Account Profiling – 30 Questions To Ask About Your Customers’ Business

To get to know your customer’s business, or that of a prospect you’d like to become a prospect, get to know the answers to these questions:

[geoads2]

1. Who owns the organisation? Are they part of a Corporate Group?
2. What type of business entity is it? What subsidiaries do they have?
3. Do they have a web site? Have you visited it?  What key data was available?
4. What is the current sales turnover? What market share do they have?
5. Did you originally open this account? If so, with whom and are they still there? If not, who did, and who with and on what basis were you chosen as a supplier?
6. Who are their major 3 competitors? Have you visited any of their web sites?
7. What is their true sales trend? –  Their true profit trend?    {Growth – Plateau – Decline?}
8. Is their market growing/declining/stable?
9. When is their financial year/When do any Contracts Renewals fall due?
10. What are their 3 most profitable sales items/products/services?
11. Can you name their 6 key customers? Have you visited their Web-sites?
12. What is their main competitive advantage offered to their customer base?
13. What is their annual budget spend in your product area?
14. How many other similar suppliers do they use? Why is this?
15. What factors affect their buying policy?
16. What are their key business growth objectives for the future – next 2-3 years?
17. What strategy are you considering putting in place to assist this growth strategy?
18. Where are the decisions made? HQ/Regionally/Autonomously?
19. What does the Decision Making Unit comprise of:
20. Decision Makers/Influencers/Roles and Responsibilities
21. What does the Decision Influencing Unit comprise of:
22. Decision Influencers – those with and without “authority”, balance of power?
23. Who holds financial responsibility for the budget in your product area?
24. Where does the economic purchasing influence lie?
25. Where does the technical purchasing influence lie?
26. On what basis do they select a supplier? Do you know the Top 6 factors?
27. What do they currently buy in total? (Noof lines/products/services etc.)
28. Which of those items do we supply – now? Does this include all the add-on options?
29. Which of those items are we not supplying? Do you know why this is?
30. What account development strategy is currently in place for this account?
31. What amendments do you now have to consider making to that strategy?

[geoads3]