Interview Story - Building Relationships

When I was working as an account rep for PaperCo, I was successfully managing over 20 different client accounts and was tasked with landing a prospect whom we had been trying to land for over two years.

I saw an opportunity to win this client through my ability to develop relationships and relentless persistence.

First, I contacted the account reps who had reached out to this prospect before to learn from their experience. I discovered that none had ever managed to schedule a live meeting.

In order to land this meeting, I used every approach I could think of. In addition to personally calling and e-mailing regularly, I also sent this prospect paper letters and catalogs and had two of my other customers call on my behalf. After 3 months, and an introduction from a mutual connection, I finally landed the meeting.

While scheduled to last just 45 minutes, the meeting ran nearly 2 hours. During that conversation, I listened carefully to each of the client’s concerns and offered potential solutions. Most importantly, I was able to resolve the biggest hang-up— namely, the customer’s fear of charts and spreadsheets. As a solution, I offered the client a simplified way to manage their orders and agreed to speak with them over the phone, as needed, to make the order process more comfortable.

By the end of the conversation, the client seemed interested and comfortable but wasn’t yet ready to sign on. I stuck with it. After a few more weeks of follow-up, and an additional two phone calls to iron out details, the client jumped on board. I successfully landed a $120,000 account, and the customer is still with us 3 years later.