What Are You Willing To Do To Land the BIG Account?

Practical Business Steps For Achieving More

What is at the top of your “essential t0-do list” before attempting to land that "must-have" account?  

Randy Kirk at Help For Small Business blogs about a handful of key steps you must boldly take if you are going to land that account.  

Step One.  Jump in with both feet and make that call to the client, despite the level of fear or dread you may be feeling.  “Every sales professional who is interested in earning a substantial living salivates at the idea of landing the ‘big account.’ For most of those same salesfolks, however, the idea of making that call is about as appealing as eating crushed glass.” Put your fear aside - what have you got to lose?

Step Two.  Be prepared ahead of time by having all the necessary information to best meet the needs of this client.  Be professional in your approach and be sure to listen to what the customer's expressed needs before rattling off all your ideas of what you think is important to the client.  By carefully listening to your client's challenges, you can then present the use of your product in ways they hadn’t considered before.  

Step Three.  Be sure that your company is able to meet the demands of this client.  Are your suppliers reliable so that you will be able to deliver when you promise?  Are the demands made by the client realistic for your company or will it cost you more in the long run?

Step Four.  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  In other words, be sure that you are not solely relying on this client’s business.  You must have a strong customer base to depend on, so that this client will not break you should the business deal fall through for any number of reasons.

Please share what difficult challenges or tasks you have been willing to take on in order to attain your goals.