Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Fiat,
Yours is a problem that many are facing today. Yet, many of your competitors have selected a path of hunkering down and doing nothing.

Here are some suggestions:
1) Develop a description of the perfect target accounts. These need to be well defined as to exactly who makes the best prospect for your organization.
2) Identify these targets so that you can become involved early. The earlier in the sales cycle you become involved the greater your opportunity of success.
3) Establish a specific value plan for each of these customers.

Also,
Work to keep the accounts you already have. Many companies in your business maintain relationships at the engineering level. You need to also cultivate and build on management relationships. Remembering management people want to hear about your business benefit, not your engineering prowess.

Attract more and new customers - your people need to become actively involved in generating case studies suitable for publishing. These need to be focused on again the business benefit of your organization.

Instead of focusing on selling your services, ask your clients what services they currently need. It may be that they're not in an innovation cycle, but rather trying to figure out how to to better sell their existing inventory. Once you've identified their need, if you can help them directly, you're in good shape. If not, find vendors that can help them directly, and subcontract them out to your clients.

Consider looking in different regions or niches for prospective clients.

In a tough economy, it is necessary to focus on the value you can bring your clients, rather than the new and innovative products you can offer them.

I would take a good look at each of your product categories and target markets. Determine the value proposition you can bring to the table that will allow you to help those clients move through the challenges they are also facing.

For instance, if you offer products or services that will reduce costs for your target audience, promote the benefits of cost-saving. Or do you have a way to increase productivity, which would also reduce long-term costs. If you can't help reduce costs, perhaps your products will help your target audience become more efficient, which will allow them the opportunity to gain an advantage over their competitors?

If you approach the messaging from a client benefit standpoint, it should become relatively simple to determine which clients to target, and how to reach them. At that point, I would go after the low-hanging fruit - first target the clients that are the easiest sell, with the most appealing product lines and offers. This will help build the confidence of your sales team and give your numbers a boost in the short-term, which would provide you the boost you need to reach your long-term goals.