Understanding SAM (Strategic Account Management) Better
SAM, as Strategic Account Management is often called, is very often misunderstood to an extent that it becomes important for us to talk about it every now and then. Such is the criticality of this concept called SAM that we cannot afford to ignore it. The strategic account management process is about building value-driven relationships with your key customers. It is a synonym of Key Account Management. The strategic account manager’s role is to identify those key customers that generate maximum revenue and profitability as compared to other regular accounts. With DemandFarm’s Account Planning Software, account managers can reduce the time and effort involved in the entire process but we’ll get to it later. These managers act as a bridge between the company and stakeholders at the customer side. The idea is to increase customer lifecycle value by starting small like with a free trial or test project, adding value and building trust. So here we are, with SAM again. Let’s go busting certain myths about SAM, one by one. The first thing we need to know about SAM is that it is not just an elite organization’s hobby or interest or vanity for that matter. Most people and most salespeople think and believe that SAM is only for the top-notch, revenue earning monstrous sized conglomerates. Which is not the case. It is not a concept or a practice reserved for the elite few, it is for everyone, every organization that has certain important accounts, we call as Strategic Accounts. SAM is not defined by the size of the organization, big or small customer, or its strength of people. It is defined by the criticality of the Account, the value of that account in the organization’s portfolio. The potential of that Account is the most important determinant. SAM is part of the larger business strategy and not a selling practice. This part needs to be weighed in a proper light. SAM is a strategy; it belongs to Account Management and not sales. It has a different methodology to it; there is more of prospect nurturing to SAM than the classic way ‘selling’ happens. There is a different team that looks aft SAM. This team needs to be hired differently, trained differently and evaluated in a different manner. SAM is not too expensive, time-consuming or complicated. It is simply working on a different plane than the Sales plane. It is more about co-creation, collaboration, and value creation – with the customer and for the customer. The focus of SAM is on winning through relationship building, lead nurturing and becoming a true partner, the customer’s trusted advisor. As against sales, which is more transactional in nature. SAM works on addressing the looming danger that every organization faces, of its products becoming commodities. SAM helps in creating key differentiators in value to the customer and hence leads to better Key Account Management. And better Key Account Management leads to revenue growth. Just because SAM is not easily understood, organizations typically shoo it away not knowing that they are shooing away a huge opportunity in creating value for their own organizations as well. But all hope is not lost. To truly understand what SAM is, we urge you to look at SAMA. SAMA (Strategic Account Management Association) is a non-profit, 8,000-member organization that can help your company determine whether SAM is the right direction, and help you in your efforts to implement and maintain a successful SAM initiative. SAMA’s mission is to “establish the strategic, key, and global account management as a separate profession, career path, and proven corporate strategy for growth.” Strategic Account Management Association is a knowledge exchange base, an extensive network of experts and practitioners focused solely on the area of strategic account management. Before you shrug SAM away, do visit SAMA (http://www.strategicaccounts.org/)
Insight Selling – The Key to Good Strategic Account Management
Are you leveraging insight selling for strategic account management? The strategic account management process is about building value-driven relationships with your key customers. It is a synonym of Key Account Management. The strategic account manager’s role is to identify those key customers that generate maximum revenue and profitability as compared to other regular accounts. These managers act as a bridge between the company and stakeholders on the customer side. The idea is to increase customer lifecycle value by starting small with a free trial or test project, adding value, and building trust. Insight selling may come across as a complex term but broken down into digestible shots is a simple term to absorb and practice. Insights that the seller offers the buyer during the entire buying journey, from the first call he makes to the email he writes, helps the buyers in their decision. The 3 Stages of Insight Selling for Strategic Account Management 1. Collaborate Collaborate with the buyer in discussions about his current situation. See if you can spot a problem or an opportunity. See if your buyer is trying to mitigate ‘pain’ or increase ‘pleasure’. Once you identify this part, collaborate with him in discussions on ideas of how to solve his problem or get a solution to his situation. The buyer needs a partner, a friend who thinks out of the box, who is not part of his team, yet is ready and willing to partner with him in ideas without getting into bean crunching. The buyer needs to see that the sales rep is proactive and willing to take things further in the long term. Once he sees that the sales rep is willing, the buyer begins to develop a liking towards the sales rep, which is the key step in building trust. 