On-Demand Webinar: Unfiltered take on AI in Account Planning: Meet DemandFarm’s KAM AI The Power of Relationship Intelligence in Opportunity Management for Strategic Deals
Strategic deals can be seen as a team sport, much like a relay race where each member must sprint in a carefully coordinated fashion to ensure the team’s victory. An integral element of teamwork is a unified platform that keeps everyone on the same page. Several companies are adopting strategies such as opportunity management to manage the sales pipeline at every stage which involves identifying, tracking, and managing potential sales opportunities. Strategic planning, data analysis, and relationship-building are some of the important tools to choose the best opportunities to pursue. No organization can afford to have scattered deal information that can lead to wasted hours and miscommunication. Relationship intelligence can be the most powerful tool in the process of opportunity management that enhances efficiency and improves collaboration by creating automated processes to view, analyze, and implement all relevant information. Read More: Complete Guide on Sales Methodologies to Win Large Deals The Growing Relevance of Relationship Intelligence Key account relationship intelligence is much more than the information and data about your contacts and extends beyond phone numbers, job titles, and pain points. It’s an invaluable repository of the timeline of client interactions, their budgets, and their choice of service or product. Relationship intelligence also includes gauging client sentiment in order to truly understand the nature of your business relationships. An efficient relationship mapping software platform will capture and extract information about all your contacts, analyze it, and share intelligent insights to manage those business relations. It goes beyond traditional customer relationship management software and interprets disparate data to enable better business decisions. In any strategic deal, ‘opportunity’ is the stage between spotting a lead and actually closing your deal. It’s crucial and your sales team must put their best foot forward to introduce your product and convince your prospect to close the deal. Even before they interact with different stakeholders, your team must be armed with a unified plan and must have access to all relevant information. Let’s look at how tapping into relationship management can enable better opportunity management for strategic deals: 5 Benefits of Tapping into Relationship Intelligence in Opportunity Management for Strategic Deals 1. Keeps everyone in the loop It’s convenient for any team, large or small, to track key deals when the relevant information is visible at a glance and everyone is on the same page. With the help of relationship intelligence, you can leverage tools that keep everyone on the same page through automation and extensions that support existing workflows. These tools also offer certain advanced filters to help you discover opportunities by setting specific criteria. This can enable your team to take the necessary steps to fast-track these prospects in the sales pipeline. You can also maintain a record of all your sales collaterals in a centralized repository. Members of your sales team can access and edit these documents that are available to anyone who might need them. Relationship intelligence platforms not only store important information but they go a step further by monitoring and analyzing the data fed into them to provide useful insights. These contextual inputs provided by AI-powered tools assist sales professionals in spotting opportunities and creating more meaningful interactions with customers. 2. Improves communication and collaboration A complex and multi-tiered process, sales requires careful coordination and collaboration between several teams and stakeholders. From refining sales pitches to making the final offer, it takes the collective efforts of many to successfully close deals. Relationship intelligence provides efficient tools that can be integrated with built-in live chat systems. They provide an efficient platform for your team to align their sales activities, share updates, and celebrate wins. Relationship intelligence expedites and automates many key but repetitive tasks for sales teams and customer managers. This considerably reduces their administrative workload leaving them free to focus on revenue-generating activities. In fact, by using relationship intelligence, every update in the team’s deal view can be automated, transforming the Monday meeting and making the deal progress more efficiently. Your team can also divert their time and energy to formulate sales strategies and create a transparent ecosystem where open communication thrives. 3. Provides automated deal and pipeline insights One of the key features and benefits of relationship intelligence solutions is their use of the latest innovations such as Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that can automate many functions and enhance your team’s efficiency. AI tools can slice and dice your sales data to spot trends that can help you forecast future sales opportunities. With automated deal and pipeline insights, your team is in a better position to score more leads. AI-powered tools can also help your team decode data like industry, company size, and budget to design bespoke communication for leads. Analyzing historical data can be particularly useful to make predictions about future performance. With these informed learnings, you will be setting more realistic targets and smartly allocating resources, thereby optimizing the pipeline management process. Data visualization enables sales teams to have a clear vision of their networks, clients and stakeholders by breaking down sales data and identifying relevant trends and patterns. With the help of automated pipeline insights, your team can also efficiently conduct partner reviews and LP reporting. Relationship intelligence gives your leadership a 360° view of the entire strategic account management process by helping them understand engagement with clients, tracking the flow of communication between relevant stakeholders, and mapping the influence and power of client contacts. 