Proposal skills alone are not enough. What is the "TAS Sales Strategy" for winning large-scale deals?
TAS Sales Strategy
Overview
In this article, I will introduce "TAS (Target Account Selling)," a sales framework that increases the win rate for large-scale deals.
Introduction
"I was confident in my proposal, but for some reason, I lost to a competitor."
If you work in sales, you have likely experienced this at least once.
I also hit the same wall with large-scale deals when I was younger.
The sales style that worked for small and medium-sized enterprises did not work at all when dealing with large corporations.
That is when I encountered "TAS (Target Account Selling)" as a sales strategy.
In this article, I will introduce the TAS concepts that have been helpful in my actual sales work.
Why are large-scale deals difficult?
As deals become larger, they have the following characteristics:
The number of stakeholders increases
Evaluation criteria differ by department
The number of competitors increases
The decision-making process becomes complex
.
For example,
The user department prioritizes "ease of use," the IT department prioritizes "operability," the procurement department prioritizes "price," and management prioritizes "return on investment." Even within the same company, evaluation criteria differ completely depending on the position.
In other words, you cannot win large-scale deals just by creating a good proposal.
Who do you tell, what do you tell them, and in what order?
How will the competition move?
Who is the decision-maker?
A sales strategy that looks at the big picture like this is necessary.
The wall I felt with large-scale projects
When I was young, I was mainly in charge of sales for small and medium-sized enterprises.
As I gained experience and became able to make proposals in my own way, I felt that I was growing little by little as a salesperson.
In the midst of this, I was assigned to a large-scale project for a major financial institution.
At first, I thought, "I can win if I polish my proposals just like I have until now."
However, the reality was completely different.
The silos between departments were strong, and the ways of thinking between departments were so different that it didn't seem like the same company.
A proposal that was highly rated by the user department was not evaluated by the information systems department.
When I met the demands of the systems department, the business department would then not be satisfied.
"You cannot win large-scale projects with proposal skills alone."
That was an event that made me keenly realize that.
Meeting TAS
Around that time, I took a training course on the TAS sales strategy at my company.
Honestly, I had a strong belief that one learns best through practice, and I didn't really like classroom training.
Even so, this training is the one that still leaves a strong impression on me today.
Because the things I had been struggling with intuitively until then were systematically organized as a sales strategy.
"So that's why large-scale projects were difficult."
I still remember how that realization clicked for me.
What is TAS?
TAS (Target Account Selling) is a sales strategy framework for winning large-scale deals and strategic accounts.
It is not simply a method for creating proposals.
It is a way of thinking that involves analyzing customers, competitors, and your own company from multiple perspectives,
to strategically consider
"how to increase the probability of winning the deal."
What I found particularly useful in practice was the approach of organizing sales activities into the following four processes.
The four processes of TAS
1. Opportunity Assessment
First, you determine whether you should even focus on that deal in the first place.
For example,
Does the opportunity really exist?
Is there a possibility that our company can win?
Can we differentiate ourselves from the competition?
Is this a deal worth investing time and effort into?
Calmly assessing the situation before accepting a deal is also important for large-scale projects.
2. Competitive Strategy
Next, you compare your company with the competition.
Our company's strengths and weaknesses
Competitor strengths and weaknesses
Evaluation points from the customer's perspective
Scenarios for winning against competitors
We consider our winning path while anticipating "what weapons the competition will use in their proposal."
3. Customer organizational analysis
The most distinctive feature of large-scale deals is this organizational analysis.
It is not just the organizational chart that we analyze.
Who is the decision-maker?
Who is driving the project?
Who holds influence?
Relationships between departments
Informal personal relationships and political dynamics
By organizing this information, the sales approach becomes clear.
4. Action plan
Finally, we translate the analyzed content into sales activities.
For example,
Who to meet next
What to confirm
What information is missing
What the competition will do next
What actions should your company take?
It is important not to end with analysis, but to connect it to concrete actions.
Summary
For large-scale deals, creating a 'good proposal' is not enough.
Assess the deal, analyze the competition, understand the customer's organization, and connect these to concrete actions.
TAS is a systemization of this series of sales strategies.
Personally, since learning this approach, my perspective on large-scale deals has changed significantly.
Of course, each process has specific organization methods and procedures that can be put into practice.
While this article has only covered the overview, in the future I plan to...
How to proceed with deal assessment
Points to check in competitive analysis
Concrete examples of customer organization analysis
How to create an action plan
...and more, introducing each in detail on a practical basis.
I will continue to share information based on my actual experiences in the field of sales and things I 'wish I had known when I was a young salesperson'.
I will be delivering practical know-how on sales, AI utilization, proposal skills, and document creation that you might think 'I can use this starting tomorrow,' so I would be happy if you could follow me.
Thank you for reading until the end.
Recommended articles to read next
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Step 3: Organizational Analysis
Step 4: Action Plan
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Deal Evaluation Sheet (Excel)
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