2. Persuade The moment sellers start looking at buyers as human beings like everyone around us is, they stop thinking of them as devils, who are there to pick a thorn in everything sellers have to say. In selling, it is called ‘stepping into the shoes of the buyer’ or ‘empathetic listening’. Whatever you label it, as sales reps we need to think from the buyer’s point of view. Some tips: What is the buyer looking for? Maximizing his ROI. Give him the numbers, the statistics, and case studies he needs to be convinced about a good ROI. Help him calculate, even. No harm! Be an expert not just on the product you are selling, but the pros and cons of your product and also the competitors’. More than that, make sure you know the numbers game like the back of your hand. Because the buyer first wants to know whether going with you is a rationally and financially correct decision. Convince the buyer that he is choosing a minimum risk, safe position, when he decides to go with you. Buyers, like you and me, are a frightening lot. Inwardly. They don’t show it. But remember, it is always lonely at the top; and making the right decision about something, which costs a lot of money may be a frightful moment for your buyer. Help him by providing case studies to show that when he goes with you, he is choosing a minimum risk position. Do not hesitate to focus on the risks involved with other choices, in case, he chooses those. A buyer will want your insights into his decision. You have already won him over by collaborating on the journey so far; now he wants you to help him take the final call. You are in a position of power but also in a position of immense responsibility. You have to talk about the risks involved clearly with his choice, but you also need to help him mitigate those risks. This will help the buyer partner with you. 3. Co-create Co-create with the buyer. Make the buyer feel that you are helping him make the right choice. If you haven’t already learned your lesson the hard way, the buyer dislikes it when the sellers try to hard sell or push their way down his throat. He is more inclined to consider buying from you if you make him feel that you are helping HIM make the right choice, and not pushing your choice on him. A key human emotion is that every person needs to reinforce the feeling to himself that he has taken the right decision. Help your buyer do that. Insightful and intuitive selling helps in building long-lasting, trusted relationships between the seller and buyer and goes a long way in building your Strategic Accounts, and also helps in better Key Account Management. If you liked our blog, you can also read about the 6 strategies of Cross-Selling. You can also explore our blog on cross-selling and up-selling in which we’ve elaborated how it can be used to grow business in 2021.
9 Quick Steps of Key Account Management Process
Key Account Management Process The title may make it all sound easy and that the Key Account Management process can be created in 9 easy steps. But as you may already know it isn’t that simple. However, the sooner begun, the better done. Let’s cut to the chase and start knocking out the 9 steps easy and quick. KAM Glossary: Crucial Account Management Terms Explained These 9 steps go over key account planning, setting up, implementing and reviewing a key account management process. Step 1: Building a Framework Build a Key Account Management framework that suits your needs, targets and goals. Define your Key Account Management journey including adherence to processes and the timeline for your targets. Build roadmaps with milestones and goal-setting. Step 2: Account Segmentation Identify and use analytical thought to determine what your key accounts are. Analyze both potential and current contribution to determine key accounts. Use analytical thinking to understand stakeholders and understand your key customers. This helps the sales team segment the client accounts into different buckets. This will enable salespeople to come up with the right strategic action plan based on account positions. Nearly 33% of a SaaS vendor’s revenue is usually a result of a few key accounts. Nurturing these key accounts and growing with those relationships is important to produce stronger results while lowering selling costs side-by-side. Segmenting key accounts, therefore, becomes essential for future growth. To learn more about the need for key account segmentation, the types of key account segmentation and various customer segmentation strategies, check out this blog here. Step 3: Defining Roles and Responsibilities Identify the major personas that will be involved with the key account management process – Account Management, Sales Enablement, Sales Leadership, Sales Ops, Revenue Ops etc. Determine what their roles will be, how it will play into your Key Account Management process. In addition, establish how they will collaborate with each other. Step 4: Draw up a Key Account Plan Blueprint This blueprint should clearly state the main direction, opportunities, and priorities for each Key Account. It should have a direct link to customer information and should be built as a collaborative effort between internal and external stakeholders. This should then be made available and accessible to all involved in the account. It is also important to check if you have had the customer involved and cued into this plan. Having clarity on which information is important and which is not is also essential. A large amount of information is of no use if it is not relevant information. In addition, it is important to have the information regularly updated, and in real-time ideally. Step 5: Get into Action The key is to get into action and have a clear plan. This should include pondering on questions like: This should include: What needs to be done? By when (clear timelines need to be specified and agreed upon and followed)? Who will be involved and who takes ownership? How will results or success be defined, measured, reviewed and communicated? What’s your troubleshooting plan? What are the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved? What is the escalation POA? Last-minute crisis in case the account is in danger? Step 6: Track, Monitor, and Recalibrate Account plans are dynamic and relationships keep changing. It is inevitable that you will lose some whitespaces, or miss out on some crucial data in the process. It is essential to keep track of Account Plans, continuously monitor changes and recalibrate based on these changes. In addition, a vital part of the Key Account Management process includes course-correcting plans along the way to ensure growth and progress in your accounts. Evaluate Now: Framework to Assess your Key Account Management Maturity Guide Step 7: Communicate with internal and external stakeholders The plan stays on paper if it is not shared and buy-ins are not done in time. Internal Stakeholders Internal stakeholders that are the team members need to know the customer status and value to be delivered at all interfaces. Clear roles need to be charted and communicated. A few questions need to be answered: – Is the customer status/value recognized at all touchpoints? – Regarding the proposition, what you will / will not deliver? – Are the roles of all of the account managers known? Read Now: Stakeholder Mapping for Key Accounts External Stakeholders Externally, customers need to have details of all members on his account. They need to be in agreement with the proposition, opportunities, priorities, and activity. Once again, there are a few questions