Mastering Executive Engagement for Scalable Success

Monica Reynolds

Welcome back to the Dayforce SKO 2026 Breakout Sessions Recap! I’m Monica Reynolds, and if you’ve been following along, you know we’re all about making these sessions actionable—no fluff, just the insights you need to move the needle. Today, we’re diving into what it really takes to win over the C-suite, and not just in theory. I want to unpackage some real strategies top sellers use to align Dayforce with executive-level business priorities.

Monica Reynolds

Now, let’s be honest, getting C-suite attention is no walk in the park. Executives don’t care about technical bells and whistles—at least not at first. They want to know, “Are you solving a problem that matters to us? Are you helping consolidate systems, reduce risk, drive real business outcomes?” They’re juggling so much: compliance headaches, market expansion, and—let’s be real—just trying not to get buried by legacy systems. We talk about this tension a lot in previous episodes, like when we looked at workforce planning or compliance, but engaging executives takes it up another notch.

Monica Reynolds

Top-performing sellers? They zero in on what the C-suite cares about. I saw a brilliant example recently—a Dayforce sales rep was running a discovery with a CFO and a few of the exec team. The conversation started sliding into the weeds, you know, like “our scheduling widget does this, our workflow engine does that.” And you could practically see eyes glazing over! But then the rep shifted gears—she started quantifying impact: “Here’s the IRR, here’s the dollar value of moving from 13 platforms to one, here’s the reduction in compliance exposure, here’s your growth runway if you don’t have manual processes dragging everyone down.” Suddenly, the whole room leaned in. The CFO, who’d barely looked up from his phone, started firing questions. It wasn't about features anymore; it was about “Can Dayforce de-risk my strategy?” and “Does this move our EBITDA?” That’s the crux: speak executive language from the get-go and always map our solution to their top challenges.

Monica Reynolds

I love stories because they illustrate what’s possible—let’s look at a couple that really drive home why executive alignment changes the game. First up: Angels of Care. Pediatric home health, 10,000 employees, completely tangled manual processes. They were facing compliance risk and a mountain of disconnected data. What got the deal done? Direct executive access. The VP of Accounting opened the door, but it was the Dayforce value advisor who aligned straight with the CHRO, then built that path all the way to the CIO and CFO, and eventually, the CEO. And the result? A full-suite transformation, M&A-ready platform, and—get this—a 175% IRR, over $6 million in direct benefits, and more than 30,000 hours saved through process automation. That’s not “maybe you’ll save some time with our cool interface”—that’s real, measurable business value coming from executive partnership.

Monica Reynolds

Now, not every win is about direct access. Take Hanesbrands—a global company, thirteen separate platforms, high operational risk. If you’ve ever had to pitch to an org with offices on three continents, you know how tangled it can get. Here, it was all about leveraging trusted leaders. The Director of HRIS and Payroll were the first advocates, then the CHRO and VP of IT came to a Dayforce summit, started bringing insights back to their peers, and built internal momentum with the C-suite. So, even without an immediate direct shot at the CEO, they built trust and consensus. End result: global HCM modernization, cut from thirteen down to one platform, risk reduced across the board, and an eye-watering $11.3 million in benefits, plus more than 80,000 hours of productivity gained.

Monica Reynolds

I want to underline something we’re seeing in the data: when all those Challenger principles are in play, and when you multi-thread with executives and their trusted peers, the win rate for deals literally doubles. Not only that, deal size more than triples—from around $130K ASP to nearly $560K on average, based on Gong data from last year. That’s the power of peer and exec alignment in enterprise sales. I mean, we’ve talked in previous episodes about the importance of multi-threading, but seeing the actual impact on win rates and deal sizes? It’s hard to ignore.

Monica Reynolds

So, once you’ve got executive attention and you’ve landed that initial alignment, how do you actually deliver scalable growth? This is where the rubber meets the road. You have to position Dayforce not just as a product, but as a long-term partner—one that drives business outcomes, supports both organic expansion and M&A, and helps organizations stay ahead of compliance as they grow across regions. It’s not just, “here’s our platform”; it’s “here’s how we’ll help you standardize, automate, and consolidate so you don’t have to keep adding people every time you open a new country, or buy another business.”

Monica Reynolds

Look at what Costa Coffee pulled off—I mean, this is an industry leader in food and beverage retail with 17,000 employees, all sorts of moving parts. They partnered with Dayforce to pull HR, payroll, and talent together under one roof. The results? £625,000 in annual scheduling savings alone—seriously, that’s a lot of lattes—and a 50% cut in employee requests thanks to automation. Their reporting and analytics features also empowered strategic decision-making, while mobile apps and self-service tools freed up HR so they could focus on the stuff that really moves the needle, not just putting out fires.

Monica Reynolds

That reminds me, thinking back to my earlier days in product enablement—long before anyone thought HR apps could be “fun”—I saw first-hand how tailored learning pathways and mobile self-service features changed adoption rates for customers. People want to feel empowered, and when you deliver that flexibility—especially for frontline workers—you see adoption jump, and that’s what helps organizations actually realize the business outcomes we promise during the sales cycle.

Monica Reynolds

That’s all for this episode. We just scratched the surface on executive alignment and driving scalable success with Dayforce, but we’ll keep building on these strategies—more analytics, more customer stories, and more hands-on tactics coming up soon. Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you in the next session!