One of the most important aspects of growing sales in a fast-growing SME is recognising the need for appropriate structure within the business. The reality is that you don’t need to have great numbers of customers or a large sales team, but you do need to be able to manage those customers and “grow” them.
This is sometimes referred to as the “farmer” approach (as opposed to the “hunter” or business development role within the business) and it is absolutely the case that if your offering is perceived by the customer to better meet their needs than those of the competition, then you will get repeat business.
The issue is that often existing customers, where trust has already been established, don’t always recognise the fact that you have other products or services that they could purchase from you. I have lost count of the number of times that I have heard customers say of trusted suppliers “I didn’t realise that you could offer that”
Customer retention is an important measure of performance improvement within an SME, but equally important is the level of repeat business for new products or services from these existing customers.
To me, there is a real integrity in ensuring that those existing customers know through effective communication and management, that you can provide these additional services.
So, if as an SME you organise your resources to carefully nurture your key accounts and manage them accordingly, you will see a much-increased number of enquiries, resulting in increased growth.
Good, effective Key Account Management is a real skill where the individual is consciously aware of the growth potential of the business and can actively move the relationship with the customer to a new level. Always remember that it is ten times more cost effective to develop business with existing customers (where trust is already established) than having to win new business.
