Business Development & Account Penetration

Business Development & Account Penetration

OK, so now you have established a toehold in a business that has the potential to really kick your business up to the next level. You're currently earning about 5 to 8% of their total annual spend on your product or service. Are you satisfied? I hope not!

So what are the next steps? As I teach my Martial Arts students, if you're attacked, you never throw one punch or land one kick and then stop and stand back to admire it. There are very few one strike fights. If you land one punch or a kick, you follow up immediately with another kick or punch; and another; and another, until your opponent goes away or is out of commission. The key is to follow up.

You need to determine whether the additional business comes from the area of the company you have established ties with or if it's originating in another office or division. If you need to work with the people you currently have developed relationships with, the task is pretty straight forward. You need to determine why they are using someone else for the majority of their needs and what their pain point is, and position yourself to solve that problem for them. It might be as simple as inertia. "We've been doing business with them for the past five or ten years, the order to them is kicked out to them automatically as soon as we run low." You need to provide a compelling reason to change their process so the orders are automatically sent to you. Sometimes it's as simple as asking; they simply forgot to change the order process. So ask and you shall receive. The sticking point might be relatively minor and easily resolved. They might say "You're getting 100% of our orders for equipment with an RS232 connection. Most of our customers now want a USB connection." Then you either tell them you have a USB connection, get a bunch of incremental business and take a bow, or you go to your Product Team and find out what needs to be done to offer a USB connection on your box.

Thank you for reading my Blog.

Next: Account Penetration into different offices and business units.