How do you deal with contact turnover in an account? How do you turn this into an opportunity?
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Ideally you anticipate the churn because you have a great relationship with your contact and ask for them to include other folks. When it is a quick or unwanted change on their part, you should've already attempted the multithread to multiple contacts.
If none of this is the case you re-prospect the account and learn a hard lesson. Messaging to the new contacts should reflect that you've already connected and engaged with their company with no presumption that they'd also be interested in BUT letting them know you understand some of the challenges they're aspiring to solve.
Great question, like Zeenath stated, key is preparing so it is not a surprise. Do your best to have relationships with multiple targets in the organization you are working with or trying to sell to. If in a sales situation, having saved previous presentations and recordings will help prepare for this. If you are coming from the reference of account management, this is definitely an opportunity.
One opportunity is to re-allocate staff. If you have been wanting to shift staff or integrate a junior person, this is a great time to do that. Also a great time to re-sell your services. I find often client do not realize all we do and lump us into one category of services. When there is a new person comes in we can be sure they know we do C,D and F - not just A and B.
Always tough when a stakeholder especially a key decision maker or influencer or budget holder leaves. We have to re-sell in to the new person who takes over. That's why it is always important to build and strengthen multiple relationships within an account.
In some situations, new stakeholders bring in fresh perspectives and open to explore what you have to offer. In some situations, they might want to wipe out whatever their predecessor have created and they might be eager to implement something new.
In whichever case, establish relationship with the new contact in account and treat them as how you would with a new client.
One key to dealing with account turnover is to not make any assumptions. The new person in the role may have a different point of view than the former contact. Prepare for new conversations with insight and value-add. Be prepared to share the impact and outcomes either expected or delivered and also recognize that your new contact will have new ideas.