If you are going to win large clients, you have to start by targeting large clients. Without targeting large accounts you are leaving their acquisition to chance. It’s nice to get lucky, but that isn’t a long-term strategy. Luck loves a hustler.
You are also going to have to spend more time pursuing your dream clients with the potential to spend more with you. If you are going to spend more time with prospective large accounts, you are going to have to spend less time with smaller prospective clients. Your results will follow your effort and energy.
Using only the phone as your pursuit plan isn’t likely to work as quickly or as effectively as you need it to. You are going to have to nurture the prospective large accounts over time, especially since they are likely to have deep relationships with your competitors, the kind that come with a high switching cost. You’re going to need to drip value, and become known as a value creator.
By and large, bigger accounts spending bigger money have a bigger decision to make. Their risks are greater. So it’s less likely you can win a large client by meeting with only one “decision-maker.” You are going to have to identify multiple stakeholders as entry points. Creating and winning an opportunity within these prospective clients will require that you first build consensus around change and then consensus around your solution.
Winning bigger deals requires a more systematic process. A larger, high visibility, high-value, must win deal requires a sales process that serves that outcome. It doesn’t mean that the process needs to be complex for complexity sake. But it does mean that you have to create value for your prospective client at every stage, and that you obtain the outcomes that increase the likelihood of your winning a deal.
The solution you create for large accounts is likely to require customization. You may have to bend your solution to fit your prospective clients’ exact needs. The sale that you make to the larger prospect may require an equally large sale to the stakeholders inside your own company. The internal sale may be the more difficult one.
Serving large clients means taking a greater level of accountability. You are no longer “dropping your solution off at the door.” Instead, you have to be responsible for ensuring the execution of your solution and that your prospective client achieves the strategic outcomes they were promised when they bought from you.
This is what it takes to win large accounts. Not only are these things different from a smaller sale, but who you are may also have to be different. You have to be someone the stakeholders in a large account believes to be a worthwhile partner.
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