, and this is where a skilled salesperson will succeed where an average salesperson will give up. You need, as josh2600 says, to make it personal, to truly understand your target, and to pitch what they want to hear. And remember that all signed deals absolutely must be win-win. If your sales target feels or knows they're getting screwed, you're toast. As an aside, also know that the days of "no one got fired for choosing IBM" are over. BigCos do plenty of deals with startups and small businesses. I could give examples of where that's worked out great for us, or terribly. I could also give examples of where choosing the 800lb gorilla was an awful decision. If you don't enjoy this kind of existence, being an IT exec at a big company is probably not something you'd have fun with.