that must always be dealt with: – Do customers on that Key Account have access to the details of the account team? – Are they bought into the proposition, opportunities, priorities, and all planned activities? – Have the KPIs been shared with and agreed by the customer? Step 8: Opportunity Planning As important as it is to manage accounts via Key Account Management framework, it is just as important to have a proven framework for Opportunity Planning. Having a framework for monitoring opportunities, opportunity planning & management capabilities ensures that you don’t rely just on your CRM for knowing your customers. Map stakeholders and identify potential hurdles, keep track of your team’s progress on large enterprise accounts. Use relevant intelligence to strategize and plan tactics to build a buyer-focused opportunity plan. Read Now: The Practical Guide to Sales Opportunity Management Step 9: Monitor, Control, and Review the Key Account Management Process This step checks the critical parameter and is the final determinant of success with regards to the following: – Value / profitability – Plan progress – jointly monitored efficiency – Whether the identified opportunities have materialized – Whether the Account management KPIs and SLAs have been achieved – Formal measurement of relationship quality using a formal evaluation process – Whether you would still place this account in the Key Accounts roster These nine steps, if followed diligently and exhaustively, will help you set the Key Account Management process in place and make it
The 7 Biggest Challenges Account Managers face while making Account Plans
Strategic Account Management may be accepted by the organization and the leadership as a good Account Management practice, but it is not devoid of challenges. Once the managers start practicing it, they realize the real-world problems or rather, challenges that they must face while creating strategic account plans. Let’s take a good look at the 7 Big Challenges faced while creating strategic account plans. Where did we get this top secret information? Straight from the managers themselves and their organizations, of course! KAM Glossary: Crucial Account Management Terms Explained 1. The eternal tug-of-war between short-term and long-term Even when the organization has made a policy decision of having a Strategic Account Management cell for Key Accounts or Strategic Accounts, some managers may find it difficult to choose between the short term and long term. Many times, the short-term wins as it is more achievable and managers often feel a quick sense of accomplishment. That’s exactly where the challenge lies; to choose the long-term over the short term when the situation so demands. It isn’t enough for managers to hit short-term goals and give themselves the pat on the back, it is integral to concentrate on strategic account plan goals like maximization of customer lifetime value too! Guide: Comprehensive Career Path for a Key Account Manager 2. Having access to an effective strategic planning tool Strategic account management needs more work than normal accounts and hence better tools. Although strategic account plans are about building key relationships and nurturing them, this process does need to be automated. There are various strategic account planning softwares and tools available that help the managers in planning and managing their strategic accounts well. But having access to a suitable tool may be a challenge, to begin with. Challenges of strategic account management can be overcome by ensuring the planning tool is made a part of the responsibility of the strategic management team and the leadership. 3. Having a good relationship with all key customers (other than that one key customer) within each Strategic Account It’s not enough to have a good relationship with just one key person within one Strategic Account. People move from one organization to another. Strategic Account Managers cannot afford to put all their eggs in one basket and need to form good relationships with other key people within the Strategic Account. This ensures that a great account isn’t lost, simply because the biggest influencer left the organization. A dynamic OrgChart can be extremely helpful to ensure that Strategic Account Managers know exactly where the influencers and detractors lie in an organizational hierarchy. 4. Interacting with enterprise-level organizations and key buyers at the top level Strategic Account Planning requires a CXO-level management involvement in any client. This bottleneck may arise due to a lack of training. This is very easily rectified with proper recruitment, training and a top-down approach to Strategic Account Management. 5. The actual implementation of the Strategic Account Plans Strategic Account Plans will remain so unless they’re put into action by a motivated Strategic Account Manager. The biggest detriment of a Strategic Account Plan is actually its implementation and thus it must be taken into account while creation. 6. Formulating a fair and comprehensive compensation policy for Strategic Account Managers Since the conversion in a Strategic Account happens over a period, incentive planning and compensation for Strategic Account Managers cannot be the same as your Salesforce, yet needs to be fair. Proper metrics need to be defined and implemented, which is a major HR challenge. It will keep evolving over time and will vary from organization to organization. 7. Training and skills in strategic account management What kind of training and skill sets do Strategic Account Managers need to acquire and how frequently do they need to be trained, is often the question. It’s a crucial decision that leadership needs to take, as it is not a good idea to take chances with the capabilities and delivery of the Strategic Account Managers. We are certain there are many more such challenges and that we can list more than the seven mentioned here. What is essential to this subject is the fact that the Top Challenges for high performers do differ from the Top Challenges of the average performer. Average performers are more concerned about the most fundamental challenges that are lower in the challenges hierarchy, such as ‘having access to an effective strategic planning tool’ and ‘the tussle between short term and long term goals’. On the other hand, high performers would be more concerned about challenges such as ‘fair compensation policy for strategic account managers based on sales results’ and ‘effective ways of building and communicating value’. Do share with me, your top Challenges of Effective Strategic Key Account Plans/Management!
