The Big One
Large companies have more leverage than smaller ones in regard to who they buy from, and if your only asset is low prices, you'll lose out to the lowest bidder—or be forced to become the lowest bidder yourself. "Selling on price guarantees that you will have to sell every project every time," said Emmer. "And it guarantees that your margins will continuously decline as the slow-motion reverse-bidding auction drags on."
Instead of price, focus on solving problems. Emmer recommended researching a prospect's needs, whether it's sales, customer loyalty, employee retention or something else, and finding a way to meet those needs. "[If] you position yourself as an asset to your client that works to bring about the specific outcome the client wants, they will continue to work with you long-term," he noted.
3. Clear Your Schedule (and your wallet)
Morsch cited time and cost as the two biggest challenges in working with large accounts. "The sales cycle can be four to five times longer for large accounts compared to small- or medium-sized ones," she said. "Also, many larger accounts require compensation of some kind to do business with them—for example, rebates or discounts. This has to be factored into the overall cost of the sale."
Ultimately, that can make large accounts less lucrative than they appear. The time required to land one large client might be spent on several smaller ones, resulting in greater total sales. "A single $25,000 order from a large account will likely have less total profit than five $5,000 orders from five smaller accounts," Emmer explained. "And the total time necessary to write the five orders might be less than the single big order. This can be further complicated if you realize that while salespeople are investing their time to hopefully get the big order, other business they could more easily get is being ignored."
