Successful Large Account Management Strategies for Account Managers
Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule can be seen in action in many organizations – but sales is where the effect becomes crystal clear; existing clients account for a large chunk of revenue, yet organizations focus their attention on acquiring new customers at the expense of existing ones. Treating valuable assets with greater care requires dedicated resources, which might not be feasible because of various reasons. Even in such cases, understanding and practicing successful large account management strategies and processes can help in extending the good work done at the time of sale closing. For small and medium businesses where sales teams wear many hats, it can add more value to existing customers through these methods. Guide: Comprehensive Career Path for a Key Account Manager What is large account management? Large account management can be seen as a highly scaled up version of Key Account Management, as it also focuses on long-term relationship building in a mutually beneficial way, between a vendor and their key customers. In-depth research and assessment help large account managers find opportunities that can be used to drive value for their organization. Identifying problems faced by large clients and offering creative solutions can leverage partnerships better, and get closer to achieving their strategic goals. A successful large account management program not only fosters customer loyalty, but also stimulates growth, increases profitability, and drives innovative solutions that can be scaled. While sales functions focus on customer acquisition and short-term selling, large account management weaves deeper relationships with core customers. The immediate impact on revenue overseen by sales, can grow exponentially over time if large account managers work their magic. Learn More: Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Large Enterprise Account Planning Processes involved in large account management An effective and successful large account management program relies on formal, measurable, and repeatable processes to enable better partnerships with key customers. The factors that play a part in the success of a large account manager are quite similar to that of a key account manager: 1) Dedicated large account managers form the first line of requirement of any program that aims to provide and derive value. A program that assigns dedicated account managers who are separate from sales, so that their priorities aren’t split between other functions. The difference in the objectives of sales and large account management require different skill sets and approaches, as establishing customer relationships is vastly different from nurturing and maintaining them. Being analytical and approachable helps large account managers to build rapport with customers and provide strategic inputs on the growth opportunities. 2) Developing selection criteria distinguishes key accounts from large ones, and allows managers to provide necessary value to take the partnership forward. A shortlist of selection criteria derived from the alignments between the two organizations can drive focus on the actual issues, instead of the most recent ones. Picking three to five objective criteria, weighted according to their importance to the organization, reduces confusion among the Key Account Management team. These criteria can include product fits to customer needs, revenue and growth potential of the customer, cultural fit and geographic alignment, further partnership potentials, and so on. These factors vary from organization to organization, and different departments can designate key clients based on different criteria too. Having senior management take the lead can reduce confusion, as they can align the strategic goals and vision of the organization or product. This also streamlines the handover process from sales teams to large account management, and a formal, scripted handoff works well. This step, done regardless of the ‘key’ or ‘large’ nature of customers, leads to a central information repository that can be tracked in the account system. 3) Keeping up with the customers should begin as soon as large accounts are identified, or maybe even before that. Leaders should facilitate communication between the customer and the large account management team. The team members can take the dialogue forward and establish clear points of contact and what to expect. Managers can assist in developing an in-depth customer portfolio that assess details about the customer’s business and markets, what goals and initiatives they’re pursuing, details about stakeholder roles and responsibilities, information about key decision makers, latest trends and reposts in the industry, what the competition is doing, etc. These data points lead to a better understanding of the issues that customers face, and account managers can provide value through collaboration. Considering the organization’s pain points, how their needs or goals overlap with that of the vendor organization’s, can help managers to identify areas of progress and any problems that might be apparent in the near future. Data can aid in assessing collaboration opportunities in the short and long term. 4) Working with the customers based on the needs assessment, can help large account managers drill down to the best strategic opportunities and create a roadmap for the next year and more. They can provide strategic recommendations like potential partnerships opportunities, creative solutions to issues, establish specific long-term goals with short-term benchmarks, call out resource requirements in advance, and other such steps that demonstrate that managers are going above and beyond to understand and address customer needs. 5) Sticking to a frequency enables the strategic plan to be executed in accordance to the needs of stakeholders, and provides opportunities for regular checks and any course correction that might be necessary. Managers can also stay updated on the market trends and customer needs, and have clarity in their communication. 6) Monitoring and adjusting processes based on performance ensures short-term and long-term goals are on track, and allows for KPIs to be changed accordingly. It also provides a way to ensure accountability, where large account managers deliver on what is promised. It also shows the ways in which vendor organization has gone above and beyond, cementing the value add in customer’s mind. If the goal of mutual long-term benefit is not materializing, it can be apparent in these assessments – and becomes easier to reclassify the
4 Ways To Optimize Your Global Key Account Management
