Need more renewals? Reverse-engineer your thinking

Learn how to close more renewals—ella’s way

One of the biggest mistakes a salesperson can make is taking renewals for granted. The initial sale is simply the first step in a long line of actions that can help grow your revenue via a number of channels: upsells, cross-sells, referrals, and—for those of you who like recurring revenue—renewals.

It should be a given that once you’ve made a sale, you work to create and maintain a positive relationship. How?

• Don’t disappear once the contract is signed.

• Ensure a smooth onboarding process.

• Make yourself available as a point of contact in the event your customer has a question, issue, or problem.

That’s Renewals 101, right?

But the real key to successful renewals: understand why the customer might cancel.

Yes—you have to reverse-engineer your thinking because many customers don’t renew for the same reason they bought from you in the first place. To ensure renewal success, you have to ask questions that give you answers to a different question: why would the customer cancel?

Does your product meet an ongoing need, or was it purchased to solve a one-off problem?

If there’s an ongoing need, that’s an easy lead-in to the renewal conversation. If the original sale solved an isolated problem, then the customer may not be a great candidate.

What’s important to your customer right now?

Priorities often change. Is your customer still on the same trajectory they were on when they first made the purchase? If the answer is yes, they’re more likely to renew than to cancel.

Have you stayed in active contact with the decision maker?

If you followed my advice on maintaining customer relationships, you’ve hopefully kept in touch with your customer even after the contract was signed. Chances are you already know the answers to the first two questions if you’ve managed your relationship well—and that personal touch will also benefit you when it’s time to renew.

If you haven’t kept in contact with the decision maker, don’t know what’s important to him or her right now, and/or selling your product to solve a one-off problem, you may need to focus your energy on a different renewal opportunity. Rank your customers by likelihood to renew before you get started with the process. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and effort—and increase your chances of renewal success.

Happy renewing!