One of my favorite questions to ask a coaching client trying to grow their sales volume— as well as myself— is, “What is the best use of your time?” Sometimes I will turn it around and ask a different version: “Is this really the best use of your time?” when I am trying to spot check my productivity level.
These days, given the fact that it’s so difficult to get in touch with prospects, your answer to that question might very well be, “Bill, I think my best chance of growing sales is to sell more to my existing accounts.” If that’s the case, listen up…
Consider your key accounts. Where do you “live” within those accounts? That is, at what level within the organization are you connected? For many of us, the answer is, “Purchasing.” The person who does the actual buying is very often our key contact, which is to be expected. However, you must move up the food chain in part by connecting with the decision-maker. In fact, let me give you three goals if your hope is to improve same-customer sales:
- Get to know every employee at the company. All of them. Everyone. No exceptions. Meet one new person with every visit. Take notes of the conversation after it is over and enter it in your CRM;
- Hear the words, “OMG, are we your only account? Your level of customer service is phenomenal;”
…and when we get back to normal times, here’s one additional goal: - Hear the words, “Excuse me, do you work here? I see you here all the time.”In order to get additional business from your existing account base, you need to have a keen understanding of their industry and their challenges. In addition, you are going to need to have connections as high up the food chain is possible. This must be a constant goal of yours.
Using LinkedIn and simply by asking for internal referrals, you can expand your base, making the account more stable and setting the stage for the best possible answer to the question, “What is the best use of your time?”
