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Selling to key accounts: a specific sale 

What is key account selling? 

Selling to key accounts is different from traditional transactional selling in several ways: 

• Many stakeholders
• High stakes with important impacts for the seller and the buyer
• Performance driver

How to sell to key accounts? 

A key account sale is not carried out in the same way as a classic transactional sale. The relational part will be essential. It will indeed be essential to find someone within the buying company who will be an ambassador or sponsor.

Why sell to key accounts?

Selling to key accounts has great benefits for a company. 

• It provides references that give credibility to the company
• For the same turnover, selling to large accounts is much less time-consuming than selling to multiple smaller customers
• It enables the financing of the company's fixed costs and investment through sustainable and high volumes of turnover.

The 4 rules of the balance report for selling to key accounts

Rule 1: Choose your fights

Before you start, it is essential to know who the real sponsors and opponents are. 

It is also necessary to ensure that the project is not a "non-project" and that it therefore combines these 4 elements: 

• Issues and a trigger
• Decision-makers and a sponsor
• Money
• Timing

Rule 2: Get objective data

It is also essential to collect objective data in order not to miss any major events.

In practice, it is therefore necessary to record as many verbatims as possible, in order to have the most precise understanding of the client's needs, and not to work on an interpretation of the client's needs.

Rule 3: Maximise your resources

It is important to optimally allocate a salesperson's time according to the value of the prospects.

It is therefore necessary to use all the resources, on several channels that are currently available: CRM, marketing channels (LinkedIn) ...

Rule 4: Facilitate co-construction

Selling to key accounts also means selling a joint construction in an agile manner. 

This is done in 3 steps: 

• understanding the situation and the issues
• the vendor's recommendation 
• the implementation of the next steps in detail (timing, actions, people)

To go further on the subject of the Chessboard Method©, we recommend this webinar, hosted by Fabien Comtet, CEO of KESTIO: https: //www.kestio.com/webinar-vente-complexe