4. Betters Deal Closure Time and RatesIn the sales realm, it’s highly unlikely that all deals will go through and all leads or prospects will convert. There could be a sizable number of engaged buyers who did not close the deal the first time and offer a chance for conversion the second time. Over a period of time, their business priorities can change and you may be able to win them over. Relationship intelligence can help you identify the most engaged buyers and help you reestablish a rapport with them. By identifying process blockers and trends that lead to lost deals,
A Tall Glass of Efficiency: How DairyMax Streamlined Sales and Marketing to Increase
Dairy MAX faced three major challenges in their opportunity management. 1) Inability to get real-time access to track progress of sales & marketing goals 2) Lack of a user-friendly solution that integrates seamlessly into Salesforce 3) Finding a sustainable & long-term solution which met their expectations This case study evaluates how DemandFarm’s Opportunity Planner Playbook helped Dairy MAX get rid of their pain points and take control of their high value opportunities. With DemandFarm’s Opportunity Planner, Large Deal Management is made easy with a systematic & collaborative approach to planning & closing complex enterprise deals. Download this case study to know more! Read the Case Study here
Maximizing Customer Retention: The Role of Key Account Management in Customer Success Management
In the business world, customer success management is no longer an afterthought; it’s a necessity. Consensus across research confirms: retaining existing customers costs 5 to 25 times less than acquiring new ones. But businesses are realizing that it goes beyond keeping customers satisfied; it’s about truly understanding their needs and delivering value at every touchpoint. The rise of the digital era has changed the rules of the game. Complex products, multifaceted needs, and fierce competition have become the norm. In this context, a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works. Success lies in a tailored, strategic approach to customer success management. One that leverages Key Account Management (KAM) principles to retain customers and transform them into brand advocates. KAM principles encompass fostering robust relationships, tailoring solutions, maintaining consistent communication, prioritizing the long term, and constantly reviewing and adapting strategies. This journey requires a keen understanding of your customers, insightful data, and a commitment to going the extra mile. And it’s a journey that pays off in spades. Read More: What is Customer Centricity and Why it isn’t the destination? The Changing Role of Customer Success Managers / CSMs in a Technological World “This season is an opportunity for the CSM to shine.” (From episode #9 of The Shift podcast). In today’s ever-competitive business environment, customers expect consistent value and support. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) play an indispensable role in ensuring this. But their role goes beyond just implementation or ensuring customer satisfaction or customer retention. The changes? Multi-faceted roles – serving as advocates, advisors and educators. Guide customers through complex technical platforms and maximize value Ensure smooth adoption of products or services CSMs are often tasked with understanding intricate technical platforms and ensuring that customers can effectively utilize them. The platforms they deal with can vary from sophisticated data analytics tools to advanced customer relationship management systems. However, despite technological challenges, CSMs are the ones who ensure that these tools deliver value to customers. Learn More: Best Customer Segmentation Strategies for Customer Success Teams Strategies for Sales Growth with Existing Customers: Avoiding Pitfalls Organizations often fall into common traps when trying to drive sales growth with existing customers. Sherrod Patching, VP – Customer Success, GitLab, highlights a typical pitfall: an overemphasis on feature-function discussions. She says, “… it’s easy to just pivot to feature function. (But) ensure you understand how these features and functions that they’re so excited about are going to lead them to business outcomes and ensure they’re on the right path.” (Snippets from episode #9 of The Shift podcast). Particularly for products with high release cycles, it’s not about turning on features for the sake of it. It’s about highlighting those that bring customers closer to desired outcomes, like faster development times or increased efficiencies. Other common mistakes to avoid: Overlooking customer segmentation: Different customers have unique needs. 