How To Discover New Prospects From Within Your Established Accounts By Len D’Innocenzo co-author of The Agile Manager's Guide to Customer Focused Selling 2nd Edition If you're currently selling to any medium to large sized departmentalized companies, you have a better than average chance of using the buyer within one department to refer you the buyer in another. This satisfied customer could become internal advocate for you and your company by introducing you to other departments' decision makers. Such an internal advocate can give fellow decision makers firsthand knowledge of your service record and your company's product line.

Find this page interesting? Share it with friends by e-mailing a link to this page. Share Now >>     Suggest A Topic! Would you like to see a particular  business issue discussed? Suggest it to our business team! Suggest It >>

The following suggestions show how to develop internal advocates who can open now doors within your established account.

First, earn the right to ask for the favor of introducing you to another department's decision maker. Give your current customers the best level of service that you can provide. Do the extra things that customers always appreciate. Call your customers on the day of delivery to make sure that the products arrived on time and in good condition. Follow up after a training session to check for any additional questions that the employees might have. Keep your customers up-to-date on industry news and the latest products. Take them to lunch just to say 'thanks" for their business.

Second, ask your customers about outside interests, family, or career. Share stories with your customers. When you do these things on a regular basis you will earn the right to ask your customers for in-house referrals and make it easy for you to ask for advice or help. Ask for advice on new business opportunities. Ask them to introduce you to the decision makers. If you have helped your customers, they will likely help you!

Now take a few minutes and ask yourself the following questions.

Who are your top three current internal advocates? List the top three accounts you now call on and the internal advocates you have developed there. List them by account name first and then by the internal advocate's name or names.

In what new areas within these accounts do you have potential for new business? List these areas by account name first, and then by the new business potential area or areas.

Who are your top three potential internal advocates? Again, list account name first, then the name of the potential internal advocate.

What can you do to improve your relationship with each of these people so you can earn the right to ask for help? List the person, then what activity will help you improve that relationship.

Now implement your plan of action.

• Visit each of your top three internal advocates and ask for their help with an introduction to another person within their company.
• Visit each of your top three potential advocates and begin the process of improving your relationship.
• Be prepared to report to your manager on each of these visits and their results.

When your internal advocates introduce you to new opportunities, keep them informed about your progress. Let them know how important their introductions were and thank them again. They will probably want to continue helping you, and that spells sales success!

____________

The Agile Manager's Guide to Customer Focused Selling 2nd Edition by Jack Cullen and Len D’Innocenzo, two principles at CRKInteractive, have been sales managers for such companies as Zenith Data Systems, Okidata, and NCR. They now head CRKInteractive, a training and consulting company with offices all over North America. 128 pages. To order, please call 1-866-260-2055 or visit www.crkinteractive.com.

BACK TO TOP

About CRKInteractive, Inc. - CRKInteractive is devoted to helping its clients realize employee potential through tailored learning experiences. CRKInteractive offers diverse training courses and professional services for companies that want to dramatically improve productivity, customer satisfaction and employee retention.

Our curriculum focuses on these critical skill areas designed for business:

• Sales Skills
• Customer Service Skills
• Leadership Skills

Our Professional Services group specializes in website and course development for online corporate learning.

We deliver our curricula via flexible delivery formats, including traditional classroom; live instructor-led training over the Internet or corporate Intranet; and self-paced Web-based courses. For more information please contact us at (978) 474-8657 or visit us on the web at www.crkinteractive.com.