In the final segment of my six part series on “Practical Leadership Insights about Leading during a 
Transition” I will focus on the following:
Get prepared for customer turnover; your entire customer base (key contacts) will turnover at least one full time over the next 36 months. As a leader, you must develop the right insight and skills to deal with that change and those transitions.
One of the most startling realizations of the “new normal” of business is that the key contacts – customers and prospects alike – will have 80%-100% turnover every 36 months. As we have mentioned previously, gone are the days of a customer having a 30 year career at one company. It is replaced instead by people jumping to new jobs and new organizations at least 10-12 times during their work lives. The concept of “strategic” or “consultative” selling is based on building long term sales relationships and the implication is that this process is one that develops over years. In 2016, longevity of direct customers in length of years has been replaced by months. A new approach is now needed.
So what are Business and Sales Leaders supposed to do in order to make sure that sales and revenue goals are attained and are not disrupted by direct customers within strategic accounts leaving and creating serious gaps? Here are three tested recommendations that come from our Strategic Business Selling practice:
Make multiple contacts and develop “Sales Succession Plans” within your strategic accounts
What would you do if you knew that your customer is not going to be your customer? You would have a plan to develop multiple relationships. I continue to be amazed at the lack of recognition of this challenge by most sales professionals I work with. Call it laziness, or call it a lack of sales training, too many sales people have one key customer and don’t make the extra effort to build a strategic account plan including developing what I call the “Sales Succession Plan.”
The Sales Succession Plan is the sales person’s forecast for who will replace your customer should that customer leave. Once identified, a plan of action to develop a relationship with that person (if it is an internal choice) is imperative.
Create System Lock-In
In an era where strong relationships are no longer a differentiator, one of the most important things you can do to protect your business if a customer leaves is to create a level of system lock-ins. System lock-ins make it very difficult for the next contact within the customer account to replace you or start the sales process over.
System lock-in can include things like:
- Long-term contracts
- Deep customization or proprietary products/services
- Having your delivery or service employees working at the customer location
Take a look at your key accounts and determine if you have any system lock-ins. If not, it’s important to start developing a plan as soon as possible.
Keep Great Records
It sounds simple, but we all know the truth about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems; they are valuable and expensive tools that sales people don’t really like to use.
In this day of constant customer turnover, it is imperative that your organization keeps great records about the account and what has occurred over the past few years.
Think through this example. You’re the Account Manager for your customer called ABC, Inc. and you have a strong relationship with your direct client, Sally Jones. One day Sally decides to leave ABC, Inc. for a new job at XYZ, Inc. Instead of ABC promoting someone from within, they hire Dave Williams from the outside. You don’t know Dave, but quickly realize he has a relationship with your main competitor. As Dave comes into the role, he doesn’t know anything that has occurred during the past few years. If your organization has great records, you can use that information to brief Dave and get him up to speed on what you have provided and perhaps develop a relationship. If you don’t, then you have very little information, history, or value which will then quickly open the door for your competitor.
