Lesson 1

If you’re really into B2B, then you’ll know all of your customers pretty well because they’ve been ordering from you for a while and should continue to do so for quite some time to come. The reality is that many vendors, for whatever reason, not only dislike administrative tasks like maintaining databases, but also view their customers as their customers, not as businesses.

action point

Make sure your business keeps an up-to-date record of top decision makers and key influencers. If necessary, give the database a non-threatening title, such as Holiday Card List.
Cost: £ zero

Lesson 2

Who are your most important customers? Are they the customers who spend the most with you? Are they the ones that give you the highest margin or the highest profit? Or are they the organizations you currently do business with but could do much more?

action point

Make it clear to sales teams exactly what kind of customers are important, what kind of mix is ​​required, and why. You may need the large accounts to pay overhead, the high-margin accounts to contribute to profits, and the growth potential accounts to fit into the growth plans you have. Not to mention the inevitable customer churn. Once this is done, the Director of Sales can manage how time, effort and resources are spent, making sure they are in line with their plans.
Cost: £ zero

lesson 3

We all need to sell more to stay put due to the nature of customer churn. Under pressure to produce Growth Plans, we must always keep in mind the “risk hierarchy” map. This hierarchy is divided into three stages.

Low risk is selling more to existing customers.

The medium risk is selling your existing range to new customers and selling new stuff to existing customers.

The high risk is selling new things to new customers.

The safest route to take is to sell more to your existing customers and the easiest way to do this is through Windows of Opportunity.

action point

Take the list of your most important clients (the Christmas Card List), perhaps also using Pareto’s 80:20 rule to further refine the list, placing the names in the left column. Then, at the top, list the products or services you offer. These can be Nuts, Bolts and Washers; Valves, Pumps and Actuators; o Public Relations, Writing and Consulting. Now, in front of each element of the matrix, put the estimated level of penetration (or shared portfolio) that you have with each client against each product or service that you offer. Show this as an approximate percentage, 100%, 80% or 30%, something simple that everyone can understand. You may need help from sellers on this. Better yet, use delivery drivers. They often get to see inside customer stores and know who is buying what from whom. This is your Window of Opportunity.
Cost: £ zero

lesson 4

So far, this exercise has cost you nothing but time, effort, and the embarrassment of not having this vital data on hand in the first place. Now we should have in a single spreadsheet a list of the key decision makers and influencers in your most important customers, cross-referenced with who buys what and how much of their spend they have. This list needs to be prioritized a bit more.

action point

Take the list of clients and add a column for Annual Revenue. This can be for the last year, or the last twelve months, or even the last six months annualized. Now sort the list with the highest earning customer at the top.
Cost: £ zero

lesson 5

Adjusting the list based on windows of opportunity can have a huge impact on the direction of the business as a whole. It’s best to take the full penetration figure rather than the individual scores for each market segment, as this next stage doesn’t want to get too complicated.

action point

Create a new column titled Overall Penetration and stick to simple percentages like 50% or 75%. Now divide the income by the percentage figure and the result should be the potential of the account. Sort the spreadsheet again, with the highest potential, shown under Bills, at the top. This should be a list of your softest targets.
Cost: £ zero

lesson 6

We have already covered customer churn in this exercise. Some churn is inevitable (mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies all contribute), but in general, at least two-thirds of customer migration can and should be caught before it happens. If you have a 15% churn rate, it should be possible to reduce that number to just 5% in a few months, thus putting an additional 10% into the revenue forecast.

action point

To do this, you need to listen to your customers. Discover its little things. Find out if there are personality conflicts between your sellers and your buyers. Find out what’s stopping them from giving you all of their business; Pass it on to other buyers of your goods and services within your organization. And find out what issues might be prompting them to look elsewhere.