Congratulations! You won your big deal dream client after pursuing them for two years. You have a signed contract, and their paperwork is complete.
You want to send your buyers and decision-makers a new client welcome letter to extend their B2B sales experience. You also want to provide them with the information they need about what to expect as you begin working together. These seven elements of a new client welcome message will position you as a true sales professional, and allow you to write an email that doubles as a written version of a value-based conversation.
Thank You
The first element of a great welcome email should express you are grateful for their business. A lot of salespeople will say thank you, after winning the client’s business. How you say it sets the tone for a successful partnership. You can start strong by expressing your appreciation for the time they spent with you over the couple of months you worked together.
You also want to thank them for helping get all the right people together, then describe how it helped you learn what you needed to know to help them improve their results. At the end of this segment, you can build a bridge to the reason your client needed to change.
The Cause That Made Your Client Change
In this part of your new client welcome letter, you focus on the motivations behind the client’s decision to work with you. You address the challenges your new client was struggling with, reminding them that you and your team understand the upcoming journey. The idea is to convey that you know what to avoid doing—but without using those words. You might also want to document that you have met with your operations team and held a working lunch to walk them through all the details the client shared with you. These are best practices for effective selling, as the sale doesn’t end until you deliver the results.
Even though you have stated that you are aware of your client’s challenges, you want them to know that information made it to your team. Once you conclude this part of the welcome letter, you can pivot to remind them of what, how, and why your delivery model will ensure their success.
How You Will Ensure Success
You and your team will solve your contact’s challenges and deliver the strategic outcomes they need. You made a promise to your client that you would deliver results and build trust. In this part of the letter, you want to remind them of what you will do differently and why it is the best way to improve their results.
This section can help your clients become comfortable with the people who weren’t part of the sales conversation. If you’ve ever begun a change initiative with a new client only to discover that some members of their team try to sabotage your efforts, you know how difficult it can be to execute. The best practice for effective selling in B2B sales is to include these stakeholders while you build consensus.
This section may be the largest part of your welcome email. It needs to provide your main contacts with the rationale for the changes you are making and the talking points they need. You may not be around when someone asks them questions.
This section should also help your client with the certainty they need, as it resolves client concerns and makes for a great welcome letter.
The Milestones and Meetings During Execution
This part of the letter is about navigating your journey together, and it sets out a process for achieving your goals. As you stand up your solution, you will have several meetings, milestones, and catch-up conversations. These meetings and milestones may start with a kickoff meeting with you introducing each member of your team and their responsibility. The milestones also provide you the opportunity to schedule sales touchpoints that allow your client to be confident that you and your team will be engaged with them and their teams. You might start with a 30-day and 60-day meeting, followed by a quarterly business review once your client is propped up.
Even though the ink is dry on your contact, this is still part of the sales process. It’s not enough to sell your product or service, the sales process ends only when you deliver the value you promised.
A List of Key Contacts Responsible for Day-to-Day Needs
Your welcome letter should introduce the client to their dream team and help them get to know the experts dedicated to their success. When your client needs something from you or your team, they will search their email, which now acts as everyone’s CRM. You will be in a first meeting when your contact is looking for help. Provide them with a contact list of the people responsible to help them with whatever they need. In addition to the contact information, include a phone number for your support team.
If you use an account-based marketing or account-based selling approach, your contacts will already know some of your team members. Include someone from operations, customer service or customer success, accounts receivables, and any other department with responsibility for your client. By introducing your team on a kickoff call and providing this information, you can protect your time for selling while still taking care of your client.
Reports and Delivery Frequency
This part of the welcome letter outlines how you keep your clients informed every step of the way. They will want information and data about their results and your results. You may have these in a client portal, but by sending them directly you provide the client with information about what to expect and when.
Also ask to be copied on any reports, to keep you aware of your progress in helping your clients improve their results. Monitoring your client’s success is important for several reasons. First, you can intervene if necessary. Second, you can call to share that what your team is doing is working.
Following Up
Finally, you explain your follow-up process, including how you maintain your relationship and continue to add value. We believe that you should compete to win clients instead of orders. Sell in a way that builds relationships for life. In this last block, you can tell your contact to feel free to reach out should they need anything, while also telling them you will schedule a meeting to follow up on how you are progressing together.
While some one-and-done sales reps disappear the moment they win the deal, avoiding sales accountability undermines their results. Proactive sales reps increase your chances of executing a competitive displacement, a strategy you will find in Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition.
Your Welcome Letter and Your Relationships
You can take all these big content blocks and turn them into an email template. This will allow you to edit instead of having to start from scratch with every new won deal.
These emails will have a high open rate and help your clients more than you might believe. Do this every time you win a new client.
Today, the conversation about sales is mostly about the impact of technology. Software is eating the world, but it seems to have a taste for sales and marketing tasks. Maybe someday your AI will sell to my AI without either of us being aware of the transaction. But the more sales are treated like a transaction, the more being human provides a strategic advantage.