Salesforce Org Chart – For Contact Hierarchy and Relationship Mapping
Org Chart and Relationship Mapping in Salesforce with DemandFarm Account Management is evolving every day. If you are a part of the sales/account management team, a better understanding of your client and improving the strategic relationship with them is indispensable to cracking any deal. Do you think a small tool – Org Chart builder in Salesforce could be your savior in this? Contacts being the heart of your client’s organization, managing them efficiently is critical for which Salesforce has become a ‘default’ in most sales-driven and account-driven organizations. While the baton is with you, over a while contact data gets ‘muddled’ useless. Meanwhile, still betting on PPTs and whiteboards will land you at a high risk of losing your valuable clients to competitors. It can also lead to slow decision-making, missed growth opportunities, and avoidable waste of effort. So, strategizing accounts, equipping yourself with the right tools, and efficiently managing your tasks will be the key to being on track. Salesforce Account Planning could provide much-needed clarity and help you manage your accounts more profitably. Why do you need a Salesforce Organization Chart? 1. Visual Map of Contacts Salesforce.com functions as the go-to system for all aspects of a customer relationship. But David Taber, the author of the Prentice Hall book, “Salesforce.com Secrets of Success,” remarked rightly in this post how quickly data gets discounted in salesforce. This happens because of the following reasons: Lack of process in adding customer data Ever-changing hands in marketing, sales, and support Omission and commission errors To be fair to users, the existing user interface showcasing contacts in a ‘list view does not help either. It seems fine until the number of contacts is in single digits, but not when contacts grow beyond a manageable list. That is when the need for visual relationship mapping arises. The last three salesforce organization chart software inquiries at DemandFarm had a very simple requirement. They just wanted a tool to display their salesforce contacts visually in the form of an organization chart. 2. Handover and Onboarding I just got off an org chart demo with a sales operations team. Would you guess their biggest complaint in managing contacts within Salesforce? It isn’t to do with managing contacts. It is when an account manager or a sales rep leaves. A simple process to hand over accounts always seems missing. The issues do not stop at handover. When a new account manager joins, it feels as if the current account is in a state of mess. A neatly populated Salesforce org chart builder could make this transition frictionless and even more exciting, maybe. 3. Sales Enablement Initiatives Sales operations and salesforce admin teams work together to help sales teams spend more time on quality sales conversations than the operational hassles of setting up systems like Salesforce. In this endeavor, sales ops teams are always on the lookout for tools and processes that improve the functioning of sales and account teams. The simplicity of the best org chart software that is native to Salesforce is a compelling use case. DemandFarm’s Organization Chart in Salesforce DemandFarm’s Salesforce Organization Chart is a powerful interactive tool that is native to CRM i.e, you require zero integration. Key Account Management in Salesforce becomes a breeze with Demandfarm. The tool is so simple that you can build a Hierarchy map of your accounts in just a few minutes by dragging and dropping them with pre-built templates. Organization Chart Features 1. Hierarchy Mapping Hierarchy mapping is a visual representation of the client’s organization which can lend you a lot of deep insights about their profile like white space opportunities and associated budget. 2. Influence Mapping Influence mapping helps you understand the kind of influences each contact has over the other inside the client’s organization. With this, you can upsell and increase your revenue. 3. Relationship Mapping Relationship mapping gives you an understanding of the relationship you have with each of the contacts in the client’s organization. Based on the relationship/affinity, you can plan the right approach to avoid any mess. 4. Power Mapping Power Mapping can help you in knowing the right person with the highest decision power in your client’s organization. To shorten the sales cycle and close the deal, is very critical. Conclusion Building the Salesforce Org Chart is the first step toward effective key account management (KAM). Without the Salesforce Org Chart, there is no Strategic Account Management. Let’s start building Organization Chart for all large key accounts now. It is a journey. Over some time, this Org Chart will be your most potent weapon to defend and grow revenues in the account. It is not one time nor is built by one person. It is a collaborative effort by multiple people over a while. Hence it has to be easy to build within Salesforce. DemandFarm’s Org Chart is one such tool. Go ahead and take a free trial today!