Previously published under the Council Post for the Forbes’ Business Development Council In the last few decades, with the spread of globalization, many companies expanded their businesses to operate globally at either the supply side or demand side—or both. Take the example of Jane, an account manager, who used to wine and dine her customers. She once relied upon personal interactions with local stakeholders to run the business smoothly. Today, she faces the challenge of stakeholders dispersed across the globe. As a leader, Jane must now be able to keep track of multiple transactions and leverage what works in each region. Knowing just when and where to follow up is critical. How does Jane’s business survive in this global, digital world? Effective global account management is only complicated further amid a looming recession. Yet while they may seem scary, recessions don’t change the basics of how to interact with customers—they only raise the stakes. Read More: How to make your Key Account Management strategy work even during an economic downturn Existing customers have always contributed the most to revenue. According to an article from Harvard Business Review, within a few years of first introducing a global account management program, companies can expect existing customer satisfaction to go up by 20%—in addition to increases in profits. As key accounts are rendered even more important in a recession, retaining them during an economic downturn becomes of utmost importance. With the expansion of organizational growth targets, it’s important for sales leaders to initiate a clear account management process and establish global account management systems which not only bolster retention rates but also help in identifying and leveraging opportunities for growth. What is global account management? Global account management programs treat a customer’s worldwide operations as one integrated account. This involves clear and logical terms for pricing as well as specifications of products and services provided. An effective system will promote the cultivation of long-term relationships with key customers. It should also be capable of coordinating globally, with a variety of international resources and cultural diversity as well as a global account team that is catered to customers. A customer relationship management (CRM) tool’s key role is to help establish a long-term relationship with a global account. This can help a company learn more about the real needs of its customer and better determine its decisions by providing a clear view of the customers in one place. How can we move beyond the CRM? Global accounts are managed at multiple levels: Headquarters, regional, national and local. The biggest challenge in global account management is determining how to manage the flow of strategies, plans, information and execution in both directions across multiple levels. This requires a cohesive account plan, as it’s essential to build and maintain relations with both global customers and internal stakeholders. When business is spread across various places, available data is often isolated, which can make communication with stakeholders difficult. Frameworks for institutionalizing and viewing all data in a single place often do not exist. This impedes the ability of global account managers to collaborate with their account teams—which makes building an effective account plan all the more challenging. In order to implement a successful global account management, a series of complex measures are required. These include: • Analyzing customer requirements. • Solving complex problems and developing solutions. • Ensuring support for a range of services and products. • Developing global sales strategies in order to hit growth and profit targets. • Designing and implementing roadmaps that align across regions. • Developing global sales projects to continuously improve market performance. Why the shift to digital global account management? In today’s digitally interconnected world, it’s grown difficult to coordinate strategic account managers locally when managing global accounts. That’s why many companies choose to leverage a consolidated digitized space capable of handling global accounts. As a disclosure, my company DemandFarm is one provider of such digital global account management solutions. An effective digital account planning system should help in global account management, productivity and more. It should be able to help your team focus on relationships throughout the organization’s life cycle by providing support. It should also increase your ability to form long-term relationships with customers by setting an expectation of consistent, exceptional performance even during unstable times. Recent innovations in AI-backed digital account planning tools can provide essential intelligent insights. When considering such solutions, you want to make sure a tool will allow for trends in all your global accounts to be tracked progressively and provide guided solutions to empower your team. How can companies get the most out of their global key account management? An effective digital account management tool should track all your deals, providing a holistic view and prioritizing action items based on proximity to closing dates and urgency. A solid solution will keep track of your expected revenue and whether your revenue goals are met as well as provide insights into growth and depreciation. Here are four results you should seek out when considering a digital global account management tool. 1. It should boost your account manager’s experience. An effective tool will optimize your key account manager’s experience by connecting various verticals to provide a comprehensive look into your biggest accounts. 2. It should enhance your decision making. A strong digital account planning system should improve productivity and decision-making by providing smarter and faster knowledge bases and customer portals. 3. It should provide AI-backed insights AI can help address data overload and reduces the time it takes to complete administrative tasks. This can be a valuable feature for teams due to its ability to groom leads constantly, helping lead to strong relations with clients. It can also help ensure future targets are met. 4. It should bolster retention. An effective and customer-oriented tool should provide a better experience for your business and drive retention as much as products and services offered. Is your global account management leveraging the right tools? Increasing globalization and multiplying sales goals have compelled many
The Need to Spearhead Change in Digital Key Account Management
As Key Account Management practices head towards a virtual direction, technology takes the center stage. Account Managers and Sales Leaders have to accommodate changing customer trends and expectations. DemandFarm’s Dr. Karthik Nagendra – Chief Marketing Officer had a one-on-one conversation with Jennifer Smith-Byers – VP Client Services, from TaskUs on the journey to Digital Key Account Management. The following sections cover some of the inputs from the discussion about the factors, challenges and advantages that arise from transitioning into a digital era of Key Account Management. Increasing Revenues from Key Accounts is the need of the hour! In the post-pandemic digital age, the main priority for organizations has been increasing the revenue from their key accounts. ‘Digital’ is at the core of all functions and that has invariably transmitted to the B2B space and Key Account Management as well. For Jenny Smith-Byers, “Any company that’s able to secure large accounts need to continue to foster those accounts not only in order to grow them, but also to maintain them and those are key to our success.” Continued growth as a business involves retaining key accounts since that is where most of the revenue for an organization comes from. Large accounts are very complex and to ensure continuing business from them requires a strategic approach to handling those accounts. Traditionally, account plans were created once a year and were reviewed across the executive team in the account or product side. But now-a-days, plans change very quickly. When PPTs and Excel Sheets were the norm before, updates were also irregular. Digital Account Planning tools these days, however, encourage us to view Key Account Management as a dynamic rather than a static process. Factors to consider when making a shift to digital key account management tool Ensure you are at the right maturity level Have the discipline to fully leverage a tool Executive buy-in across the organization to ensure adoption Need to keep a dynamic planning approach Choose the right champions to drive transformation Ability to integrate into your existing tools Ensure you get the right training and support across the organization Choose the right partner to advocate for you and help you build strategic relationships as you use the digital tool Checklist: How to Select the Ideal Digital Account Planning Tool Challenges Faced With any kind of transformation within an organization, there are a bunch of challenges to be encountered. When shifting to Digital Key Account Management as well, there are a few hurdles to overcome. 