How are your wins (and value for your customers) being promoted in your customers’ organizations? Are they promoted at all? I have had periods of time where I have been focused on closing the next deal and forgot to promote the value of a project recently completed. What is an effective approach to ensure the right people in your customers are aware of the value your company is providing?
Who should manage the perception of value your company provides – YOU!
If you are assuming the mid-level manager you worked with on a project is going to promote the value your organization provided, you may be disappointed. Let’s be honest, your customer contacts want to look good internally and are more likely to promote their accomplishments. Customers may have good intent to ensure your company gets some visibility, however, they get busy with other priorities.
No one will do a better job than YOU in ensuring visibility of how your company helped your customer.
Drive the process
Documenting the project and results are critical. Managing the communication is equally important. Here is an outline of the steps:
- Develop a draft document including summary of the project, key people involved, results and value for the customer.
- Collaborate with customer management you worked with on the project regarding:
- Document content
- Who it should be shared with
- How it will be shared
- Scheduling meeting(s) with customer senior management to review
- Particularly if you were not able to personally present the summary to senior management, follow up to get their perspective on value provided.
An example of a summary slide…
Find ways to ensure your customer’s senior management is aware
Sometimes it can be difficult to gain access to senior management at a customer. Be creative…if you have an executive that your customer may be more open to meeting with, create a brief summary (e.g. half page/one slide) for them to review with the customer. If you can somehow ensure your customer’s senior management is aware of the value your company provides on a consistent basis, you will elevate your relationship with the customer and new business will be easier to pursue.