Expanding Business Contacts in Large Accounts: Strategies for Success

Discover how increasing your business contacts can drive larger deals and deeper engagement in enterprise clients.

In small accounts, you may interact with a few people. These small accounts don’t often invite many to join the conversation, but you might encounter a room full of people sitting around a large conference table. As you pursue large or enterprise clients, the number of people engaged will grow. If you don’t meet more contacts in large accounts, it may mean you have done something wrong.

There are a number of reasons you may not be able to acquire more contacts within a large prospective client. The first reason is that you fail to create value for the contacts you have now. In this case, your contacts prevent you from meeting with colleagues, especially leaders, who are likely to feel that their time has been wasted.

Overcoming Initial Meeting Challenges with Key Clients

After a first meeting with a contact in a large client, you believe you did well, but in the next meeting, your contact does not invite another contact to join you. This may happen because your contact doesn’t believe you will impress their colleagues. In large clients, you should expect more people to participate in meetings as the sales conversation progresses.

If you want or need more contacts in large accounts, your contact must believe you swill impress others at the company. They only feel safe to invite others to join when you have offered enough value.

Early Engagement of Stakeholders to Boost Sales Success

You may not have the contacts you need because you fail to ask who else at the client will need to join the conversation, and how you and your contact can get them into a meeting. It’s important to know that you are responsible for facilitating the client’s buyer’s journey. If you have trouble acquiring more stakeholders, start asking earlier.

In large accounts, you can expect more contacts to join your meetings, even if some show up for some meetings and miss other meetings. Ask your sales champion who is going to weigh in on any decision to change and when they can join you to ensure these contacts get what they need.

Differentiating with Unique Business Insights

If you are an ordinary, average salesperson, you probably ask the client about their problem, the implications of that problem, and the gap between their current state and the better future state they need. When this is the basis for your conversation, you project that you have nothing important to share.

For quite a long time, I have implored salespeople to become experts and authorities in a number of areas. To acquire more contacts in large accounts, salespeople need to know the client’s problem better than the clients. They also need to be experts on the decision their contacts are charged with getting right. But the big one here is having a perspective about what the client must do to succeed.

If you still believe your solution should cause the buyer to choose to buy from you, you may be behind. You will find more contacts joining you when you have an experienced perspective about the decision.

Leveraging Expertise for Enhanced Client Engagement

If you are an expert, you would do well to use insights and information unknown to your contacts. We do this with an executive briefing around a set of trends including implications for the client’s business and their results. Many contacts find this kind of information to be opaque. If you want to increase the number of contacts you have in a large account, you will find it easier to do when you are able to help them see the future.

Building Business Rapport over Casual Conversations

In a recent interaction with a sales team, many confessed the first thing they do is try to build rapport. This team was unaware that most decision makers are not trying you out to be their best friend for life. This small talk will cause you to have a smaller audience.

You might know that there is a new type of rapport we can describe as business rapport. Businesspeople expect someone offering business advice should be able to talk about business. You may find a client asking you about your company’s model and how it differentiates you from the pack of look-alike competitors. Preparing to answer these questions makes it easier for you to have a decision maker include new contacts in meetings because you prove you are not a time waster.

Enhancing Contact Networks within Large Clients for Sales Professionals

The single variable of how many contacts will give you their time is the value you promise them. In The Lost Art of Closing, I introduced the Trading Value Rule. This rule requires you to trade something of value in exchange for your contacts’ time. Few contacts want a meet-and-greet that wastes their time. The more value you can trade for a contact's time, the easier it will be for you to get on their calendar.

The most effective way to acquire more contacts in large accounts is using a pull strategy instead of a push strategy. A pull strategy is one that causes your existing contacts to introduce you to contacts they believe should know you. By contrast, a push strategy has you pushing for people to meet with you. Push strategies are not nearly as effective as pull strategies.

Before you leave this article, assess the value you create now, and what you might do to improve what you offer your clients and their stakeholders in exchange for their time. To find more success in the future, you must show up as someone with an important perspective and the ability to help your contacts achieve their goals.