I want to share with you a tale of woe.
One of my customers emailed me and mentioned they just lost two of their biggest clients. Their sales rep didn’t see it coming and had no idea there was going to be a change. Thus, we investigated as to why that happened. We discovered both accounts had one thing in common: the sales rep was only dealing with a single point of decision-making.
The Most Dangerous Number in Sales
Indeed, that sales rep didn’t have any influencers to build support with and was only in contact with one decision-maker. And when that decision-maker left—in one case, it was a retirement and his son took over the business; in another case, he moved on to another company—the new person brought in their friends, suppliers, and partners, leaving my client out of the business. What’s the lesson here? One is the most dangerous number in sales.
Build a Groundswell of Influencers
You need to build out a groundswell of influencers underneath your decision-maker that will support you when there’s a change—that will say, “Hey, you can’t get rid of that company. We love doing business with them.” You need to always know who the backup, likely successor, or other decision-makers are so that you can shore up your defences and risk mitigate against losing the business.
I have never seen a sale lost because one had too many contacts inside the account, but I have seen millions of business go away because one had too few.