1) Client Face Time Think about the impact on customer/client face time & ensure more internal steps or processes aren’t being added is a major concern. This could pull away the account team from spending valuable time building relationships. 2) Integration Integration into other business tools used by your organization, particularly financial tools. You need to be able to get real-time updates of where you’re at in terms of revenue tracking against your plan and budget for the year. 3) Getting the right early adopters It takes time to change things if one is used to a way of doing things. To show the value of adopting a new digital ecosystem and setting aside time to get everything set up is a challenge. How does one go about championing a change to Digital Key Account Management? For Jenny, there are three main criteria that go into championing the change to Digital KAM. 1) Aligning with your organization: Existing tools, and language used in the daily life of the organization might be different from the standard. So ensuring that the requirements were aligned before implementing was crucial. Aligning with previously existing systems also reduced naysayers when it comes to adoption of a new digital Key Account Management tool. 2) Getting a team of ‘Advocates’: Having a team of beta testers or advocates who have tried out the tool will make it easier to roll it out to the entire organization. Any sort of issues can be cleared up in the trial stages and these super users will act as champions to help others get trained in shifting to a digital key account management practice. 3) Support from Senior Leadership: Support from senior leadership is critical for efficient change management to ensure that transition to a digital ecosystem runs smoothly. Download: Change Management Guide for Sales Leaders to Implement Digital Account Management Software Advantages of taking a digital approach to Key Account Management For Jenny, 5 huge advantages stand out from adopting a digital KAM framework for Account Planning. 1) Consistency: There is consistency and straightforwardness when it comes to updating account plans. A real understanding of the client, their relationships, who the buyers are and what drives their decisions is available easily. 2) Adaptability: To be able to quickly adjust account plans is a huge benefit of digital KAM tools. It becomes easier to fit what your client is doing and the innovation that comes with a digital KAM tool also makes account plans more effective. For Jenny, having a digital tool simplifies a lot of processes and someone new coming to the organization can pick up an account quickly as it is already established. “For me it was a kind of AHA moment. We had a new Chief Operating Officer who joined the company and we wanted to introduce him to the key accounts across the organization. We didn’t didn’t do anything other than leverage DemandFarm. We used the Grandstand feature, walked them through the accounts – these are key people we meet with; these are our strengths, opportunities, threats, weaknesses; these are the areas we’re going after… We used everything in the tool and there was no extra prep. There wasn’t anything that caused us to spend a lot of extra time preparing charts for a new executive,” says Jenny. 3) Strategic thinking about Client Relationships Having an integrated, simple approach gives rise to a step-by-step flow thinking or strategic thinking about client relationships. Aligning focus and building on growth opportunities then gets standardized
Key Account Management Plan Template
Key Account Management Plan As the saying goes, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’. This could not be more true when it comes to Key Account Management. Creating and maintaining a Key Account Management plan can be critical to the success of your business. After all, your key accounts are the customers that bring the most revenue and profit. So it only makes sense to invest the time and resources necessary to keep them happy. But what goes into a Key Account Management plan? A Key Account Management plan will help you map out your approach, stay organized, and on track as you work to grow and nurture your relationships with your key accounts. If you are not sure where to start, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with this Key Account Management plan template. We provide a systematic approach to analyze your customers, identify key areas, and adopt best practices of Key Account Management planning. 6 Steps of Key Account Management plan Broadly, a Key Account Management plan can be divided into 6 categories or steps: account analysis, self-analysis, business development, action plan, monitoring, and reviewing the plan. Each of these sections will provide you with an opportunity to capture information that you need to improve your business and ensure customer satisfaction. Step 1: Account analysis When creating a Key Account Management plan, start by analyzing your current accounts. This will give you a better idea of how to focus your marketing efforts. Also, it will help you identify the pockets of potential growth. For example, do you have any new customers on whom you are not able to collect data? Are there existing customers who are not satisfied with their experience? These and other questions can help you identify areas where you need to improve. Get to know their business better – what are their goals, what are their challenges, what are their priorities? Here’s a list of questions to guide you through some research: What is their company culture like? How do they view themselves? What is their budget like? How many employees have they hired? For each employee, what is their role description? What are their key performance indicators? What are the challenges the key account is facing? Best practice: You may find it helpful to create a diagram or table that illustrates the relationships between these various parts of your key account. Invest in an automated solution that can improve the integrity of your data while enhancing the research process. Step 2: Self-analysis What analytics can help you to understand is what type of information you need to focus on in order to improve your business. This includes customer requirements, competitive analysis, product development, and technical excellence. Depending on the situation, one or a combination of these elements will need to be emphasized. Current customers can be analyzed using a number of tools. You can use analytics and automation to get a handle on how your customers interact with your business. This will help you identify customer pain points that you can address with changes to your product or service. You can also analyze performance data to identify how your products perform. This can include identifying customer complaints, feedback, and satisfaction issues. Lastly, you can analyze sales projections to determine how much revenue you will be making in the coming year. These projections are based on estimated sales growth, which uses data from your previous experiences with similar products and services. All this information will help you create a list of initiatives that