I’m seeing a trend across multiple industries for Fortune 1000 companies related to their struggles at customer expansion in smaller segments.

The typical operating model is to determine how many accounts one account executive can service. Accounts are often tiered by some combination of current revenue, growth potential, vertical, and/or company size:

• Larger accounts – those that make your company the most money – usually get a singular AE who is managing either just that one relationship, or potentially a handful
• Smaller accounts may have an AE with a book of business that includes 100+ companies

Larger accounts get AEs with a smaller list of customers they work with for a higher-touch experience.

When talking with an AE, I’ll ask how many of their accounts would they say they really know. And the answer is always about 20%.

For that other 80%, it’s typically just a transactional relationship because it’s impossible to spend time with each one. Maybe you check in with them once a year and it’s a sales fishing expedition (as I like to call them). Or it’s the couple of times a year they reach out needed help.

This isn’t an AE’s fault. They only have so much time in the day and they have goals to prioritize towards.

I see this in insurance, banking, technology, etc. Heck, I asked my Salesforce AE how many accounts he has just the other day, and to his credit he answered – the number was 120. Not surprising in the slightest!

Challenges

There’s four ways organizations lose. I’ll save the one you’re probably thinking of for last.

Growth

Finding scalable growth and providing advice (vs. just asking a bunch of BANT criteria-style questions) with companies you don’t have time to learn seems an insurmountable ask.

When you’re focused on 20% of your book of business, it’s impossible to identify which accounts in the 80% might be ready to move into your 20%. Some might be, but you’d only be guessing.

And when you do finally connect with an account with potential to grow, you face another hurdle:

Experience

Nobody likes feeling like they aren’t giving their best. But as one banker told me recently, “I feel like I’m barely keeping up with my meetings that are back-to-back-to-back-to-back and I have no time to prepare for them.”

It leaves him in a bad spot – he has to go generic with his questions, advise, etc. and that reduces his ability to add value for each customer or prospect he speaks with.

This, in turn, reduces the chances that someone on his meeting will want to buy anything – or anything additional. And it’s a treadmill that eats away at his calendar on a weekly basis.

Cross-Selling

One of the hottest topics in insurance is how to sell more policies. How can you get a health insurance expert to introduce property and casualty to their customer … or a property and casualty seller introducing health insurance?

You can’t due to licensing, and so typically cross-selling involves introducing another executive in a different division. But it’s like oil and water because the first AE doesn’t understand the area they’re introducing and now they’re being asked to bring another seller into their account. It invites risk, so they’ll take the path of least resistance and avoid it.

It makes cross-selling a friction-filled experience that AEs don’t want to do.

Being able to break down these barriers internally so that teams work better together and AEs aren’t afraid to broach a topic they barely know is a different approach than what most companies do today. And it’s costing them share of wallet in the easiest path to growth: their current customer base.

Retention

Was this what you first thought of? Many will, and you’re right, of course!

If you just feel like a line on a spreadsheet that’s contacted once a year, then it’s far easier to switch companies when you feel ready to do so. The same goes for your customers.

If their one interaction with you each year is being introduced to their new AE every year, that makes your company far more expendable when renewal times comes around.

What to do about it

I’ll lean on one of our insurance clients and a story they shared with me.

They have thousands of SMB customers, and in one geography they’ve sold an average of 1.2 policies per customer. And traditionally, they done what most companies do outlined above – very little contact with most of them, and it’s transactional when it is.

They deployed 9Lenses globally to help their client executives be more consultative vs. just rubber-stamping what they did last year.

What each executive does is send out an email inviting each customer to take an assessment that takes roughly 5 minutes. And when the customer completes it, they get recommendations based on their answers that map to current solutions the company offers.

So imagine an AE sends this to 100 customers, saying “Hey! You’ll find value in this new assessment, it gives you personalized recommendations and then we can meet about those specific topics so I can give you more information to help you understand what’s available.”

If 10 respond, that AE now knows the 10 most likely accounts with growth potential. And s/he will provide a tailored, helpful experience on their call because they’re both working from the same data around which products or services are the best fit.

The value of a meeting changes completely for both the executive and the customer thanks to these digital advisory tools.

The gains available:

1. Growth – identify more accounts with interest. It’s like intent data, only it’s direct feedback from the customer
2. Experience – AEs show up prepared, because even if they’re hopping from meeting to meeting, they have tailored topics based on the customer’s answers
3. Cross-selling – There’s no awkward introductions necessary, just a simple confirmation of product interest and then an introduction to the right person to discuss this further
4. Retention – The relationship between AE and their accounts is stronger, leading to longer lifetime value

Generalists Can’t Do It All

This is where you stop and say “but Tom, we’ve trained our reps on everything.” I don’t doubt you! But we both know how impossible it is for a rep to understand the ins-and-outs of everything your company offers.

Even moreso if, like a previous example, you have licensing parameters to consider on what conversations a rep can even have.

So, what do you do? Here’s an example of a banking client of ours:

Their banking officers have to know all industries ranging from retail to manufacturing, wholesale, food & beverage, the list goes on. It’s the full gamut.

But they were really struggling with healthcare. That’s because the way money flows in healthcare is vastly different, what with insurance, co-pays, etc.

These bankers were having a hard time understanding the customer’s processes and cash flow. Sales leaders told me they were having to meet with doctors to figure things out, which is a lose-lose situation since those meetings took doctors from seeing patients (and thus hurt the doctor’s revenue).

It strained their relationships – even though it was in the pursuit of better-understanding and serving their customers.

This bank then tried something new: they created a healthcare-specific advisory tool focused on revenue cycle payments.

It included healthcare-specific questions their sales execs were not able to ask … and then make the right recommendations based on the answers.

Now, instead of multiple meetings and whiteboard sessions over a few weeks, the doctor spent 10 minutes providing answers and immediately received actionable feedback – while the executive found a better understanding and more easily had the details unique to each health clinic.

All because this bank’s sales leaders were willing to do what it took to provide both their teams with a better understanding of their customers + approaching it in a customer-centric way that was a win-win for both parties.

That’s one impactful story of how the 9Lenses platform helps.