Finding a Hole in the Wall

How to open up your next account…

Here is the deal… There are two ways of opening up an account:

1. Prospect on managers “we can help you with your business initiatives”, or
2. Prospect on technical managers “we can help make you go from zero to hero”

Prospecting on managers is the textbook answer, always seek power. But if your offering really addresses a transitional pain or even an operational pain, chances are high that you will get little or no success with that approach. Management just won’t meet you. So if that door is closed and the door marked “procurement” seems less interesting you have to knock on the doors of the people who are supposed to fulfill the great plans of management.

This week I spoke with some cleaver salesmen who invented the “Index” approach to prospecting. The sales message is “I know that you (Mr. Customer) have invested a great deal in moving from A to B, and our company has also recognized that many XX managers have run into some severe difficulties when they have done the initial investment in the new technology and want to take the first version to the next level (example). Problems we see are: X, Y, Z, we have invented a Quick Index that can help in the process of finding gaps and decide relevant actions. Can we have a meeting so I can show you?”

I love this approach, if it is used with a bit of “eagle talent”. Index itself can attract the “Mr. Tell-me-more”, so qualification of power is very important.

The index is then reported back in a workshop, where you can invite important people and use them as a prospect-base.

Written by and posted with the permission of:
Jens Edgren, Lindgren Partners Solution Selling
+ 46 8 651 25 00
www.lindgren-partners.se



How's the Harvest?

Harvest your sales through account managment and planning!Account Management – How do you know when you’re not optimizing the revenue, profit, and value potential in your best accounts?

Is there fertile territory in your most valuable accounts that is not being harvested? Here are a few questions to ask to find out:

1. In your most valuable accounts, do you know:

• The top business initiatives from the customer’s point of view?
• The strategy behind each key initiative? What good things will happen if the initiatives are accomplished on time and on budget?
• The business driver behind the strategy? What forced the action? Was it driven by regulatory, supplier, financial, competitor, customer, market dynamics or other factors? Why it was more important / urgent than other drivers?
• Who owns the initiative and who has the most risk/reward tied to the initiative?

If you struggle to explain the most critical business challenges/drivers from your customer’s perspective, then you will struggle with providing tangible value and your relevancy to executives will diminish, which in turn reduces your chance to optimize revenue and profitability.

2. Do you use repeatable methods to strategically:

• (2a) Diagnose what’s important to your customer in their business?
• (2b) Analyze the “comfort zone”: Sponsors you know; and your “stretch zone” Sponsors and Power Sponsors you should know, and what’s important to both of them?  
• (2c) Analyze your business activity past, current – the value contribution you’ve delivered and future revenue and profit potential based on 2a. and 2.b?
• (2d) Think and plan on how to exploit your business potential when matched with knowledge of your customer, your offerings, and your relationships?
• (2e) Link potential future opportunities into the early steps of your sales execution process?

If you don’t have a defined method for strategic diagnoses, analysis, thinking and planning then expect an average or below average tactical boost to account penetration, growth, and loyalty.  

3. Do you leverage a process to:

• Create and periodically update account plans – protect creative account thinking and planning time?
• Regularly review and improve account plans - constructively leveraging the team, manager, and peers on key plans?
• Engage your Sponsor or Power Sponsor in providing guidance and input into your plan - tightly coupling business alignment?

If you have a method, but no consistent internal and external account ‘review-and-improve’ process, then you’re not fully tuned to achieve optimal revenue, profitability, and value.  Worse yet, your plans are prematurely tested on your customer and in front of your competition.

When you have a well defined method and process for optimizing penetration and value then you also have an excellent:

1. Coaching platform from which to raise the strategic thinking, planning, execution capabilities, and business results of all those involved
2. Foundation for competitively differentiating the value of your organization during customer account reviews

Enjoy the harvest!