As we all reach the halfway mark for 2019 and start rolling towards the second half of the year, have you put in the work with prospects already in the pipeline to frontload Q3/Q4 or are you behind and even having to start from scratch? Maybe you’ve been so focussed on hitting those short-term monthly and quarterly targets that not enough forward preparation has been done going into the latter part of the year. Whatever the case may be nobody wants to stall for too long, if at all, with the summer break looming.

The beach and those summer getaways are starting to look more and more appealing, so if you don’t make some headway with your tougher/less-responsive target accounts soon then it may not be until September…

Can you really afford to lose that contact time?!

Take a step back momentarily and analyse the work you’ve already done with your key accounts – which ones are ticking along ok? Which top targets still need further work? And which targets do you want to chase down next? You should have a plan for each and every one of them. If you don’t, then start it now!

Once you’ve decided on who to focus your efforts on, then comes the ‘How?’ Some of you will already have action plans in place, but are they cemented and has everyone bought into them? Or have you got ‘rogue’ people in your Sales team going off-piste and only for the ‘low-hanging fruit’? Get your frontline Sales and Marketing teams on the same page and working collaboratively, only then can you really plan the ‘How?’:-

• Curate and compile any relevant company/business insight on each target prospect
• ‘Top of the funnel’ content - what does it look like? Issues-based? Storytelling?
• Communicate with lower-level end-users to build rapport and uncover further insights
• Engage through various methods - phone, email, video, social, LIVE events. Is there a preferred medium?
• Deliver relevant personalised messaging and content to each contact
• Have a clear idea of issues, needs, business ambitions and budget before contacting a decision-maker - you can’t force there to be a problem

At BuyingTime we truly believe in genuine engagement and contact coverage with some real thought and reason to it across every single ABM or Target Account campaign. It doesn't matter if it's over a few weeks or a number of months, the first touch point or further down the line, keeping communication ongoing (although not forcefully) is key.