you need to address in your key account management plan. Define your objectives by answering questions like: What is your key account trying to achieve? What’s the bigger picture? Differentiate yourself by linking your capabilities to their key objectives. Best practice: Clearly define your objectives and allocate specific business units to a generic team rather than a specific account manager – it will foster a creative, collaborative culture. Step 3: Business development In order to sustain growth, businesses must constantly look for ways to improve their offering. This can include new products, processes, and services. However, innovation is not just for startups. Even large companies must continually look for ways to improve performance. For example, how can a company increase sales by 10% without increasing prices? How can they do this by improving their service? Or by adding new products that are both cost-effective and attractive to customers? Analyze the current state of the account and the factors that affect it. Consider this Market position (leadership, growth potential, share of market, price sensitivity) Business unit performance (income, cost, margin, growth potential) Current contracts (length, renewal likelihood, value, special terms and conditions) Customer service/relationship quality ratings (impact on new business opportunities) Competitors’ status (what are they doing?) Potential business opportunity value (current and future) Critical success factors (what would make the account happy?) Optional technology benefits Knowing this will help you frame how you approach the project. Also, it will help you identify the type of research needed to understand the client’s industry better. Best practice: Depending on the type of research you are doing, you can either outsource it to a specialist, or hire a professional researcher to do it for you. If you are conducting consumer research , you can create a survey or you can ask people who are familiar with the company to complete questionnaires for you. Step 4: Action plan Once you’ve done the research and analysis, it’s time to create your plan. Don’t worry about being perfect at this point – just get your plan drafted and then review it with your key account manager. Ensure everyone is committing to achieving the goals. A successful Key Account Management plan will show you where you need to go next to grow your business and build more value for your customer. Define timelines that are achievable and align with your objectives. What’s the short-term goal? What is the best time to do
Key Account Management in CRM
Key Account Management in CRM If you’re like most businesses, your customer relationship management (CRM) system is the backbone of your sales process. It’s where you track your leads, deals, and customer data. But what happens when you start to scale your business and land bigger customers? Suddenly, your CRM doesn’t seem so robust. In fact, it might even start to feel like a hindrance. That’s because most CRMs are not built for Key Account Management (KAM). If you are managing large, complex accounts, you need a CRM that is up to the task. Key Account Management vs. CRM: Are you doing enough for your Key Accounts? At the outset, Key Account Management (KAM) is seen as an extension of CRM. The end goal is to sell a product or service to a customer. However, they fundamentally differ in their approach to achieving the goal. There are a few key reasons why KAM is often seen as a more effective strategy than merely relying on your CRM. First, KAM takes a more holistic view of the customer, seeing them as a partner in achieving mutual goals rather than simply a transactional relationship. Second, KAM focuses on building long-term relationships with key customers, rather than trying to maximize short-term gains. Finally, Key Account Managers are typically more highly trained and specialized, they are better equipped to deal with the complex needs of key accounts. What’s the difference between CRM & KAM? CRM software/system KAM software Objective Generating new leads for sales Identifying and building long-term relationships with existing customers Process Sales-driven Relationship-driven Approach Reactive Proactive Sales and marketing strategy One-size-fits-all approach Personalized strategies Success measure Based on the increase in top-line sales Based on the gradual increase of ROI over time Data Insights Insights generated from historical data Insights generated to anticipate future needs Value proposition Value creation for customer Value co-creation with customers Business Process and Approach Microsoft Dynamics CRM Solutions are sales-driven.. They are an important tool for business development to identify leads and nurture relationships throughout the sales funnel. All CRM solutions are devised around AIDA – Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. It is a reactive process that is based on customer interactions across the sales funnel touchpoints. Whereas, Key Account Management solutions are relationship-driven. KAM helps an organization cultivate, nurture, and deepen its relationship with key accounts in the business. This helps to gain deeper insights into the customer’s domain, conditions, and hurdles, which helps source the unique assets that are needed. KAM is a proactive approach involving account management plans based on the future needs of the customer. A KAM strategy is typically more focused on large accounts or customers that have the potential to bring in a significant amount of revenue. On the contrary, a CRM strategy is more focused on maintaining and growing relationships with all customers, regardless of their size or potential revenue. The sales team at a company that uses KAM will be much more focused on developing a deep understanding of their key accounts and customizing their sales pitch and approach to each one. The marketing team, on the other hand, will be more focused on creating and managing customer relationships across a wide variety of channels. Hope is not a Strategy! Key Account Management is focused on building relationships with key customers and understanding their needs. CRM is focused on managing customer data and interactions. While a CRM is designed primarily for sales, key account management forces you to approach your data in a new way. KAM forces sales and marketing teams to unite around a common goal: building deep relationships with high-value accounts. This collaboration fosters a more comprehensive view of your customers that extends beyond just the sales team. Strength in Unity A key account should not be assigned to one employee. The Key Account Management strategy often requires a more consultative and collaborative approach, as account managers work closely with their customers to understand their needs and develop custom solutions. This means that an account is not centralized, but rather distributed among various employees. This may seem counterintuitive to most companies, which have a sales rep assigned to all their customers. A KAM solution must facilitate collaboration across various teams (sales, marketing, tech, etc.). Role of Management CRM solutions are geared toward sales reps and marketers. The process requires multiple levels of approval from decision-makers. The entire process can be automated to specify each approval step, share files, and deliver campaigns faster. On the other hand, Key Accounts are a top priority for CEOs and CSOs. Their involvement in Key Accounts is imperative at all levels, strategic, operational, and relational. They play a central role in defining key accounts, identifying customers, and allocating appropriate resources to their key accounts. Reporting