B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Current
50%
50% -- sales cycle speed uplift for expertise firms selling to CEOs (2026)
Engagements initiated directly with the CEO close 50% faster than those initiated lower down.
- Attributed to Anthony Parinello's Selling to VITO research dataset of 2.5 million salespeople
Attribution:
View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
·
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Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
50%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
50
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO)
Primary
Tier C
https://yourmachine.co/blog/six-stage-sales-system-expertise-firms ↗
Source Article
The Deal Is Decided Early: A Six-Stage Sales System for Expertise Firms | Your Machine
The Deal Is Decided Early: A Six-Stage Sales System for Expertise Firms
Five of the most rigorously researched sales methodologies ever published each cover one stretch of a complex services deal — and go quiet on the rest. Chain VITO, Challenger, SPIN, Gap Selling, and the JOLT Effect into a relay,…
Original Research
Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO)
· Original study ↗
Methodology
Parinello's Selling to VITO research, as cited
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
expertise firms selling to CEOs: 50% sales cycle speed uplift. Source: Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO) (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/ceo-initiated-engagements-50-faster
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<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ceo-initiated-engagements-50-faster" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>50%</strong> -- sales cycle speed uplift for expertise firms selling to CEOs<br><small>Source: Anthony Parinello (Selling to VITO) (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ceo-initiated-engagements-50-faster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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