73% of customers expect companies to understand and 62% expect companies to anticipate these needs. Ignoring customer segmentation can hinder the ability to engage effectively and tailor offerings. Neglecting relationship building: Building trust and rapport with customers is essential. It’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about fostering long-term relationships. These relationships can bring on upselling and cross-selling opportunities. A McKinsey study reported that upselling and cross-selling can increase marketing ROI by nearly 30% and overall sales by approximately 20%. While results could vary by business, sector and service, the bottom line is sales performance can increase even with existing clients. Ignoring customer feedback: Failing to act on customer feedback means missing opportunities to delight customers by improving current offerings and developing new, relevant ones. Shockingly, just over 20% of B2B companies consistently measure and act on insights from customer experience. By sidestepping these mistakes, organizations can build lasting relationships, optimize sales growth strategies and drive long-term success. Emerging Trends in Customer Success Management Several trends are reshaping how customer success management is viewed. One significant trend is Account-Based Marketing (ABM). This targeted approach allows customer success teams to tailor their efforts and resources towards those customers that are most likely to succeed. Another emerging trend is the growing emphasis on social selling. By leveraging social media, customer success teams can connect with potential customers, build relationships, and promote their offerings. There is a noticeable shift towards proactive engagement. Rather than waiting for customers to reach out, customer success managers actively engage them, offering content, support and offers tailored to their needs. Customer education and empowerment are also gaining traction. Customer success teams are investing heavily in webinars, tutorials and other resources that help customers fully understand the features of offerings. This focus on education allows customers to get the most out of the product or service. Lastly, customer journey mapping is a crucial tool for customer success teams. By understanding the customer’s entire journey, from the first contract and through the relationship, customer success teams can identify opportunities to improve the customer experience. “This seamless experience for the customer, that’s shared with the customer, that’s documented in systems, that then carries through, becomes a continuation of a single journey.” (Snippets from episode #9 of The Shift podcast). These trends highlight the increasing complexity of customer success management and the need for innovative strategies to meet customer needs and drive continuous improvements. Addressing Challenges in Account Planning and Governance Organizations frequently struggle with account planning and governance – a crucial process that requires strategic plans for customer account management. Challenges often arise due to misalignment among teams, lack of customer insights, poor communication, focus on short-term goals and inadequate resources. Masterclass by Forrester Principal Analyst Anthony McPartlin: Why companies fail with key account management? There is a need for a cohesive approach to account planning. Account planning by the Sales team and success planning by the Customer Success team needs to be aligned. Many organizations treat these as separate processes, resulting in siloed approaches. However, ensuring that account plans and success plans operate in tandem is vital. “But those two need to go hand in hand. What you want
How AI is transforming Relationship Intelligence in Sales Today
How AI is transforming Relationship Intelligence in Sales Today At the core of any sales deal are several relationships, between the customers and salespeople and also between team members of the sales team. These relationships are built and developed over time and transform into crucial assets. This intricate web of relationships results in a ton of tribal knowledge that includes your supporters and detractors, their hierarchies, opportunities won or lost and champions etc. Relationship intelligence (RI) documents, consolidates and maps this tribal knowledge into algorithms and meaningful insights. Importance of relationship intelligence for sales success Relationship intelligence actively involves mining valuable relationship data to generate actionable insights that drive sales. This intelligence is built upon the meaningful interactions that occur between your business and its customers, encompassing data sourced from various touch-points such as phone conversations, emails, and in-person meetings. These interactions serve as the foundation for constructing relationship graphs, forming the crucial building blocks of relationship intelligence. Through the analysis of your company’s relationship data, relationship intelligence provides essential information concerning customer relationships, ensuring personalized and relevant conversations with each customer. By identifying champions and detractors, this knowledge empowers salespeople with the information needed to prioritize accounts and continually enhance relationships. Moreover, relationship intelligence uncovers the relationships within your team members’ networks, leading to the discovery of additional business growth opportunities. AI’s impact on relationship intelligence Even as the sales function has evolved with the proliferation of CRMs to manage customer relationships, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is ushering in a new wave of relationship intelligence in sales. The contextual insights provided by AI-powered tools are helping sales professionals identify opportunities, interact better with customers and forge stronger relationships to drive sales. Take Ai Logo Maker sites for