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Throwing Good Money After Bad!
Document Actions
by Matt Simmons
This article answers the question: "Why are we still chasing this
prospect, when we have so many others that would love to do business
with us?"
In my role as the director of Sales for a large, Fortune 500 document services company, I discovered a common mistake being made. This company, like most of its competitors, had fallen into the old trap of "we always want what we can't have!"
It's human nature to desperately want something we can't have, and since the executives at this company are humans, after all, they too were falling prey to this same cycle of spending hundreds of man-hours and literally thousands of hard marketing dollars going after the clients that did not want to do business with us.
Selling in a marketplace with roughly 60 law firms that were in need of, financially capable of paying for and willing to pay for these types of document services, our sales account managers spent every waking minute on the 40 law firms that did not want to do business with us, when in reality our focus should have been on the other 20 firms that loved doing business with us.
About three months into my tenure, I began mentoring our 14 account managers on the need to focus more intently on developing and maturing our relationships within the 20 firms that loved us. The results were staggering!
We found that we were missing about 25 percent of each firm's outsourcing business, because the company was not fully aware of all of our service offerings. Now, 25 percent may not sound like a lot, but when it was multiplied by 20 law firms, revenues began to stack up very quickly. Over the ensuing 12 months, I trained and mentored my team members on becoming valuable assets to those 20 law firms and the respective buyers within each firm. We continuously interviewed our clients and found out how we could help them better, faster, differently -- you name it; it all came out in those conversations.
The hard result was an average same-client quarterly revenue increase of almost 30 percent. This simple initiative of focusing on the companies who wanted to do business with us had dramatic results both financially and culturally.
When you go into a questioning model with your clients, you become a valuable resource, not a stuffed shirt trying to peddle a commodity. Find the clients that have already said "yes," and find ways to do more business with them. When you are continually obsessing about the clients that won't do business with you, you are doomed to lose those clients who actually want to do business with you.
It seems like such a simple premise, but we are humans, and unless we take specific steps to avoid the impulse, we will always want what we can't have!
Matt Simmons is the regional sales manager for Apex Document Solutions, a company that simplifies the nightmare of sharing tens of thousands of documents between multiple people from multiple companies, such as during lengthy litigation cases. You can reach Matt at:
1717 Main St., Suite 3400
Dallas, Texas 75201
214-438-1620 Office
214-734-9320 Cell
www.apexdocuments.com
In my role as the director of Sales for a large, Fortune 500 document services company, I discovered a common mistake being made. This company, like most of its competitors, had fallen into the old trap of "we always want what we can't have!"
It's human nature to desperately want something we can't have, and since the executives at this company are humans, after all, they too were falling prey to this same cycle of spending hundreds of man-hours and literally thousands of hard marketing dollars going after the clients that did not want to do business with us.
Selling in a marketplace with roughly 60 law firms that were in need of, financially capable of paying for and willing to pay for these types of document services, our sales account managers spent every waking minute on the 40 law firms that did not want to do business with us, when in reality our focus should have been on the other 20 firms that loved doing business with us.
About three months into my tenure, I began mentoring our 14 account managers on the need to focus more intently on developing and maturing our relationships within the 20 firms that loved us. The results were staggering!
We found that we were missing about 25 percent of each firm's outsourcing business, because the company was not fully aware of all of our service offerings. Now, 25 percent may not sound like a lot, but when it was multiplied by 20 law firms, revenues began to stack up very quickly. Over the ensuing 12 months, I trained and mentored my team members on becoming valuable assets to those 20 law firms and the respective buyers within each firm. We continuously interviewed our clients and found out how we could help them better, faster, differently -- you name it; it all came out in those conversations.
The hard result was an average same-client quarterly revenue increase of almost 30 percent. This simple initiative of focusing on the companies who wanted to do business with us had dramatic results both financially and culturally.
When you go into a questioning model with your clients, you become a valuable resource, not a stuffed shirt trying to peddle a commodity. Find the clients that have already said "yes," and find ways to do more business with them. When you are continually obsessing about the clients that won't do business with you, you are doomed to lose those clients who actually want to do business with you.
It seems like such a simple premise, but we are humans, and unless we take specific steps to avoid the impulse, we will always want what we can't have!
Matt Simmons is the regional sales manager for Apex Document Solutions, a company that simplifies the nightmare of sharing tens of thousands of documents between multiple people from multiple companies, such as during lengthy litigation cases. You can reach Matt at:
1717 Main St., Suite 3400
Dallas, Texas 75201
214-438-1620 Office
214-734-9320 Cell
www.apexdocuments.com
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