If you want to increase your chances of retaining your partners and clients I highly recommend you focus on helping them to derive value from what you have sold them.
Too many people sign partnership agreements, purchase software, take stands at exhibitions, then don’t make the most of the opportunity and complain when they don’t obtain their desired ROI – sound familiar?
As a business developer it’s your role to show your partners and clients how they can turn each of the features you have sold them into benefits.
Here are three examples to illustrate the point.
Example 1
Lets imagine that as part of a partnership agreement a corporate obtains a hospitality table for 10 people at a prestigious event.
Here are two scenarios,
The first scenario which I see far too often is where the corporate fails to plan to make the most of the opportunity and close to the event realises that they have ten tickets unallocated. In a bit of a panic they fill the seats with the usual suspects; people they already have a relationship with. A nice event is had by all and warm relationships are maintained. But is that good enough?
Planning is key to realise potential
The second scenario is where with more thought and planning a corporate could make so much more of the opportunity and derive so much more value from the 10 tickets.
They could with planning allocate:
2 tickets as an employee incentive or reward – telling the story on video through social media channels of why they gave the reward (the 2 tickets) to those employees; in doing so recognising and promoting the values they want to embed in their organisation.
2 tickets to two key prospects that have been hard to engage.
2 tickets to their best two clients as a thank you.
(Tip -sit your best clients next to your prospects – let your best clients sell you).
2 tickets for a consumer promotion that promotes their backing of the event through media channels.
2 tickets as a raffle prize at a charity event which promotes their partnership to a different audience.
You can do a little with 10 tickets or a lot!
Planning is key to realise potential
As the business developer, sit down with your partner at the beginning of the relationship and work through how they will derive the maximum from each feature you have sold them.
Taking a “lets plan to maximise the value of each feature contained in the partnership” approach will mean the difference between a partnership that is OK and delivers some value, to one where your partners says “We got so much from that partnership, let’s do it again next year.”
Example 2
Similarly, I see too many organisations invest heavily in databases and software only for the investment not to be realised as the employees haven’t had enough training to extract the value. As business developers we want a happy client, so providing a little extra training and tips to help your client’s employees to extract the maximum benefit (even at an extra cost to you) could generate greater rewards for you in the long term.
Example 3
A frequent comment I hear from business developers is that their client or sponsor has not used all the features and benefits that are available to them as part of their entitlement and as a result do not see full value in the relationship.
A number of organisations I work with offer venue hire as part of an overall package to companies and it’s not uncommon for the company not to use their full entitlement and then not to value venue hire as a benefit.
This is despite the fact that organisations spend a small fortune across all departments on venue hire for team meetings, training sessions, planning days, social events and their AGM.
Find the person with the need
The key in any successful sale is providing a solution to the person that actually has the need, the pain.
In my observation, each department in a company makes decisions independently of each other on venue hire and it’s usually the Executive Assistants that are given this task.
These are the people with the need who require a solution, not the person that is managing the overall relationship such as the Marketing Manager or Sponsorship Manager.
Action to take
The key is to ensure that the people with the need in the organisation are aware of the features and benefits that you offer which can address their need.
In this example, the key would be to ask your main contact to find out the total spend across the organisation on venue hire. I would suggest that this will be an eye opening exercise for the organisation!
Having helped them to uncover the pain (spending too much money) and identify a real need (to save money), you can then provide them with a solution saving them tens of thousands of dollars a year.
They can’t book it if they are not aware of it
The key is then to develop communication material to go to all the Executive Assistants to make them aware of the venue hire options, how to book the venues and the price that they would pay if they were not getting the venue free as part of the package. You can then demonstrate at the end of the year the cost saving to the organisation and the value that you have generated.
Find the person with the need, provide the solution and demonstrate value
In summary
As a business developer it’s your role to show your partners and clients how they can turn each of the features you have sold them into benefits.