instance, it’s a fast and convenient site to create a logo that truly connects to the right audiences. By leveraging communication data to unravel new opportunities, AI tools are enabling relationship intelligence to manage relationships better and improve conversions leading to higher revenue. Let’s look at how AI is transforming relationship intelligence and creating more opportunities for sales: Enhancing Data Collection and Analysis Relationship intelligence automates the time-consuming task of data collection by centralizing disparate customer databases and capturing the complete lifecycle of a customer. AI tools use data from your inbox and calendar and save valuable time by eliminating data entry and automating the creation and updating of customer contact and company profiles. This process replaces manual data entry and retrieval, enabling your salespeople to focus on higher-value activities and building relationships. Artificial intelligence utilizes AI algorithms to analyze customer interactions and behaviors. Such tools empower your team to search transcript metadata for keywords and phrases to unearth customer needs. Sales personnel can also leverage advanced analytics such as frequency maps and topic clusters to detect significant customer trends. AI tools such as Ask AI provide real-time insights by sourcing the right data about customers that enables you to create customized content and move faster. Achieving Personalization at Scale Empowered by AI-driven insights, sales personnel gain a 360-degree view of the customer’s requirements. This helps them personalize their interactions and nurture trust and loyalty towards their brand. Relationship intelligence helps sales teams to focus on managing expectations, providing clarity and finally choosing strategies that lead to customer satisfaction and higher conversions. Artificial intelligence also provides recurring intelligent reminders to maintain key relationships and establish long-lasting connections. Handling massive volumes of data and leads can result in a serious case of decision fatigue for sales reps. Guided by AI tools, relationship intelligence can considerably reduce this load by automating target account selection and lead prioritization. Sales productivity can increase manifold with your team focused on pursuing high-quality leads, while the follow-up is done by machines. AI tools can update sales managers about relationship status across accounts and also provide real-time insights about prospects. This information enables precise predictions about client behavior and helps you close more deals. AI also enables accurate predictions by providing a real-time picture of transactions to help sales executives decide whether to advance or park deals. The one-size-fits-all strategy rarely works for customers with diverse needs and demands. AI tools enable the creation of customized campaigns and pitches based on customer data. They can also help you establish seamless communication with high-priority customers. Based on their preferences and past behavior, AI tools can suggest the ideal time to make an offer via call or email, when to send an email or interact on social media platforms. Utilizing Intelligent Sales Assistants AI tools provide crucial support to and sales personnel and help them maximize their output and expedite crucial tasks. Chatbots such as ChatGPT generate responses on the basis of an extensive training dataset. With the unique ability to interpret inputs, chatbots are proving to be efficient research assistants. They offer a faster and smarter way to find options instead of spending hours on search engines. Moreover, AI-powered virtual assistants provide insights to help you formulate new sales strategies. While you will still need to validate the results, virtual sales assistants will save a lot of your time and effort by answering all your questions. AI tools maintain a systematic record of communication, appointments, and other basic sales activities relieving salespeople of tedious and time-consuming tasks. Artificial intelligence manages and automates tasks varying from scheduling appointments to assessing your sales team’s pipeline. This gives you and your team bandwidth to focus on building long-term customer relationships and high-value activities. Integrating a video translator can improve your global outreach, making it easier to communicate with clients in different languages. By using this AI tool, sales teams can deliver personalized presentations to a diverse audience, ensuring clear communication with their prospects. Artificial intelligence can mine datasets from multiple sources and get back with prioritized leads. The logic, speed and standardization that AI brings to the process can’t be matched by human effort. Armed with a list of high-quality leads, your sales team can focus on converting them and you can even create
Future of SAM Study: Shaping the Future of Strategic Account Planning
The Future of Strategic Account Management Unlock the secrets to strategic account management and stay ahead of the curve! Our research team is thrilled to announce the release of our latest report, Shaping the Future of Strategic Account Planning: Insights, Opportunities & Strategies at the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) Annual Conference 2023. Find out what sales leaders from over 100 organizations had to say about their objectives, investments, and challenges in strategic account planning. Be the first to learn the trends and best practices in strategic account planning by reading our latest report. Let’s shape the future of strategic account planning together!
