I need a way into the parts of my key account where we have no relationships.

I need a way into the parts of my key account where we have no relationships.

Some key accounts limit how vendors reach their other departments. The way in often runs through the sponsor you already serve and the problems their own program is struggling to solve.

Five questions to see if your team can do this job today:

1. Has your team mapped every business unit in the account and what each one spends in your service area?
2. Does your team know the client's rules for how vendors reach its other units?
3. Does your team gather feedback on what's slowing down the client's own program?
4. Does your solution help your sponsor reach their goals for the whole organization?
5. Would your sponsor promote your team to the other units on their own?

Two or more no's, and the rest of your key account may never hear your name.

We were averaging $1.8M annually in revenue with just one of 80 business units in this account. We knew they spent closer to $12M each year in our service area. The problem was the client forbade selling by any vendor to its business units.

We couldn't sell, but we were allowed to run client surveys. We built one to coincide with our quarterly business reviews so we could share the feedback with our executive sponsor in real time. The #1 issue cited was quality. The #2 issue was responsiveness: the sponsor's model ran all 80 business units through one client contact, which created a massive bottleneck. The #3 issue was reputation, as units had started working with "rogue" suppliers.

Our solution was to keep working through the sponsor's system and expand her team with five of our own dedicated resources to improve service, quality and responsiveness for all business units. It was focused on helping our sponsor realize her strategy and achieve her goals.

Our sponsor started socializing this model in all her meetings and became our best salesperson. We did not increase our pricing.

After 12 months, we had grown from 1 business unit to 80. Without making a single sales call, we grew the account 470% in two years.

Structure your service around how the client wants to work, arm your champion with the story, and let the model do the selling for you.

Our system, the Vitality Index, shows your key account teams where they stand today, the work it takes to level up, and how to do it, until they reach a vital partnership that lasts.

If you couldn't make a single sales call, how would your team reach the rest of your key account?

We built a free, 4-minute Key Account Risk Assessment. It gives you a risk score for your key accounts across team alignment, account planning, account transitions, and visibility. Link in the comments.