4 Ways Manufacturing Sales Teams Can Unlock Account Growth

Manufacturing sales teams are under pressure to grow strategic accounts.

But many are stuck in a reactive posture, responding to requests, quoting specs, and servicing known demand. They’re doing their jobs well. The challenge is, the way customers buy has changed.

Today’s buyers loop in more stakeholders from finance, ops, and engineering. They gather specs on their own. And they often engage sales teams late, after the shortlist is set and the solution scoped.

To unlock growth, account teams need a new playbook: one built to shape demand, not just respond to it.

Here are four shifts manufacturing sales leaders can make to equip their teams to lead, influence, and expand within complex accounts.

1. Shift from Service to Strategy

Manufacturing sales reps are often known for their responsiveness. They know the product lines, answer quickly, quote accurately, and keep the relationship running smoothly. But when it comes to influencing new projects, uncovering expansion opportunities, or gaining access to strategic decision-makers, they hit a wall.

Why? Because they’re trained and rewarded to service demand, not shape it.

The technical buyer asks for X, and the rep quotes X. But what if X isn’t the best fit? What if the real opportunity is upstream, before the spec is even written?

This dynamic shows up frequently in manufacturing environments:

• Most buyers engage sales reps after they’ve already defined the problem, scoped their needs, and begun narrowing down their options
• Reps default to quoting legacy SKUs they know best
• Conversations stay within a narrow band—procurement, plant-level ops, or maintenance

To change this, reps need to:

• Engage beyond the usual contacts and into engineering, finance, or supply chain
• Connect broader business challenges to less obvious parts of the portfolio
• Ask questions that surface misalignment or missed opportunities early

This isn’t about turning reps into consultants. It’s about giving them the tools to lead a more strategic conversation—one that aligns with how buying happens in manufacturing today.

When reps are trained to lead, they stop waiting for the spec. They start influencing what goes into it.

2. Equip Teams to Sell Across Silos

In many manufacturing sales orgs, account teams get locked into a narrow band of products and a familiar set of buyers.

This isn’t just about habit. It’s often the result of how account teams are trained and supported. A team member who handles fasteners or safety gear will naturally return to MRO or maintenance contacts. A capital equipment seller builds deep ties with plant engineers. People sell what they know, to the buyers they know.

But if your team is only equipped to sell one slice of your offering—and only to one type of buyer—you’re leaving significant revenue on the table.

Most manufacturers have a diverse portfolio: equipment, consumables, aftermarket parts, service contracts. These map to different stakeholders, each with their own goals and pain points. Yet because buying is siloed, and account teams often aren’t trained to bridge those silos, your full value remains invisible.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Account teams stick to familiar contacts and familiar product lines.
• Customers only associate you with a fraction of what you can deliver.
• Newer or strategic offerings get little traction.

The solution isn’t restructuring; it’s re-equipping. Leaders can:

• Train account teams to navigate complex org charts and build relationships across departments.
• Reinforce discovery skills that surface broader operational issues.
• Help account teams connect the dots between your full offering and the customer’s business-level objectives.

When your team sees beyond their product lane, customers start to see your company differently, not just as a vendor, but as a partner with range.

3. Help Technical Buyers Rethink Their Current Approach

Even when account teams connect with the right stakeholders, they often hit a wall: the buyer isn’t open.

In manufacturing, resistance to change is often structural. Engineers may have spec’d the current system. Procurement is focused on continuity. Changing suppliers means requalification and potential downtime. Even the strongest business case can be shut down with, “We’re good.”

Growth stalls not because the solution is weak, but because the message doesn't land. Account teams need to create receptivity and guide the customer toward rethinking their current approach.

That means learning how to:

• Acknowledge the customer's perspective without reinforcing it
• Ask questions that uncover misaligned assumptions or overlooked impact
• Reframe risk, from the danger of trying something new to the cost of doing nothing

For example, instead of leading with:

“This solution will reduce unplanned downtime by 20%.”

A better approach might be:

“How has downtime trended since the second line came online, and what are your operators saying it’s costing the team?”

Same insight, different outcome. One triggers resistance. The other invites reflection.

Most sellers struggle here because they’ve been trained to pitch value, not navigate resistance. They lead with insights before the customer is ready, or they retreat when they hit a wall.

This is what your teams need to master, and what leaders need to coach. Not just better discovery, but better delivery that earns an invitation into a different kind of conversation, and what leaders need to coach. Not just better discovery, but better delivery.

4. Coach for Situational Agility

One of the most overlooked levers of account growth is situational agility: the ability for account teams to adapt their approach based on the buyer’s role, priorities, and level of receptivity.

In manufacturing, those variables can shift dramatically across a single account. A plant manager may care most about uptime. A regional engineer might zero in on part tolerances. A procurement director could be fixated on vendor consolidation. What works in one meeting can fall flat in the next.

And yet, many account teams default to one-size-fits-all messaging.

• They reuse the same success story across facilities, even if the metrics aren’t relevant
• They focus on performance data with stakeholders who care more about budget cycles
• They push insight to stakeholders who haven't yet felt urgency to change

It’s not a messaging problem. It’s a mindset problem.

Situational agility means knowing how to:

• Diagnose where the stakeholder is in their decision process
• Understand what lens they bring to the conversation: technical, operational, financial
• Shift roles: from educator to collaborator to challenger, based on what the moment calls for

Leaders can coach this. Start by listening for signs of rigidity:

• Is the team presenting before they understand the buyer’s context?
• Are they leading with what they want to say, or what the customer needs to hear?
• Do they adjust when the room goes cold, or double down?

Here’s an example:

An account team is preparing for a follow-up meeting with a regional engineer. Their previous discussion with corporate stakeholders centered on cost savings and procurement strategy, so the team builds a deck that leans heavily into financial outcomes. But when the meeting begins, it's clear the engineer isn't engaged. She's focused on whether the new platform can meet specific performance tolerances and what changeover support will look like on the line.

The disconnect wasn't in the content. It was in the assumption that one message fits all.

What would agility look like instead?

• During prep, the team maps the stakeholder landscape and flags the engineer's likely concerns
• They tailor the presentation to include both technical reliability and cost outcomes, with flexible talking points that allow for emphasis based on the stakeholder's response
• They come ready with specific questions to confirm what matters most to this contact, and lead accordingly

It’s a smarter way to prepare, and it starts upstream.

Agility isn’t about being reactive; it’s about being aware. And for complex, multi-stakeholder accounts, it’s not optional. It’s the difference between having a presence and having influence.

Want to Unlock Growth Within Your Manufacturing Accounts?

Manufacturing sales leaders face a unique challenge: managing complex accounts with entrenched relationships, long sales cycles, and technical stakeholders who don't always welcome a strategic conversation.

The most successful teams don’t just respond better; they lead better. They plan upstream. They influence across functions. They adapt their message, create receptivity, and expand demand.

But that shift only happens when leaders make it possible.

If your account teams are strong on service but stuck on growth, let’s talk about how to change that.

ASLAN transforms sales organizations struggling to unlock growth within their accounts. Guided by our Other-Centered® approach, we equip teams to move beyond simply educating and responding, to proactively leading customers, shaping solutions, and creating new demand.

When account teams make these shifts, they don’t just protect the base. They expand it.