"We've worked with them for fifteen years. They're not going anywhere."
If you've ever thought or heard this about a major account, you're witnessing one of the most dangerous assumptions in B2B sales. The biggest risk to any incumbent supplier is complacency.
The longer you've worked with a customer, the more you feel you know them and their business, and consequently, the greater the risk of stopping paying adequate attention to what's happening.
The uncomfortable truth is, there is no such thing as a safe account. Things can change very quickly, and when they do, complacent suppliers often find themselves replaced by more attentive competitors who've been nurturing relationships and staying alert to opportunities.
Success breeds familiarity, and familiarity can make you vulnerable. When relationships become comfortable and routine, several dangerous assumptions start to creep in:
Each of these assumptions represents a potential blind spot that competitors can exploit. While you're comfortable, they're actively working to understand your client's evolving needs and positioning themselves as the solution provider of the future.
If your meetings have become routine and your contacts are the same cosy few people you've known for years, beware – you could be in for a rude awakening. Routine breeds complacency, and complacency creates vulnerability.
Consider these points. When was the last time you:
If these conversations haven't happened recently, you may be operating in a comfort zone that's more dangerous than comfortable.
Limited stakeholder engagement
Over time, many supplier relationships narrow to a small group of familiar contacts. This creates several risks:
Going back to the fundamentals of the Buying Cycle™, change is the agent that activates new business opportunities. This works both ways – change creates opportunities for new business, but it can also create threats to existing relationships.
Internal change indicators
Always be alert for internal changes within your client organisations. Look out for:
External changes can have profound impacts on your clients and, consequently, on your relationship with them. Make sure to keep a look out for:
There are many things you can do to probe into potential changes for your accounts, whether that’s organisational, economic or market changes.
High-level strategic discussions
If you have high-level contacts who know and trust you, engage them in discussions about future business strategy and its potential impact on the organisation. This gives you the chance to explore how you might help implement that strategy long before business needs filter down through the organisation.
These conversations should focus on:
Keeping multiple client contacts allows you to explore what's changing with a wide range of people throughout the organisation (which falls into the ‘Changes over time’ section of the Buying Cycle™). By remaining proactive, you should be positioned to spot likely needs arising from changes early, possibly even before the customer recognises them.
This early insight gives you the opportunity to work on these issues long before competitors become involved, putting you in pole position for any resulting opportunities.
Establish systematic approaches to monitoring account health and competitive threats:
Always be looking for potential business opportunities, and if none are immediately available, spend time exploring future plans and potential changes or, at the very least, reinforcing the value you deliver.
Remember that maintaining an account requires the same energy and attention as winning it in the first place. Complacency is a choice (and a huge risk). Choose to stay engaged, stay curious, and stay ahead of the changes that could threaten your most valuable relationships.
The accounts you think are safest may actually be the most at risk. Don't wait for a wake-up call to discover that your 'safe' accounts have been quietly evaluating alternatives while you were taking the relationship for granted.