How to prospect and sell to key accounts

Selling to key accounts means understanding their specific characteristics. A key account is not necessarily an account with which you generate a large amount of sales. It is the structure of the account that determines whether or not it falls into this category. So what exactly is involved in selling to a key account? What strategies should you adopt? What actions should you take? Philippe Baschoux, sales management expert, explains.

What's special about selling to key accounts?

Contrary to popular belief, a key account is not an entity with which you make a large turnover. It is in fact a a national company and often international with a complex structure. Whether centralised or local, the decision-making centres include many key players who are involved in strategic rather than technical or functional choices. Large ministries and local authorities may also fall into this category.

Selling to key accounts requires perfect knowledge of all the decision-making channels, not just economic ones, and of the key players who link or divide them.

There are also political issues between the central group and the local entities. Power struggles are frequent. The terrain is full of pitfalls that you need to be able to detect and defuse, which requires experience, interpersonal skills and, above all, patience.

1. Mapping a major account

Entering a major account means setting foot in a territory that you need to know perfectly well in order to operate under the best possible conditions. To do this, you need to map the account.

This action, which can take several weeks or even months, involves identifying all the key players who are directly or indirectly involved in all the decision-making processes.

For each of these players, it is important to know :

• their internal position: are they on the up or are they being sidelined?
• the limits of their real power: for example, the power to draw up a short list of suppliers is not the same as decision-making power on a major account...
• their exact role, not as they present it to you, but as it is assigned to them by the hierarchy. What is their position vis-à-vis your company or your offer?

In short, you need to put each of the key players in the equation and see which ones you can rely on to move your pawns forward. What are their personal and professional sources of motivation?

2. Identify the potential of each key account entity

A major account is represented by dozens of entities, subsidiaries and establishments, sometimes all over the world. So it's a question of identifying the 'breach' in the 'wall'. Where are you going to focus your efforts?

The potential of each entity must be measured against a common unit of work. Potential does not mean a sales figure to commit to, but rather a forward-looking vision of what we could, in the long term, plan to produce from an entity.

Depending on your business and what you sell, the unit of work will be different: number of managers to be equipped, surface area to be processed, tonnage to be produced, turnover achieved with customers, proportion of outsourced turnover, etc. This potential is calculated without taking into account the position occupied by competitors, and therefore in absolute terms. Other indicators, such as probability indices, will then be used to weight the potential in order to express an achievable objective... So why measure this potential? For two essential reasons:

• Focus your efforts, which are always time-consuming, especially for prospecting, on entities that will enable you to recoup this investment
• Objectively compare the potential of the portfolio allocated to sales...

3. Develop a strategy for penetrating key accounts

The first steps involve mapping out the terrain in which you will be operating. Getting to know your contacts, identifying those who will help you, understanding their motivation, measuring their potential - in short, drawing up your "staff map". Then you need to go on the attack, i.e. choose the weak point that you are most likely to break through.

On the other hand, identifying an entity where the pain may not be perceived as such today, but could be tomorrow (in a forward-looking approach), enables you to position yourself ahead of your competitors. What's more, you'll be creating value with this customer, as you'll be offering them important help in coping with future challenges.

How can you detect this existing or potential 'pain'? Meet VITOs, understand the development strategy of major accounts, identify internal struggles, understand the changes in the businesses in which your customers are positioned, from an environmental, technological, functional, regulatory, political and human point of view...

4. Implement a structured development plan

It's a long road to a major account sale. It is therefore essential to have benchmarks against which to measure the progress of the project. What's more, a certain amount of cross-checked and verified information is essential to the success of ongoing deals.

To achieve this, we need to use what the Anglo-Saxons call a milestone. This is a list of the main stages from the discovery of potential interest in your offer to delivery, i.e. the implementation of the solution on the customer's premises.

Composed of 8 to 12 stages in principle, the aim of this development plan is to structure the sales approach into as many stages as possible, resulting in deliverables, i.e. relevant information that will enable you to calmly consider continuing to invest and work on the account. Any stagnation in a stage reveals a stumbling block that needs to be addressed. For example: not having been able to identify all the decision-making circuits, not having met all the players involved, not knowing whether the customer is feeling any "pain", whether he has been able to put a figure on it... These are all uncertainties that weigh heavily on your project.

This structured development plan leads sales staff to build their sales action plan. First objective: obtain missing information. Second objective: temporarily or permanently suspend business that is not a real strategic project for your customers, or that is not budgeted for at VITO level...

In this way, the sales force can focus its energy on the most promising projects that are most worthy of attention. This development plan eliminates the overly subjective feelings of the sales person, who sometimes expends considerable energy...

5. Strengthen the needs assessment phase

What is the requirements qualification phase, one of the key stages in the development plan mentioned above?

All your customers have needs, expressed or otherwise, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're ready to buy. Are VITOs aware of the benefits of adopting your solutions? Do they appreciate the loss of revenue if they do without? Are they looking to the future to justify an investment they don't consider essential today? Depending on regulatory, geopolitical, organisational, environmental, economic and competitive developments, will this investment prove essential to the long-term future of the account?

Often, in order to stay one step ahead of the competition, the key account sales person has to educate the VITOs, then influence their decision-making criteria, meet the real decision-maker - experience shows that on a key account it is rarely the buyer - lobby on the account, have a 'sponsor'.

What's more, operational staff will express a need. But a customer can never ask you what they don't know.

