Every business across the globe has one, it is that file cabinet stuffed full of inactive clients or electronic database file of the same – some for legitimate reasons and many for reconcilable reasons!

These are very possible acres of diamonds just waiting to be re-shined and engaged once again!

You must recognize the profitable potentials of those inactive clients that no one wants to go after and that everyone knows are present. So, before you pick-up the phone to call them, or reach out via an email or letter, or go to their place of business for an even better face-to-face meeting, do some research. The analytics will typically reveal that they left for one of or a combination of four core reasons.

• Financial Reason – they felt that they could get a better buy somewhere else; the value proposition for the price point did not have a meaningful enough impact on them to remain a customer; their budgets restricted them at the time to remain with you; Etc. ...! Time may have changed this reason?
• Product/Service Needs Change – they felt what they needed at the time of their departure from you, that you could not or they knew you could not meet their new needs! Time may have changed this reason?
• Perception – there became a feeling that as a vendor you don’t appreciate their level of business and that they have become a mere number on the roster of many clients, they decide to leave; there is a miss connect in their minds as to how they are being treated or where your business is going and that is does not include them! Time may have changed this reason?
• Communication Issues – there has been a series of miss communication, negative communication, poor communication, lack of communication, too much communication, non-appreciative communication, un-aligned communication form the organization that is in conflict with the customer’s values or beliefs! Time may have changed this reason?

If a sales professional analyzes a lost account from one of these four basic reasons it is very likely that they will be able to determine the reasons behind why that client became inactive. If the client left for legitimate reasons than remain positive. However, if that account became inactive for reconcilable reasons than go after that client with the BLENDS model.

Recognize which approach would be most productive in engaging that inactive client and initiating a healthy new dialogue. Use any one of these six strategies of the BLENDS Model for that added reconnection:

• B – directs you to contact an inactive account, which may require a lot of energy immediately after you have had an interaction with an exceedingly positive client. Use that contact as an added BOOST to reconnect with a lost account, as your enthusiasm can be contagious!
• L – send that inactive account a new LETTER introducing yourself as a new point of contact, what you have to offer that could make their life a better quality of life than what they presently have. In this letter, you can share testimonials from current happy clients, share collateral information, brochures, press clippings, etc., something with a call-to-action to raise the recipients level of interest to either accept your inbound call or even reach out to you for a conversation.
• E – EXAMINE the EVIDENCE as to why they stopped being a customer. Set your personal emotion and bias aside, and read the historical documents from the lost customer’s perspective. Based upon those findings determine how you could be assist them in today’s market place based upon the products/services you now offer.
• N – offer to perform an account NEEDS Analysis for them free of charge. Many new clients can be gained and many inactive clients can be regained by you partnering with them and providing your expert analysis on how to proceed, operate, what to produce, how to produce, what to be preparing for in today’s market based upon your consultative knowledge free of charge!
• D – DO SOMETHING for them. Contact them, introduce yourself to them and offer to do something for them, that only you can do and which would have value for them!
• S – provide them a current SAMPLE of what you do that may be something that they may not be aware of and which brings value to their cause/needs.

Blending into your typical daily activities some activity in the area of account redevelopment of inactive clients is a great way to move to breathe life back into those dead accounts.

Realize that the “dead accounts” have been dead for sometime, due to the inability of anyone attempting a concentrated campaign of working them.

And the odds are that within a few attempts of this strategy you will have given up on them as well – but the true sales professionals will pace themselves and blend this account development work into their “Sales Funnel” along with all other account development activities; Deploy this strategy in concert with Rule 1-52-X™ also presented within the Performance Driven Selling® theories.

Let me know the results. Reply to this blog.