How larger companies can win business without winning new clients — internal networking & cross selling

When I’ve worked with larger organisations, particularly but not exclusively in the professions, something which is really common is to discover their own clients buying services they could provide, but buying those services from their competitors.

People often think of networking as something external, something outward looking, something to gain business or referrals from people outside the organisation. But the benefits of networking internally are often overlooked, and it doesn’t even have to involve breakfast meetings!

A common reason for this is not that their competitors are better, or lower priced, but that the customer simply didn’t know that the organisation provided those services.

Very often in an organisation we focus on our thing. In a firm of solicitors for example there may be a team specialising in conveyancing, one team in litigation, one in probate matters etc etc. Sometimes we become so focussed on our thing that we miss opportunities to do more business with a customer to whom we could provide even more value by providing them with the other services that they are already buying. We focus so much on what we are doing for that customer, that we miss that they are leaving us to walk straight over to the other supplier over the road to buy from them what they could have bought just across the corridor from us.

Internal networking and an active programme of looking for more opportunities has huge benefits to both the organisation and to the customer.

The organisation can win more business without expanding their list of clients or customers. The customer they benefit from having everything under one roof.

Win-Win.

So, how do we achieve that?

Ensuring that everyone, like everyone, knows everything that your organisation does. Yes we’ve all heard that everyone in the organisation is responsible for sales (you’ve all sat through the presentations where the sales trainer asks the rhetorical question “who is responsible for sales here”) but you really have to understand that means everyone. And not just those who are customer facing. Absolutely everyone needs to completely understand what the firm offers so that they can spot opportunities. And yes, that’s part of their role too. Some people will be better at it, but never presume that anyone is above, or beneath, knowing what the firm can offer to customers. You never know who is going to speaking to a client or dealing with a piece of paperwork and spot another opportunity.

So, not only does everyone need to understand how the firm makes money, but also feel that they are able to pass on leads and opportunities when they spot them.

Secondly, everyone needs to understand how to ask questions and deeply understand a client’s or customer’s situation. This doesn’t have to lead to a sale but the better you understand people the better you can serve them anyway. Help your team to get curious. Why is this client doing what they’re doing? The circumstance which led to the client being in touch with us today, what else has that led to, what else is happening in the client’s life / business as a result of that happening?

Sometimes it is as simple as making sure that a sales person who receives an enquiry asks a few questions to establish whether the client or customer is buying anything else that you can offer.

Organising specific internal networking events for everyone in the team makes so much sense and yet so few organisations do it. Something as simple as having one team present to the rest of the room about what they do and examples / case studies of clients they’ve worked with recently, every time there is a company wide event could be enough to give a team member that lightbulb moment.

Anything that might help one team member to think differently about a client or something that client has dropped into conversation could bring huge extra value to that client, and bring more business in, without even having to find a new client.

Not every team member will ‘get’ it, or see the benefit to them in thinking about their role and their intersection with clients and customers that way. But some will, and it will be enough to make it worthwhile.

As with everything else that we do in business, this isn’t about one hit. It is about consistent reinforcing of the message and the benefits to the individual team member.

Networking isn’t just about doing a 60 second introduction in front of a load of strangers, it is just as much about helping your team members get to know each other better. And by doing so, helping the business to not ‘leak’ sales they could so easily be making.

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