Solutions
From our work with both startups and Fortune 500 companies, we identified three pieces of information that could quickly impact a salesperson’s ability to increase revenues in their enterprise accounts.
Our research showed that large accounts, organizations with annual revenues over $1 billion, operated very differently than other smaller companies due in large part to their size.
- Buying Groups – Because of their size they had multiple buying groups that made decisions on their own. These groups were divided by geography, divisions and product lines. And rarely, if ever, was a salesperson aware of all of these individual buying groups.
- Budget Approval Schedules – Due to their size, geographic disbursement and the need to operate effectively these organizations have more formal purchasing schedules and guidelines. Missing these deadlines for a salesperson meant fighting for money allocated into general budgets as opposed to getting approved and included into their annual budget.
- Executive Relationships – Due to the size and number of employees – reaching a senior executive level decision maker) is much harder and using the clout of your own executives is much more effective than using lower (LinkedIn) types of relationships or connections.
These items (Buying Groups, Budget Approval Schedules and Senior Executive Relationships) can be used together or separately depending on each sales teams products, account disbursement and sales approach.