6 Attributes of a Successful Key Account Manager
Decades ago, psychotherapist Thom Hartmann proposed two mental models that described how people go about their work. The hunter mindset, based on nomadic societies, suffered from a short attention span but had hyper-focus for short bursts of time. The farmer, based on agrarian societies, was patient and worked steadily with the understanding that he would enjoy the fruit of his labor in the future. These two mental models have been used to guide hiring. Most recruiters look for hunters to fulfill sales roles and farmers to fulfill account management roles. This clear distinction between the hunter and farmer mindset gets blurred when hiring a Key Account Manager. In the past, hunters were focused on acquisition and farmers were focused on retention. A blend of these attributes is required to successfully fulfill a Key Account Manager role. Traditional Account Managers tend to be too patient and they acquiesce too quickly to unreasonable client demands. This is detrimental to forging a mutually beneficial and strategically viable partnership. On the other hand, a hunter mindset is too short-term focused and will often lose out on larger opportunities because of the relentless pursuit of the sales opportunities immediately in front of them. When recruiting for a Key Account Manager, look for the following: 1. Leadership A KAM should be a visionary. They should help everyone see and be excited by what’s possible. Their customers and their peers should respect them. They should be able to respectfully challenge and direct the customer in the customer’s best interest. This means they must have a degree of comfort with tension. Traditional Account Managers are too quick to cave in when facing tension with clients. Also, when progress needs to happen internally, they need to have the respect of their team. Team members should want to go the extra mile for them. 2. Communication This is a big one. The best KAMs are able to keep all stakeholders informed on all the important issues. They will often have to lead the presentation of project updates or account reviews. Whether oral or written, it is critical that all communications are concise, clear and convincing. Communications must also be highly nuanced for the particular stakeholder or group being spoken to. 3. Business Acumen Many salespeople are far too focused on closing deals and do not understand broader business issues. This approach is fatal when it comes to Key Account Management. A Key Account Manager must be able to see the bigger business issues for the client and help the client manage their business. They must also ensure all business deals are profitable for both sides. 4. Relationship Savvy Today’s Key Account Manager must be able to read people and connect meaningfully with a variety of personalities. They must understand that all progress is made through relationships. They must know when to take the lead in relationship development and when to enable others to take the lead. Their objective is to build a highly intricate web of many-to-many relationships between the client’s people and theirs – the more intricate the web, the greater the partnership and the higher the cost to switch to a competitor. 5. Results Oriented Today’s Key Account Manager must have laser focus on getting results for the customer. This means they must be proactive and not wait for the customer to notice they are not on track to achieving a particular goal. They must have a “no excuses” mindset. They do what needs to be done. They coordinate multiple resources to the achievement of the decided upon outcome. They will take the blame for failures and give credit to the team for successes because they are driven by outcomes not their ego. 6. Appetite for Learning A successful Account Manager recognizes the pace of change we are undergoing. Consequently, they are always open to training and development. They never rest on their laurels. Part of the respect they gain from others comes from the fact that others see that they are constantly growing in their perspectives and abilities. They constantly look for white space opportunities to improve in areas that they have identified as important. All of these attributes require a mix of a hunter and a farmer mindset. There are some things that must be looked after with a short-term laser focus. These short-term issues must be executed while simultaneously understanding how they fit into and accelerate long-term objectives and a long-term vision. It is an unusual mix of attributes as it requires mental flexibility. Those who possess these traits will lead their organizations and their clients too much greater rewards than we have seen in the past from either hunters or farmers.
