{"id":12007,"date":"2019-10-31T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T08:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandler.dsstaging2.com\/case-study\/will-they-stay-or-go\/"},"modified":"2022-10-24T23:00:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T23:00:03","slug":"will-they-stay-or-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/will-they-stay-or-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Accounts: Will They Stay or Will They Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We all know the statistics. Most selling organizations\nderive 80% of their revenues from 20% of their clients. Winning a new major\naccount costs up to 20 times more than keeping a current one. And even a small percentage\nincrease in a firm\u2019s major client retention rate can have an exponentially positive\neffect on revenues \u2013 while similar decreases can produce negative financial\nimpacts, often devastating and long-lasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to this the emotional and operational\ntrauma following a major client loss, and it becomes clear how important it is\nfor selling organizations to focus strategically on the goal of retaining these\nvaluable assets. The problem is, most organizations aren\u2019t built for the\nretention of major accounts. Keeping large enterprise clients is typically\nviewed as a long-term initiative, one that\u2019s inevitably overshadowed by the\ndaily mantra \u201cWhat have you sold today?\u201d Think about CRM systems, with their\nopportunities, probabilities and weighted values feeding forecasts, quotas and\nbudgets. Those activity command centers have little or no connection to account\nretention. Our organizations are typically structured to take swift advantage\nof opportunities, and to fix short-term problems that could create obstacles\nnow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, all clients expect responsiveness.\nBut enterprise accounts are a special case. They are marketplaces in and of\nthemselves, ecosystems demanding a focus that goes far beyond the reactive. Understanding\nwhat really matters to each unique major account is strategically vital. And\napplying that knowledge to the critical factors that impact retention, specific\nto each account, greatly increases your chance of holding on to the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do you establish an account retention\nframework \u2026 and how do you integrate it into a \u201cWhat have you sold today?\u201d\nmodel? If the retention model doesn\u2019t align with the everyday touchpoints your\nteam already has with your major account, it\u2019s worthless. If it\u2019s integrated\ninto your annual account planning exercise, completed and returned to the shelf\nuntil the following year, that\u2019s no help either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your retention process must be based on\nreality, on the fundamental reasons why major accounts partner with you for the\nlong term or part ways \u2013 the way they answer the age-old question that\nparaphrases a classic song by the Clash: \u201cShould we stay or should we go?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sandler Enterprise Selling, the Account\nRetention Tool provides a practical, powerful framework for improving your\nmajor account relationships by focusing on those critical \u201cstay or go\u201d reasons\nvia 16 Critical Retention Factors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n