It always amazes me how many B2B sales people, and even their entire companies, ignore their largest and most trusted source of new revenue.
And this happens, especially in tough economic times, when B2B sales people struggle to meet their revenue targets.
And they simply blame the economy for their lack of success in bringing in new revenue.
As CSO Insights (a B2B sales research firm) points out,
In looking for factors that caused this significant drop in performance, three major trends emerge:
1. The Economic Decision Maker Disappeared: The ability of a single person to make a real buying decision on his or her own was replaced by consensus-based buying, where reps needed to get signoffs from multiple stakeholders to close a deal. This is more the norm now.
2. Decision Times Got Longer: Each purchase was reviewed and scrutinized to ensure there was a solid business case for why the purchase needed to be made now versus later.
3. Existing Relationships Became More Valuable: Buyers became more risk adverse and looked to do business with vendors that were already known to them. This is most important.
But the real key is that these vendors have basically ignored their clients for a long time.
There are many ways to grow your current clients, and it does become tougher in a hard economy.
Three great strategies for achieving this are;
• Cross-selling/up-selling,
• Introducing new products, and
• Farming additional opportunities out of existing accounts.
And there is a simple way to do this.
Get an appointment with the main decision maker, and ask him/her three simple questions.
1. Why did you do business with us in the first place?
2. What results did you receive from using our products and services?
3. What areas are you having trouble achieving your goals in right now?
Then go back and figure out a way to help him/her, based on these three question and all of the information listed above.
Get to know your current clients better. Stop ignoring them for more sales. They should be your main source of new revenue.
Kind regards,
Ian Dainty
Ian Dainty’s Email
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