Meet Jack : The Account Planner
Meet our muse, Jack. Key Account Manager. Account Planner. Data Interpreter. Relationship Builder. You. You know Jack. He is just like one of us. Surrounded by data, information, statistics, and revenue numbers. Clients who demand the world. Internal stakeholders that need convincing. Jack wears many hats. But that just works. With a family to look after and a life full of interests and hobbies, work-life balance stretches Jack the most. And Jack inspires us to stretch ourselves here at DemandFarm. Here’s why. Let’s talk about Jack in his Account Planner avatar. Jack is accountable for one of the most critical Key Account processes – building the strategy and executing the plan to achieve annual targets. While bridging the gap between planning and execution is a huge challenge, an even bigger pain point is getting started on and building the plan itself. You may identify with Jack’s life around Annual Planning Season. Let’s look at everything that occupies him in the run-up to and during the account planning process. Gathering business insights The most part of Strategic Account Planning involves gathering data from several sources, collating it into a standard format and mining that data for actionable insights to help build the annual plan. A comprehensive white space analysis, competitor analysis and a long hard look at the state of the relationship are other indispensable activities at this stage. This is where he is able to spot the real opportunities for value creation and growth across the length and breadth of his Key Accounts. Collaboration with internal stakeholders Account Planning is one thing and achieving the planned goals is another. It just cannot happen without the engagement of key internal stakeholders, all of whom probably have their own drivers and constraints. An effective annual plan would not only build the business case behind the goals and create buy-in; it also sets targets and expectations from team members. This helps him put everyone on the same page and coordinate the internal effort to achieve the plan. Governing the plan Tracking the plan, measuring performance, quantifying the qualitative indicators effectively – Jack needs to seamlessly bridge the gap between planning and execution. And he needs to check deviations, course-correct and stay flexible enough to grow with the Clients needs and goals. Handling the many aspects of Annual Account Planning can be overwhelming! So here it is. For all the Jacks out there, I get it. Having been a Key Account Manager in my time, I understand how crucial this time of the year is for you. Like I said, we are inspired by the work you do. So we build technology that helps you win. And this Annual Account Planning Season, we want you to try it for yourself. Imagine… An Account Planning technology that: Works from inside Salesforce, using data already in the system Integrates all the data at one place, in one format Creates action plans that you can easily share, leading to specific goals, activities, support required Generates Insights, metrics, and measures for Key Accounts Easily tracks whitespace, people, and actions, seamlessly governs progress And it is yours FREE until the 31st of December 2016. Sign up here and get started on the best Account Planning experience you will ever have. I guarantee it. PS: It’s an all-access pass to our best planning module ever, no questions asked. Sign up today, and unlock the true potential of your Key Accounts.
5 Key Account Mistakes to Steer Clear Off in 2019
Key Account Mistakes As we arrive into the new year, it is important to understand the new needs of the business environment. It is no more a one-sided selling process in key accounts rather you have to proactively and strategically handle your key accounts to get the best out of them. This year everything you do will likely be measured by the quality of your interactions and communication while selling is the number one priority. So let’s look into some mistakes we can avoid to have a better return on our efforts. 1. More The Communication, Better It Is Do not fall for this trap. Consistently staying in the loop and holding lines of communication clear and to the point is crucial, but there is such a thing called too much communication. You don’t want to hound the key account with asks and feedback. You’re there to make their life easier and facilitate a seamless relay. Reach out to them continuously and you risk appearing incompetent and not suited to manage their account. Use your best opinion and only reach out to the key account when it is critical in decision making. 2. You’re Not Creating Value, You Are Selling This is what people who want to earn a quick buck say. They’ve already opted in for your assistance so you should concentrate on building trust and value with the key account by producing quality work and making sure you are speaking to their particular business needs. While there are opportunities to upsell and cross-sell, you should not be too pushy about it. Try to up or cross-sell on how it would help their business, and show them that you care about their interests. Create genuine value. Most key accounts have been in their respective industry and have had plenty of exposure to dealing with key account managers. They can see right into a pushy sales guy who has no substance. Wait for the right time in the meeting to start talking about upsells. Don’t try to include a selling opportunity into the conversation every chance you get. 3. Short-Term Thinking You as the key account manager are being trusted with a key account business goals and that means you need to continually think ahead about what role you play in helping them achieve their objectives. Part of this is knowing the business that they’re in and being cognizant of market trends. Do you have a key account in the hospitality industry? Then you should be equipped for their busiest season, for example, one which starts in the autumn right before the holidays. Your role is important in helping to develop an approach that speaks to them and helps them hit their goals during that time. There are abundant resources that can help any key account manager stay on top of their key accounts industry trends. One way is to set up Google alerts for each of your key accounts leading you to know about what’s going on in their business. Other ways are to use resources as simple as doing competitor research or reading expert journals and industry magazines. 4. Overpromising And Under-Delivering This is as straightforward as it gets, but not handling key accounts expectations properly can lose you business and critically tarnish your reputation. When a communication initially begins, some key account managers may want to look good in the eyes of the key account they are managing by promising more than what they can deliver. This practice is inefficient and can lead to trouble. Effective account management process, unrestricted communication, level setting, and the right expectations will guarantee that you deliver what’s promised in scope on time. If your key account is asking for too much, too soon, it is up to you to put your point forward and let them know that they need to adjust their expectations. If you aren’t level setting, you run the risk of being a constant disappointment to your key account. Needless to say, that doesn’t gel well with your long-term, key account relationships. 5. Conversation Gaps Given key account management’s numerous priorities, key account managers need to be proactive communicators. Regular follow-ups may seem unnecessary, but they are critical to the success of ongoing actions. Through regular communication, a key account manager may learn more about the strategic account needs and discover new ways to add value to existing services or upcoming products. Scheduling time to check in with each account allows you to stay on top of your game and promotes critical information sharing. If you’re interested in transforming your sales post the pandemic, explore our blog on Sales Acceleration in Account Management and how it can help you grow your business in 2021.