The added value of a sales person is not in responding strictly to the demands of the person they are dealing with (especially in operational terms), but in involve the company's management in a broader vision, integrating a forward-looking approach.

To do this, learn to question the "what" (the interest) rather than the "how" (the solution imagined and expressed). Don't forget that you're the expert!

All too often it is botched, leading to disappointment and unnecessary expenditure of energy... A point of reference? Once the requirements qualification phase has been properly carried out (and it can sometimes take a long time), there should be no technical, functional or financial objections... Barring unforeseeable technological, regulatory, political or geopolitical developments. The aim of monitoring is to limit this possibility.

6. Lobbying a major account

The importance of lobbying when selling to key accounts is essential. Because of the sums involved, in particular, it is important to favour the "top" management approach, rather than that of operational staff. Many decisions in business and public life are taken for reasons other than those we might imagine.

What our customers buy from us is rarely what we think we're selling them.

Pierre Drucker, economist.

So it's up to you to be creative.

Key account salespeople, their managers or their CEOs must make every effort to cross paths with VITOs. This doesn't necessarily mean calling them to make an appointment, because that would only be possible if you were a key player in the market, in a large company, and if you already had a turnover that was visible to the VITOs.

On the other hand, these strategic players attend conferences, participate in high-level seminars and are members of business networks (e.g. the Wine and Business Club). There is a whole literature on these networks and how to join them. There, in a context disconnected from their company, you can bump into them, exchange business cards, prepare a short meeting with them, and so on. pitch elevator with the aim of getting an appointment... Be careful, these networks are subject to ethical rules. You take your time, you don't take your catalogue out of your pocket...

Then, during the meeting, engage them in a conversation in which you forget about the technical, functional and product side of things, and tackle them using Co-prospective®. This business intelligence tool enables you to find out about the company's environment, how it is developing, its level of maturity and the personal motivations of your contacts... In this way, you prepare the ground for more solution-oriented approaches.

7. Use a sponsor to infiltrate the key account

Sometimes referred to as a champion in commercial literature, a sponsor is a player who, for reasons of their own (but never venal, as they are bound by a code of ethics), is prepared to provide you with information that they would not normally give you. Be careful not to confuse someone who is in favour of your offer (for logical, factual reasons) with a sponsor.

It takes around 6 months on average to establish a relationship of trust, create close links and gradually test it. For example, it is this "sponsor" that you can call the day before an important meeting and who will give you valuable information. This is the person you turn to if the buyer mentions a last-minute competitor the day before the negotiation. You'll then be able to call their bluff.

On a different note, the series The Office of Legends describes this sponsor as a spy. He has a single case officer, you, who has made him your "sponsor". He won't do the same with another of your colleagues. A personal bond has been created.

Thanks to this "sponsor", you will learn all the secrets of the key players, their tactical alliances, their disagreements, their ambitions...

8. Increase the probability of winning a case

The key account sales approach targets high-intensity business, i.e. business that meets the customer's strategic needs, for very high amounts. We must therefore aim for a minimum business transformation rate of around 70 %.

This conversion rate is no accident. It is the result of precise work, according to specific rules. This methodological approach, the milestone, allows us to take all the necessary precautions to avoid unpleasant surprises. For example: "What could be a risk that I haven't yet thought of? It also allows you to examine the terrain in which you are operating (mapping) and to obtain all the necessary information (thanks to the "sponsor").

A major account can be put into an equation. With experience, you can identify the invariants that have been systematically present in past successes and failures. As a result, you are almost certain to increase your chances of success. On the other hand, if these elements are missing, your project is off to a bad start.

Generally speaking, a maximum of 15 items should be considered, with 2, 3 or 4 possibilities for each of them, which will award points to the project.

The sum of the points obtained, taken together with the maximum number of points possible, gives a percentage or probability of success.

It is important that most of these items are mutable. Through hard work, commitment and tenacity, the sales person will be able to improve their score over the months... If nothing changes, the sales person will have to be changed, or the business will have to be abandoned because it is too risky.

9. Avoid mixing genres

Selling to key accounts requires specific qualities. You have to enjoy investigating, thinking ahead and asking questions. It requires a significant investment of time. In some fields, such as IT or ESN, you sometimes have to wait a year or more to reap the rewards of your work.

This means that the remuneration of key account salespeople must take this into account, as they will receive commission less often, but for high turnover.

The mistake most often observed in most structures, with the exception of American structures, is to entrust the same individual with a few major accounts that require a great deal of energy and a significant investment of time and, to ensure a regular income, SMEs or large companies that do not fall into the major accounts category.

As it is easier and less costly in terms of time and energy to work on "small" accounts, there is a risk that the sales person will not focus sufficiently on key accounts and will not be able to develop truly profitable business there. They will go for the simplest and most lucrative in the short term, which is understandable from a human point of view.

To sum up, if you decide to set up a key account structure, start with 2 or 3 entities with one sales person, and don't give them any other accounts. Pay them a fixed salary, so that they can take the time to invest their time with confidence. Then, building on the initial success, you can appoint a second salesperson to 2 or 3 other companies. Finally, you can set up a key account sales department, with key account managers or global account managers if the accounts are international.

So before you start selling to key accounts, think about whether it's the right thing to do. Plan the resources you'll need and the results you expect. Likewise, train your sales force so that they approach key account sales in the best possible conditions. Finally, enlist the support of a consultant with real experience. That way, you can avoid mistakes and help your sales force to succeed.