SKILL


Manage Your Biggest Accounts to Achieve Maximum Results


GINA ROLLINS


A major account may be many things to many companies. When it comes to the question of what constitutes a major account, however, there’s one criteria any executive – sales or otherwise – can agree on: A major account is any account that would really hurt if you lost it.


Call it whatever you want – major, strategic, national...even plus-size – if it would hurt to lose it, it’s major. While major accounts can represent


a huge payoff, they can also suck up resources and never reach their full potential if they’re approached without good planning and nurturing. Given


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the right combination of research, stra- tegic positioning, traditional relation- ship building, and a touch of patience, however, a major account can help put the entire sales effort comfortably into the plus column.


What exactly constitutes a major account is a beauty-is-in-the-eye-of- the-beholder kind of thing. Take one Virginia-based company, offering Web-based supply chain manage- ment services, which views its major accounts as companies that employ more than 5,000 people or have at least $1 billion in sales. On the other hand, one California-based company


ENY SETIYOWATI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM


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