The underlying truth about B2B key account relationships
Maintaining and building key account relationships with your partners and clients requires creating an emotional bond with them. B2C brands seem more aligned with this emotional connection with the consumers in the business world. For the most part, B2B business decisions are influenced by a board of directors, corporate consultants, purchase managers, budget restrictions that have a tiring process of approvals, making the bond rather complicated. So why even bother? We as humans and professionals need to remember that emotional forces are inevitably present wherever we are trying to work together to make a decision. Whether it be a sales team or directors of a firm coming to a management decision. This is especially important for key accounts that you want to build a long-lasting relationship with and take that extra step that goes beyond regular transactions and monthly reports. It is essential to understand the kind of role each account plays in your business and use that information to focus and invest accordingly to reach an account’s full potential. Sounds contradictory to what we know? Here’s more Google and CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council conducted a study with a marketing research firm Motista and surveyed 3,000 purchasers of 36 B2B brands across different industries. They found out B2B brands drive more emotional connections than B2C brands. Most B2C brands studied by Motista were falling under a 10%-40% mark in emotional connection. With that said, they found that out of nine of the B2B brands they studied, seven surpassed the 50% mark. This tells us B2B brands are significantly more emotionally connected to their partners than consumers. B2B partnership in our age is treated as a transactional and rational activity. No one wants anyone to believe that something as sentimental as emotions can drive decisions even though there is enough evidence present about all these human decisions being driven by a feeling of gut, emotions, and reasoning behind it. What’s even more appalling is that a lot of organizations make the mistake of treating each of their accounts with the same level of investment both in terms of emotions and resources. Further, Let us quote Jonathan Haidt from his book, the happiness hypothesis to better understand this concept “that our emotional side is the Elephant and our rational side is the rider. Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched. To elaborate, here’s the rider represents the conscious, rational mind while the elephant represents the unconscious, emotional mind that cannot be controlled by the rider’s force. In our example, the rider here is the B2B buyer trying to make a rational decision but often influenced by gut feelings and emotions (the elephant)—whether consciously or not. While every partnership progresses along the way, the emotional aspect is an important factor along all the different stages of the account namely tactical, cooperative, interdependent as well as strategic. Now that we have understood the importance of emotions in our decision-making and the idea of not treating your partner as a pay-check, let’s jump to how you can leverage these emotions to create and maintain great partner relationship mapping. Sounds exciting now, doesn’t it? 1. Belief and a sense of responsibility Agreements and contracts are made to protect oneself from the negative implications that can arise out of business transactions. They are in no way a driving factor in achieving extraordinary and ambitious decisions. Having a business partner invested in your targets and goals as much as you are invested in theirs creates a parallel army moving towards the same goals with clear expectations and direction. This doubles the chances of acquiring a more mutually beneficial business at the least. Such a shift in nature can be attained by using simple methods that increase engagement between the partners such as: Being open – To build lasting relationships, partners must completely rely on you as an expert. It is important to keep your point of view intact in the best interest of both parties and not get succumbed to agreeing to your partner even when your views differ. Being Appreciative – The simple act of being appreciative can boost productivity, thus improving work quality and producing better returns. This can be in the form of more sales or revenue while creating a happier environment in general. Positive attitude – Having a positive outlook on the outcomes of your business keeps the interest of the partner alive in the project and builds goodwill. It’s important to maintain a silver lining even at times of bad news. This way the focus stays on increasing the business performance rather than focusing on the negatives. 2. Change comes easier We all know change is the only constant in every aspect of business yet we resist it because of its nature of unpredictability and uncertainty. Without change, growth stalls, and before you know it, you are doomed to fail. In this ever-evolving world of consumers, tastes and preferences change every few years at the most. The businesses that encourage and practice change, come out on the top. C=Confidence, T=Trust, and L=Loyalty built over time between partners helps in making these strategic changes quicker leading to better performance. This combination of CTL can be achieved by: Transparency – Being transparent means showing your vulnerabilities, your strengths and weaknesses, and the actual assessment of the present status of your firm. You and your partner being clear about what you can offer at any given situation in the pipeline helps in creating the right expectations and goals that are attainable in there true nature. Healthy Conflict/Confrontation– Conflicts should not be avoided in any business scenario. It is for these conflicts that the best ideas come to life. Maintain an equilibrium by keeping your partner’s interests in mind and
Key account management without a QBR?
