Worst Case Scenarios: Sales Edition

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Salespeople are, by nature, optimists. If they weren’t, they would never be able to endure the beatings taken along the way to a successful career. Tomorrow will always be better than today. Your business will grow. Your client base is secure and your customers are happy. Regardless of the economy, someone is always buying. Print is not dead. To the contrary, it is thriving for those who think creatively and harness its power.

But for all your optimism, salespeople, there is room for pessimism in one important part of your job: protecting against losing an account. In this case, it’s better to have a, “What’s the worst that can happen?” attitude. Thinking through client-killing possibilities is exactly what’s needed in order to keep customers in the fold:

» A Key Contact Leaves: Over the course of your sales career, this will happen to you in equal proportions. For every one time you lose an account because a key contact has moved on, you will gain an account when a client of yours lands elsewhere and takes you with them. Both scenarios are completely out of your control. But while you can’t stop a decision maker from leaving, you can prepare for that day by spreading out your network of contacts within any one account. Make it your goal to get to know every single employee. Pay special attention to the junior executives. They are tomorrow’s decision makers. Plus, they are the most likely candidates to move on, giving you sudden and wonderful access to new business. To be clear: This scenario is not an, “if,” it’s a “when.” Start preparing now.

» Better Prices Come In From An Aggressive Competitor: Low balling in order to buy your way into an account is not some secret sales tactic. It’s commonplace. The days of fat margins and cradle-to-grave customers are behind us. You need to assume someone is meeting with your customers and showing them some eye-popping numbers. Buyers love to justify their existence by quoting out every order, new or repeat. You, in turn, need to justify your existence by reminding the customer why they buy from you. Do you remember that job you dropped off last month? The client gave you an insanely tight delivery time and you met it. There were sincere thanks from a grateful contact, giving you warm feelings but also the comfort of knowing you had just built some longevity and loyalty at the account. While that might be true, it is still incumbent upon you to point out to your customer — along with anyone of any consequence nearby — just how valuable you are. Send an email detailing your amazing work, then send it to the customer while CC’ing anyone and everyone. Thank them for their business and remind them in no uncertain terms: This is why you do business with me.

» Company Gets Bought Out: This is one of the worst phone calls you can get. Due to absolutely no fault of your own, your account is now owned by either another company or, even worse, private equity. I can still vividly recall the conversation I had many years ago when a pharmaceutical company bought my biggest account; an account where I was deeply embedded and which made up more than 50% of my business. I remember calling my wife saying, “You were here at the beginning. You might want to come home early today so you can be here at the end.” But a funny thing happened instead. An overwhelming majority of people I was working with were not keen on the new owners. So, they moved on to other companies. As a result of this unexpected outcome, my company more than doubled within two years. Side note: One key factor in this success story was a promotional product I had handed out everywhere. It was an 18" metal ruler with my company name and phone number printed on it and the customer’s name engraved. For many years, I would receive phone calls from people who got my number from that gift.

» Company Goes Paperless: It’s a popular belief to think the elimination of direct mail in favor of email is equally effective and dramatically cheaper. Tell that to Nordstrom. Tell that to J.Jill. Tell that to Cabela’s. A few years ago, these companies followed this “Let’s save some money” thinking and in each case there were disastrous results. For example, someone at Nordstrom convinced management to kill off their regular print message to their 12 million Nordies (the company’s best customers). As a direct result (according to Eric Nordstrom on an earnings call), the company suffered a $3.5 million loss in one quarter and blamed the elimination of print. There is plenty of information on the power of print to be found online: the percentage of spam in a day (90%+); the sheer volume of traditional mail versus email; horror stories of companies that cut off their nose to spite their face. Look it up and share it. Convince/remind your client base that one of print’s greatest attributes is to augment online efforts. As these companies can attest, print is eliminated at your
own peril.

» You Get Lazy: The worst thought you can have about an account is this: “They love me.” While possibly true, this thinking can lead a rep to take the client for granted. Even the earlier story about meeting that crazy-tight deadline can be the catalyst to losing an account. You need to keep working for your customers. You need to be pessimistic in your belief that any given account requires no additional servicing. Make no assumptions. Constantly bring each account new ideas. And make certain you bring to their attention exactly what you are doing: “I will never take your business for granted. I know you’re getting calls from my competition and I want you to be able to tell them we are not back on our heels.”

Unless you have a time machine in your garage, you cannot go back and change the past. Once the account is gone, the chance to stop it from happening is also gone. It is too late to do anything except be optimistic it will return and sit on the sidelines like a kid waiting to be asked to join the game. Instead, consider the worst-case scenarios and take steps now to prevent that dreadful, “Um, I have some bad news…” phone call. Think the worst now, act on those thoughts, and you won’t have to experience even worse later.