Over the years I have seen amazing customers with huge revenue potential on my clients’ customer lists, yet the revenue they are receiving is only a small proportion of the overall potential. Rather than growing these accounts, these LSPs tend to focus on finding new customers.
Don’t get me wrong, new business is important, especially if your LSP is over-reliant on one or two accounts for revenue, but why not secure additional business from existing accounts where you already have credibility, a positive track record, contacts who can recommend to other buyers of translation services within the company. There can be logical reasons for not exploiting every business opportunity within your largest accounts, but why not try to win the additional business that fits well within your expertise?
As @Thomas Edwards recently posted, we are in an uncertain, sometimes turbulent, market. During these times clients avoid the taking risks and that includes seeking new suppliers. Now is the time to develop your existing accounts (IMO it’s right all the time). Why?
- Untapped revenue potential:
The language services industry touches just about every department within an organization. While an LSP may not want certain types of translation projects, there are usually many opportunities to sell your services across the enterprise: HR, marketing communications, customer service, legal, regulatory…the list goes on and on. This is a great way to secure additional revenue at a lower cost and more quickly.
- Your contacts know people:
Your existing customer contacts know people in other departments, other product groups or divisions, etc. Leverage your relationships with these folks. I bet they would be happy to refer you to others when asked, but may not think of it on their own. They may not realize the breadth of your capabilities or understand who else in their company might benefit from your translation services. Help them understand this and suggest people or departments you’d like to serve. Chances are they will know someone and be willing to make an introduction. Remember, what others say about your LSP goes a lot further than anything you say about yourselves.
- Higher win rates & faster sales cycles:
Although not always, winning business from other people within existing customers is a much more reliable and lucrative way to increase revenue, especially via referrals. Win rates are higher, sales cycles quicker and momentum for even more referrals is established. One of my British clients took this suggestion very seriously: account manager asked for 10 referrals from a client, got 7 and got 3 small projects nearly immediately after being referred!
- Ring-fence against your competition:
The deeper and broader your reach within large accounts, the more strategic you become and the more difficult it is for competitors to penetrate the account and replace you. You’ll have developed an unrivaled understanding your customer, built custom solutions for many different people/departments who trust you and possess far superior TMs and custom technology/processes. The combination of the above builds a strong relationship with your client and less likely to be enticed away. Trust me, your competitors are calling your clients all the time. Probably every day. Don’t let them take your client away!
These are but a few of the benefits LSPs can gain from a solid account management strategy. There’s a lot more where this came from so stay tuned!