In life, things seem to happen as a series. Once our attention has been brought to a given event, similar events seem to keep happening at a high frequency and attract our attention even more. In the last few months, I have repeatedly heard statements or read posts on how the concept of QBR (Quarterly Business Review) is outdated and not adopted any longer to our “digitized” world. Well, I could not disagree more on the relevance of a key account management QBR. Business Reviews have always been a key instrument to orchestrate the relationship between two organizations, including those with your customers. The evolution of social and economic parameters and business models does not make them less important. On the contrary. This being said, you don’t need QBRs with all customers as this powerful instrument must be used in the right context. If regular Business Reviews take place between a customer and their supplier and participants perceive it does not create value for them, there are basically two key reasons. First, the context and depth of the relationship between the two parties do not justify a regular Business Review. Second, the recurrent process of the Business Review is not properly executed. This article takes a closer look at why companies run Business Reviews and with whom, who should be involved, and what defines a good review. In the end, a short, practical checklist is suggested to help define focused measures that can help you create more value with the Business Review process. Why do suppliers run QBRs with their customers? To answer this question in a relatively simple way, one has to consider two different types of context for the relationship between a supplier and a customer. The first type of context is Account Management, things that are done with all customers with some variations depending on their size. The second type of context is Strategic Account Management, things which are done to develop a privileged relationship with a few carefully selected strategic customers. Account Management Context In an Account Management context (AM), Business Reviews, quarterly or monthly, are mostly used to review what has been delivered since the last review and to plan the next agreed period of time. For examples, suppliers of outsourced services of any kind (IT, Bookkeeping, HR, travel and accommodation, Marketing & Communications ) leverage regular reviews with their customers to share a precise picture of what they have delivered against the contractual Service Level Agreement (SLA), discuss performance, satisfaction and issues and to plan ahead. These meetings can – and should – also be used to discuss the evolutions of the customer’s needs and of the supplier’s offering. If the supplier is delivering products and solutions – which more and more include services – the Business Review might have a different frequency and content than for a service provider but the basic principles remain the same. In a pure Account Management context, the decision to run regular BRs is usually related to the size of the customer: larger accounts are managed with BRs whereas smaller customers are managed with less frequent and simpler meetings or remotely, more and more often by a Customer Success Manager. Key Account Management Context In a Key Account Management context (KAM), because the ambition is to develop and maintain a deeper relationship mapping that brings more value to both parties, the Strategic Account Management QBRs must drive a discussion beyond normal Account Management. Moreover, and this is crucial, in a well-executed KAM program, the QBR (like all regularly scheduled interactions) are designed and executed within the frame of a Key Account Plan. A good Key Account Plan is very specific on which relationships need to be created, developed and nurtured and why (if it is not, the Account Plan is not good enough and must be improved). The Business Review can also take the form of a Joint Business Planning (JBP) session aiming at aligning the two organizations on mutually agreed initiatives and projects. For example, LafargeHolcim, a construction material company uses BRs with its Global Accounts to drive collaboration in the field of R&D and to discuss long-term opportunities on major projects. Schneider Electric uses JBPs to agree with selected customers on joint strategic initiatives that go well beyond the “business as usual” activities. Well driven Business Reviews also provide an opportunity to discuss market trends and share prospective information such as technology and product roadmaps. This is used intensively by companies using KAM is an engineering-driven environment. All in all, whatever the context, AM or KAM, which customers are offered a regular Business Review process and with which purpose, must be crystal clear to both parties. Otherwise, putting in place these Reviews will be a waste of time. Companies who suffer from low-value QBRs should re-evaluate if their selection of accounts and definition of purpose are strong enough. Who should be involved? If the context (AM or KAM) and purpose (monitor delivery / execute a Key Account Plan) are clear, defining who should be involved is quite straightforward, at least for the regular participants to the BRs. In an Account Management context, the person regularly involved in the supplier side must be those in charge of the Delivery (however this term is defined) and the Account Manager in charge of the customer. Occasionally, and depending on topics on the agenda other supplier’s staff members can be invited as long as their involvement brings a tangible value. In a Key Account Management context, the members of the Core Account Team should be involved in Key Account Management QBRs. The reason why is that as members of the core key account team, they should contribute to the span and depth of the relationship between the two companies. For example, if a KAM relationship implies collaboration in the area of Product Development and Marketing, members of these functions should be involved in the BRs. In a B2B2C environment such as in consumer electronics or dermo-cosmetics, it is quite