and Insights There are some key differences between analytics in CRM and Key Account Management. In CRM, analytics is focused on understanding customer behavior and trends and using that information to improve customer experiences and how to best interact with them. KAM analytics is focused on understanding the key drivers of customer profitability and growth. KAM analytics is much more strategic, while CRM analytics is more operational. Both CRM and KAM are important for businesses, but they require different approaches to analytics. While your CRM software is great for centralizing your client data, it cannot help you with KAM functions or provide insight into the relationship. To prepare for success, you need a tool that seamlessly integrates with your workflows and empowers everyone involved in the sales process. With KAM software, you don’t just track how far you have come based on data from previous months. Historical data does not help drive new sales. However, understanding your current strategic path and how far you’ve gotten on it helps you look ahead and plan your opportunities, investments, and operations better. Process and Technology
How to Identify White Space Opportunities and Expand Account Revenue
Key account managers are always seeking ways to drive growth and deliver value to their accounts. While acquiring new customers is exciting, maximizing the potential of existing accounts is often the most strategic and profitable approach. Retaining and expanding relationships with your current customer base reduces acquisition costs while deepening trust and loyalty. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by identifying White Space Opportunities—gaps in your customer’s current investment with your offerings. These represent unmet needs or untapped potential that, when addressed, foster growth for both your company and your customers, while strengthening long-term relationships. What are White Space Opportunities? Selling to existing accounts is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. It demands less time, fewer resources, and minimal effort while delivering significant returns. Key Account Managers are increasingly focusing on identifying White Space Opportunities—areas within their accounts to upgrade, upsell, or cross-sell their services. These gaps represent overlooked solutions or unmet needs that can drive value and growth. By addressing these gaps, businesses not only generate additional revenue but also reinforce their position as a trusted partner, delivering tailored solutions that align with their customer’s evolving goals. If Opportunity Doesn’t Knock, Build a Door! White Space actually means different things to different people. Some think of white space as an open playing field, with no competition. A few look at it as an untapped market. But the general consensus is that white space refers to the gap between what your existing customers have already bought from you and what other unique products and services you can offer them. More details about White Space in Business can be found here. While in editing and publishing, white space is also referred to as negative space, in business these gaps are seen as opportunities. These gaps can mean the opportunity to offer a product to a customer that has never used it, reconsider how a product or service can be used or offered or focus on under-utilized services or product features. Sometimes these opportunities can easily be identified. At other times, depending on the sector you’re in, it may need some effort, thought and ingenuity. Sales teams are extremely adept at finding White Space Opportunities because of a thorough understanding of the product. Being in contact with customers and understanding their current and future needs, they can suggest changes or tweaks in products in a way that would most appeal to customers. Here’s how you can align White Space Opportunity with your growth potential. What is White Space Analysis and what does white space mean in business? White Space Opportunities are identified through a process called White Space Analysis. This process helps companies discover possibilities among their existing customer base to cross-sell and upsell. It also uncovers accounts that may need more attention and focus. While it is always satisfying to bring in new customers and business opportunities, it is important not to ignore your existing customer base when looking for revenue-generating avenues. This practice gained importance during the Covid-19 pandemic when selling practices changed drastically. Companies started nurturing their existing customers to try and create new growth opportunities for themselves. Customers were equally pleased to stay with a company they had already tried and tested, rather than seek out a new product or service provider. How do you identify white space opportunities using white space analysis There are a few steps if you want to know how to do white space analysis: 1. Understand your current status An effective analysis begins with what your current position is. You will need to collate and analyze customer data, so you understand your existing customers’ investments with your company. If you don’t have this level of customer data at hand, getting it organized could be a time-consuming task, but an essential and invaluable one. If you have a large customer base, start this exercise with those customers that have the highest potential for investment in the future. Once you have this data, you will be able to identify which product or service your customers have invested in – and to what extent. You can segregate this data by: The size of your customers’ organizations The sector your customer’s business is in The type of opportunity they represent The products or services purchased When they bought with you All this data properly charted out and visually represented will give you a better understanding of white space opportunities. 2. Identify customer accounts White space analysis is an elaborate process. It requires a thorough understanding of what your customers need and how you can position what you offer to meet that need. You may need to further explore your customers’ needs, for example, by the areas or regions they are based in. Or by the opportunity type, they represent i.e., long-term customers, new customers etc. and the added investment they are likely to make. Understanding the customer’s business is also important at this stage. For example, are they looking to expand their company? Are they consolidating their business? Are they traditional and hierarchical companies? Are they more modern and flexible? Once you have a thorough understanding of your customer’s current investments in your products and services and knowledge of their needs – you’ve identified your opportunities! You can now cross-sell and up-sell your products or services. This exercise also allows you a better understanding of how you can reposition your own products, add or alter product features, and introduce upgrades and enhancements. 3. Analyze the selected customer accounts Once you’ve identified which customer accounts have the highest potential and are keen on future investments, you can go one step further. Identify which centers or units within your customer’s business make their own buying decisions. These can be based on departments, divisions, or regions. To make this distinction, you will also need to have information like where and how decisions are made, and budgets allocated to each unit. Knowledge of the organizational structure and power dynamics is extremely beneficial during this exercise. Examine both closed accounts and open
When Sellers Become Trusted Advisors!
Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company researched on prescription for cutting costs and discovered that increasing customer retention rates by as little as 5% can reflect an increase in profits by 25% to 95%. Traditional sales enablement involved ‘enabling’ sales teams with the right information at the right time to make the right selling decisions to important prospects. In the post-pandemic era, Sales Enablement when it comes to Key Account Management is a continuous process stretching from discovery to customer retention. With a large number of buyer interactions happening digitally and taking place much before they reach out to salespeople, how does one ensure customer retention? Within Key Account Management practice, what does sales enablement look like? Michael McCarthy, Senior Business & Technology Consultant, Sales Enablement Duke Energy, had a lot to share on this topic in ‘The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management’ webinar featuring Forrester. Don’t Build a Long-term Relationship on Short-term Thinking The separation of Opportunity Management and Account Management is now more delineated than it used to be. For account management to successfully work, the team has to become a trusted advisor to the buyer within that organization. If that sort of interconnected relationship is not built between the sales team and the buyer organization, then a “won and done” relationship forms. There is only ‘short-term thinking’ when it comes to opportunity management. However, customer retention requires long-term planning which forms the basis of account management. From a Sales Enablement perspective in Key Account Management practice, Michael McCarthy had the following to say. “Sales enablement is being pulled and pushed more and more to deliver influence for the sellers that they can use to become that trusted advisor. And in order for us to be successful at that, we need to be able to very quickly create Insight that the seller can provide at the account level that the the buyers within the account can then use to make decisions.” If accurate, good, intelligent Insight is not provided for Key Account Management activities, then one cannot become a trusted advisor. Subsequently, teams also miss out on the ability to grow revenue substantially within a Key Account Management practice. What are some of the factors that go into having good insight? Leadership-Driven Change Management Salespeople often rely on being agile and it might feel a bit restrictive to have the concept of a ‘process’. Thus a transition to automated, data-driven sales processes will have a pushback from salespeople. Standardizing sales enablement processes within key account management requires change management. Within sales enablement teams, salespeople need to grow to become more data savvy to be able to provide data-driven sales processes. Data is not useful merely because of its availability, but in how the data is being used to position the team as a trusted advisor to the buyer. “They need to be able to push through data and pick data. That is going to help them in the customer’s eyes and not get overwhelmed by too much data,” says Michael McCarthy. Penny for Your Thoughts: Is Your Data Conversational? Another issue facing sales enablement is that the data needs to be conversational. An issue with the data available now is that it is centered around reporting, and it is not necessarily conversational. Sellers are often faced with this issue where if they go in with data to the buyer it looks like a piece of reporting numbers. Making sure that data presented can drive conversation is something that needs to be accomplished. CRMs are Just a Starting Point When data is automated, the ability to consolidate data into one of the very few places becomes important. This will prevent the formation of information silos and salespeople will have ready, easy access to consolidated data to support them. While CRMs are a good starting point for it, some data providers don’t integrate very well into your CRM. Besides, while CRMs provide a space for data aggregation, to ensure your sales is data-driven you have to extend further. Don’t Let Your Data Go To Waste A major issue is that a lot of times, sales leaders use PowerPoint presentations or they allow sellers to bring PowerPoint Presentations into a business review. They never open the CRM or piece together data that is put into an Insight-driven dashboard. To fully utilize the abundance of data available these days, sales leaders need to upgrade how they present in business reviews. Every Michael Jordan Needs a Scottie Pippen A point to note in existing sales processes is that often there is no data that is customer journey or buyer journey focused. In the middle of a customer journey, the seller is instinctively in a defensive mode. Getting the seller to move off of defense and bringing back a conversation should be on the agenda. A pivotal focus of Sales Enablement within the Key Account Management space is that the sellers need an assist in making that data conversational. This is difficult to achieve and requires years of practice. However, with advancing digital tools and technology, the gap reduces. For Michael McCarthy, we are moving in the right direction for this through digital transition in Key Account Management and over time with more prototyping, it can become more successful.
When Sellers Become Trusted Advisors!
Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company researched on prescription for cutting costs and discovered that increasing customer retention rates by as little as 5% can reflect an increase in profits by 25% to 95%. Traditional sales enablement involved ‘enabling’ sales teams with the right information at the right time to make the right selling decisions to important prospects. In the post-pandemic era, Sales Enablement when it comes to Key Account Management is a continuous process stretching from discovery to customer retention. With a large number of buyer interactions happening digitally and taking place much before they reach out to salespeople, how does one ensure customer retention? Within Key Account Management practice, what does sales enablement look like? Michael McCarthy, Senior Business & Technology Consultant, Sales Enablement Duke Energy, had a lot to share on this topic in ‘The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management’ webinar featuring Forrester. Don’t Build a Long-term Relationship on Short-term Thinking The separation of Opportunity Management and Account Management is now more delineated than it used to be. For account management to successfully work, the team has to become a trusted advisor to the buyer within that organization. If that sort of interconnected relationship is not built between the sales team and the buyer organization, then a “won and done” relationship forms. There is only ‘short-term thinking’ when it comes to opportunity management. However, customer retention requires long-term planning which forms the basis of account management. From a Sales Enablement perspective in Key Account Management practice, Michael McCarthy had the following to say. “Sales enablement is being pulled and pushed more and more to deliver influence for the sellers that they can use to become that trusted advisor. And in order for us to be successful at that, we need to be able to very quickly create Insight that the seller can provide at the account level that the the buyers within the account can then use to make decisions.” If accurate, good, intelligent Insight is not provided for Key Account Management activities, then one cannot become a trusted advisor. Subsequently, teams also miss out on the ability to grow revenue substantially within a Key Account Management practice. What are some of the factors that go into having good insight? Leadership-Driven Change Management Salespeople often rely on being agile and it might feel a bit restrictive to have the concept of a ‘process’. Thus a transition to automated, data-driven sales processes will have a pushback from salespeople. Standardizing sales enablement processes within key account management requires change management. Within sales enablement teams, salespeople need to grow to become more data savvy to be able to provide data-driven sales processes. Data is not useful merely because of its availability, but in how the data is being used to position the team as a trusted advisor to the buyer. “They need to be able to push through data and pick data. That is going to help them in the customer’s eyes and not get overwhelmed by too much data,” says Michael McCarthy. Penny for Your Thoughts: Is Your Data Conversational? Another issue facing sales enablement is that the data needs to be conversational. An issue with the data available now is that it is centered around reporting, and it is not necessarily conversational. Sellers are often faced with this issue where if they go in with data to the buyer it looks like a piece of reporting numbers. Making sure that data presented can drive conversation is something that needs to be accomplished. CRMs are Just a Starting Point When data is automated, the ability to consolidate data into one of the very few places becomes important. This will prevent the formation of information silos and salespeople will have ready, easy access to consolidated data to support them. While CRMs are a good starting point for it, some data providers don’t integrate very well into your CRM. Besides, while CRMs provide a space for data aggregation, to ensure your sales is data-driven you have to extend further. Don’t Let Your Data Go To Waste A major issue is that a lot of times, sales leaders use PowerPoint presentations or they allow sellers to bring PowerPoint Presentations into a business review. They never open the CRM or piece together data that is put into an Insight-driven dashboard. To fully utilize the abundance of data available these days, sales leaders need to upgrade how they present in business reviews. Every Michael Jordan Needs a Scottie Pippen A point to note in existing sales processes is that often there is no data that is customer journey or buyer journey focused. In the middle of a customer journey, the seller is instinctively in a defensive mode. Getting the seller to move off of defense and bringing back a conversation should be on the agenda. A pivotal focus of Sales Enablement within the Key Account Management space is that the sellers need an assist in making that data conversational. This is difficult to achieve and requires years of practice. However, with advancing digital tools and technology, the gap reduces. For Michael McCarthy, we are moving in the right direction for this through digital transition in Key Account Management and over time with more prototyping, it can become more successful.
From Sales Methodologies to Sales Insights – New Perspectives
Global sales expert Matt Dixon has one important thought to share with all of us. There is an evolution in sales happening right now and it begins with insight selling. Traditionally, Sales Methodologies have dictated how companies approached customers. A set of guiding principles on how to behave during and in-between different sales stages have been the go-to strategy for closing deals. Such conventional methodologies focus on hitting a set number of targets. A more useful approach perhaps focuses on increasing sales ‘effectiveness’. This involves understanding roadblocks and leveraging opportunities in order to accurately forecast based on information. Capturing key, intelligent insights is essential to translating raw data into something actionable/ functional. Time for a Mind Shift In ‘The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management’ webinar featuring Forrester, Joshua Gregg, Vice President Strategic Accounts from the Qt Company, spoke about this transition from Sales methodologies to Sales Insights. “I really remember not using any CRM and doing account planning on Excel spreadsheets. And then we kind of got really fancy and started using PowerPoint and Word Documents. We went from the bar napkin to PowerPoint pretty quickly. And, we just became faster and more effective.” With advancing technology, even faster insights are possible. You only need to grow beyond making your Account Planning on PowerPoints and Excel Sheets. As much information as you can get from your CRM, using that data effectively should be the priority. If one is to lean on the data, it also needs to be accurate. While tribal knowledge forms a big part of selling and account management, its digitization has opened new doors now. An insights-based sales approach with newer technology has led to an increase in opportunities. “It took maybe 15 to 20 years of selling and different roles within an organization to get into the sweet spot of strategic account management. Now, I think you can do that much faster,” says Joshua Gregg. Challenges of Traditional Sales Methodologies It takes people a long time to be coached into developing specific skills. Resistance to adopting newer technologies. Reliance on sales ‘superheroes’ who manage the best accounts. Depending on individuals, which leaves the company lost if that person quits. How Insights & Data-Driven Account Planning Changes the Game The challenge is in coaching people to develop skills that would previously take multiple years to learn, and to adopt technology that is more powerful and more effective. Joshua Gregg refers to it as ‘embracing the assist’. Technology that is data-driven and insights based is an assist that will help the sales team be more effective. The goal these days is to not just be service providers to customers, but become their trusted advisors with more data and information. Customer Insights enables understanding their business better than the customers themselves do a lot of times. Sharing Account Plans and having mutual growth conversations with customers with compelling data to back it up ensures that a strong, long-term relationship is built. Shifting to an insights-based selling approach, reduces dependence on sales superheroes. Technology bridges the gap between rookies and sales heroes, and makes everyone collaborate. The challenge of replacing a sales superhero, the tribal knowledge they possessed is no longer a debilitating concern. Tribal knowledge can become enterprise memory with digital Key Account Management and tell a story of the client’s needs. This will enable the Account Management team to also find new ways to meet those customer needs. Performance and ability take over to help customers move forward. Sales teams, in hand with advancing technology, also innovate better. Teams can now function across different verticals and manage different accounts with more fluidity. For Sales Leaders, this gives an opportunity to leverage resources effectively across the business. Insights-based selling and Account Planning also helps you discover blind-spots in your strategy with which you can further create value. DemandFarm’s Account Planner is designed to help enterprises create an annual plan for each key account with clear goals and objectives using both qualitative and quantitative insights. Find out more about it here.
