VP of Sales Archives

How To Get More Business From Your Client Base

by Bill Poole | Mar 17, 2022 | Sales

Originally published on April 19, 2019. Since we know a lot has changed since 2019, we’ve updated the article in 2022.

One of the best ways to grow revenue is to sell more to your current clients. My friend Mark Hunter likes to say, “You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship.” Once you get a new client (especially a new Ideal Client) the selling and marketing shouldn’t stop. With the right marketing and sales processes in place, your new clients can now become a source of additional revenue.

In order to get additional revenue from your current clients, you must earn the right. In this article, you’ll learn several ways you can do this.

ETR – Earn the Right!

This week I learned a great acronym: ETR! Earn the Right!

As sales professionals we must Earn the Right to further engage with our current clients.

On the Selling From the Heart Podcast, Larry Levine and I frequently discuss the difference between sales reps and sales professionals.

Sales reps close deals and move on. Sales professionals open relationships and follow through.
Sales reps suffer from low customer retention. Sales professionals enjoy long-term relationships with their clients.

How do you ETR? Here are a few ideas.

Know The Client’s Business Goals

If you’re smart, you’ll open every sales conversation by asking about the prospect’s business goals and challenges. These goals will form the basis for the value that you present. Not only will this help you win the deal, it will set the stage for adding additional value and thus selling more products and services. If you understand your client’s business goals and challenges, you can recommend additional products and services to help them achieve their goals. Every business has multiple goals and challenges. I’m willing to bet that you have additional ways you could help.

Regular Business Reviews

The vast majority of salespeople close a deal and then move on. The true sales professional goes back after the deal to review the progress. A Regular (I recommend Quarterly) Business Review provides a regular touchpoint where you can:

Reconnect with the client’s goals and challenges
Review your progress in helping them achieve their goals
Resolve any issues (there are always issues!)
Recommend additional ways you could help
Request references

All of this begins with connecting to their business goals. As you earn the right to move from being a vendor to a partner you not only protect your base, you uncover additional opportunities in the account. As a bonus, you can ask for referrals.

Consistent Communication

Your clients know, like, and trust you for the core products you sell. They may not know about your additional solutions and services. You can certainly discuss these during QBR’s, but smart professionals take it a step further by making sure to always share new ideas. This can happen on your social profiles. It can also happen by sending helpful ideas to your clients.

For example, the other day, I saw an article that I knew would be interesting to one of my long-term clients. I took 2 minutes and emailed it to him. That article helped his business and also opened up a conversation about his net-new business development strategy. I now have an appointment tomorrow to talk to him and his VP of sales about implementing a Strategic Prospecting System!

Get Busy

Are you taking your current client base for granted? Stop! Your top ten clients are your competitions’ top 10 prospects. If you don’t take care of them, someone else will! If you do take care of them, taking the time to understand their business goals and challenges, there is a good chance you’ll earn the right to sell them more!
*This article originally appeared on LinkedIn Pulse on February 21, 2019. The article was updated on March 18, 2022.

How To Make Prospecting a Priority

by Bill Poole | Nov 9, 2020 | Sales

Growing your dealership should be a priority for 2019 - but how can you prioritize prospecting? Of all the things your dealership could do in the next year to grow sales, what could move the needle more than anything else?

In the book Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink tells a story that rings true in our industry. The CEO of a pharmaceutical company had all kinds of new initiatives including: (more…)

Buyer’s Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Outcomes

by Bill Poole | Jun 13, 2019 | Marketing

What you sell and what your clients buy may be two very different things. We think we sell products and services. What our clients really buy is outcomes.

Theodore Levitt, the father of modern marketing put it brilliantly: “People don’t buy drill bits, they buy holes.”

Your prospects don’t want to buy products, they want outcomes. For example, business owners don’t buy color printers, they buy color printouts. If you boil that down even further, they don’t really buy color prints. If they are printing invoices, what they are buying is the ability to collect money faster from their customers. If they are printing marketing material, what they are buying is competitive advantage and business growth. (more…)

How To Make Your Message Appetizing in a Bland Market

by Bill Poole | Jun 6, 2019 | Marketing

Having grown up in Canada, I love maple syrup. I remember Saturday mornings at the sugar farm. Each spring right as the snow was beginning to melt we’d head out into a grove of maple trees.

Each tree had a spigot with a small bucket attached. Sweet sap would drip into the bucket. We’d gather that buckets of sap and bring them the sugar shack.

Straight out of the tree, maple sap tastes like water with a few granules of sugar. When it’s distilled, delicious maple syrup emerges. It takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. It’s no wonder that maple syrup is so valuable—and tastes so good. (more…)

What Would Happen If You Told Your Prospects What Types Of Clients You Want To Serve?

by Bill Poole | May 30, 2019 | Marketing

This week I’ve been creating the website content for the new suite of services our team here at Convergo will roll out this summer (can’t wait to launch this!) It’s got me thinking about what our ideal prospect looks like.

We all have ideal prospects. These are the future clients that are a great fit for your business. They value what you do. They align with your values and culture. They recognize the value you deliver and are willing to pay for it.

We also all have prospects that are not a good fit: They don’t value what you do. They don’t align with your values and culture. Instead of recognizing value, they want to grind you for a lower price. While you may make a little bit of profit on the deal, you’ll lose all and more of it as your employees get frustrated serving a client that is misaligned with your company. Usually, these non-ideal clients end up leaving and are often your most vocal critics.

Idea: What if you told your prospects what types of clients you want to serve?

I think if we were more explicit about who we wanted to serve, good things would naturally happen. Ideal prospects would resonate with your values, vision, and culture. They would say, “Yes! Finally! I’ve been looking for a partner like this!” The non-ideal prospects would be repelled. How helpful would that be?

As I’m writing the content for our new website, I thought it made sense to tell our prospective clients what type of companies we like to work with. The hope is that it will create resonance with our ideal prospects while repelling our poor-fit prospects.

This is a work in process, but I’d love to hear what you think. Here’s my message: (more…)

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