involved in school foodservice auto- mation technology views their major accounts as school districts with more than 40 schools.


“The definition of a major ac- count depends on the perspective of people doing the sales, but usually fits two criteria: There’s potential for using more than one of your product lines, and there’s an opportunity for a lucrative long-term relationship,” explains a sales trainer in Georgia.


ANALYZING THE SITUATION A major account may already mean it’s providing high-volume or high- dollar sales, or it still may be in the “prospect” category. Whether it’s a heavy hitter or a would-be, the pro- cess of ratcheting up the return from a major account starts with meticulous customer analysis. “You have to go through a detailed planning process to understand the potential of an ac- count. A lot of salespeople lose valu- able time pursuing what they think will be major accounts, but they aren’t. To avoid that, you have to understand the politics, strategies, and needs of each account and develop an action plan to help achieve its goals,” con- tends a sales consultant from Texas. The intelligence gathering should be top to bottom for both vendor and purchaser. Talk with the customer. An- alyze such public documents as 10-Ks, annual reports, and other company publications. Assess your own goals. Size up the competition. The goal is intimate knowledge of the market and both your and your customer’s strate- gies and market positions.


The GE Matrix is a good model for conceptualizing pluses and minuses and plotting strategies around ac- counts, according to an associate professor of marketing. Taught in B-schools as a way to evaluate stra- tegic business units, the matrix works equally well for customer valuation. “It can be used to determine which accounts to give the most attention to, and it forces a company to think carefully about who is a good cus- tomer,” he says.


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One technology support provider has distilled its approach into a meth- od it calls “the customer engagement life cycle.” The proprietary process “wraps our company strategy around creating customer value,” explains the company vice president of enterprise accounts. Teams of people develop two plans: One assesses the overall account; the other outlines opportuni- ties. In on the analysis are people who will have a hand in servicing the ac- count, including salespeople, project managers, program managers, and solution architects – operations and logistics technical-support staff. The end result: “a strategy for aligning our solutions with our customers’ business drivers,” she says.


The discovery phase – learning about the customer and the competi- tion – is arguably the most critical. “A big part of any sales executive’s job is gaining information, because we can’t sell anything unless we’re delivering value. The only way to do that is to understand the customer’s needs,” she observes.


Behind-the-scenes data is valuable, but the real information treasure trove can be found in face-to-face meet- ings with customers. “We try to find out exactly what our client’s business objective is and why whatever they’re


doing today caused them to consider an alternative. That’s something we learn in the first meeting, and we use that as leverage for the rest of the sales cycle,” says a senior vice president of sales. In these sessions they seek projects that have executive support and financing and that add strategic value for the customer. As important as flushing out a good opportunity is recognizing when one doesn’t exist. “If there’s not much of a gap between the time, energy, and effort you’ve put in so far versus the projected return you could get from that account in your wildest imagi- nation, then it’s probably not worth working on,” says the VP.


Another showstopper is when the customer’s needs and your com- petencies are out of whack. For example, the company may want one global account, but you don’t have and can’t readily develop the capability to distribute to its far-flung operations. “If you can’t provide the relationship and product, the account can go down the tubes. It makes it incumbent upon you to say, ‘This is a good customer, but we don’t have what they need.’ You need to go where you’re needed, not where you want to be needed,” observes the expert.


VIDEO: THE POWER OF CHARACTER WITH RICK “DOC” WALKER AND DR. WILLIE JOLLEY


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