Digitalization of B2B Sales Interactions: Technological Changes in Key Account Management Processes
B2B interactions today are primarily taking place in digital channels. In a recent Forrester Sales Enablement Report, the report indicates that the average number of buying interactions has surged since the pandemic; from 17 pre-pandemic to 27 post-pandemic. Hybrid and virtual selling environments (partially forced by the pandemic) have made buyers innately digital these days. These ‘new buyers’ have needs and expectations that do not necessarily line up with traditional B2B sales and selling methods. B2B interactions typically happen these days without even meeting the salespersons directly on digital channels. The question of the hour is, at a time of such huge shifts to digital ecosystems, what does Key Account Management entail in terms of sales organization? How does one adapt to this new condition of data-driven B2B sales? Shift to a world of ‘Click and Transact’ In the DemandFarm webinar ‘The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management’ featuring Forrester, Rick Bradberry, Principal Analyst & Executive Advisor B2B Sales at Forrester reaffirmed that what we do in terms of sales or account management and interactions with customers has changed a lot, “I would say that COVID actually drove the trend that had existed before the pandemic. And that was a preference that buyers had for self-service experiences.” Consumers have become accustomed to what Rick refers to as the world of “click and transact”. This consumer experience started in the B2B space of e-commerce for consumers. It went from physical products to digital products and these experiences have come into B2B. The SaaS field has amplified this further. What We Want, When We Want It! This mindset of shifting to self-service is accompanied by a second aspect in the B2B field. These new experiences and preferences created are produced by enabling capabilities. “Why do we need to still architect these experiences with customers the way we did it 20 years ago?” asks Rick. Consumers, i.e. B2B companies or buyers, or even users of those B2B products, not only prefer to do it themselves, but they are also able to do it because an enabling technology or experience exists that allows them to do so. Great Expectations! (No, not the novel) The shift to this era of ‘self-service’, in a sense has changed expectations on leaders to deliver experiences with customers as well. For company boards and CEOs, the focus has been retargeted on how to deliver the type of expected self-service experience using technology that customers truly prefer and want to use. For Rick Bradberry, “That’s where Insights becomes a new mantra for leaders!” In order to be able to deliver customization to customers, one needs an insight-driven approach to how to think about people, processes, talent, and the way the business is run. Generational Variances… Each generation brings in a completely different perspective within the workforce when it comes to digital compatibility in the sales process. This pertains to both the buyers and the sellers. What sort of culture is sought out also differs as a result. Rick Bradberry shared a few interesting data points in the webinar. According to him, when it comes to self-service in internal app stores, external marketplaces or within any product, “An average Gen X buyer would look to do that 37% of the time. But in Gen Z (the younger generation), this goes up by 10% furthermore to 47%.” Of course, we can’t forget the millennials who stick to about 43%. So, companies have to shift their understanding of the ‘sweet spot’ in B2B digital interactions. What does this mean for you? What do these trends say about Key Account Management in a digitally expanding B2B era? Things that have traditionally been done in Key Account Management have now become digitized and improved at the same time. Functions that were done tediously and manually before, are now enabled as capabilities within the technology and tools used by consumers. Such technologies facilitate improved quantitative and qualitative usage to understand your customers better and course-correct how you serve them. This will inevitably lead to better long-term value, bigger deal sizes, better forecasting and accuracy. Check out these 6 key takeaways for a successful digital key account management transformation. What used to be a struggle when managing accounts before, for example – whitespace, becomes a metric that is easier to improve upon. These capabilities are now quickly being embedded in technology if they haven’t already. Additionally, with the advancement of Artificial Intelligence of AI, analytical tools are also progressively built to improve. Insights, the future of faster functionality, and assisted account planning awaits account management. Built-in analytical tools do more than what humans are capable of doing in terms of number crunching. What the future holds is perhaps such intelligent tools giving a perspective that might otherwise go unnoticed to human eyes. This might boost functioning in Key Account Management in unparalleled ways! Check out DemandFarm’s Insights-driven Account Planner to aid your key account management process!