Redefining Sales Enablement for the Future: The AI Advantage
The world of sales is evolving at a breakneck pace. The days of manual processes and guesswork are long gone. They’ve been replaced by a new era of data-driven insights and cutting-edge technology. A recent Salesforce study revealed that over 95% of sales operations professionals and sales leaders believe that Artificial Intelligence (AI) coupled with automation gives sales reps more time to focus on selling. A fairly large number of sales professionals also believe that AI will play a significant role in their industry in the foreseeable future. This number is growing every day. The rapid shift is causing businesses to rethink their approach to sales enablement, and one game-changing technology is leading the charge: artificial intelligence. Imagine a world where your sales team can: instantly identify high-potential leads, use detailed customer profiles to tailor sales pitches, close deals at a significantly higher rate, all while spending less time on administrative tasks. No! This isn’t a scene from a science fiction movie; it’s the reality of sales enablement powered by AI. As organizations around the globe continue to embrace AI-driven solutions, the gap between those who adapt and those who resist will only widen. As we explore the AI advantage in sales enablement, let’s dive into the benefits and innovations transforming the way businesses approach sales. Let’s look at the practical issues faced by organizations looking to adopt AI-driven strategies and prepare for the future of sales. Get ready to redefine your sales enablement strategy for the AI-driven future. Read Ebook: The Future of AI-Assisted Account Planning The AI Advantage: Key Benefits for sales enablement As we explore the remarkable impact of AI on sales enablement, it’s crucial to recognize the main advantages that artificial intelligence offers. From improved efficiency and productivity to smarter decision-making and customized customer experiences, AI is set to reshape the sales landscape. Let’s dive deeper into these benefits: 1. Enhanced efficiency and productivity Incorporating AI into sales enablement strategies not only enhances the overall performance of sales teams but also streamlines their day-to-day activities. By reducing time-consuming tasks and optimizing workflows, AI brings a whole new level of productivity to the sales process. a. Automation of repetitive tasks: One of the most significant advantages of AI in sales enablement is its ability to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable time for sales representatives to focus more on strategic initiatives. Tasks like data entry, lead qualification, appointment scheduling and follow-up emails can be taken over by AI-powered tools. Free of these routine activities, sales reps can focus on nurturing relationships, closing deals and driving revenue growth. b. Streamlined sales processes: AI can streamline sales processes by optimizing workflows, reducing bottlenecks and increasing overall efficiency. AI-powered analytics can help sales teams identify inefficiencies in their sales funnel, uncover best practices, and make data-driven decisions to optimize their processes. AI can also assist in managing and prioritizing tasks. This ensures that sales reps focus on the most impactful activities. 2. Improved decision-making through data analysis The ability to make well-informed decisions is critical to the success of any sales team. By harnessing the power of AI, sales professionals can unlock valuable insights from data and make smarter, more strategic choices to drive business growth. a. Predictive analytics and forecasting: AI-powered predictive analytics can dramatically improve decision-making by providing accurate sales forecasts and identifying potential risks and opportunities. AI is characterized by advanced algorithms that analyze historical data, market trends and customer behavior. Using these algorithms, Ai can generate reliable sales predictions, enabling sales leaders to make better decisions about resource allocation, territory planning and sales strategies. b. Identification of high-potential leads: AI can help sales teams identify high-potential leads. This is done by accurately analyzing vast amounts of data and uncovering patterns that may not be easily apparent to human analysts. By leveraging AI-driven lead scoring, sales reps can prioritize leads with the highest likelihood of converting. This results in a better lead nurturing process and higher conversion rates. 3. Personalization and customer-centric selling In today’s competitive market, understanding and catering to individual customer needs is vital to stand above the competition. With AI, sales teams can design a personalized and customer-focused approach. This results in stronger relationships and increased sales success. a. AI-driven customer profiling: Understanding your customers is crucial for sales enablement. AI-driven customer profiling can help demonstrate a deeper understanding of prospects. The profiling is done by analyzing data from various sources like CRM systems, social media and website interactions. These insights can provide a comprehensive view of each customer’s preferences, pain points, and buying behaviors, enabling sales reps to craft personalized sales strategies that appeal to their target audience. b. Tailored sales pitches and content: Personalization greatly appeals to today’s consumers. And AI can help sales teams create tailored sales pitches and content that speak directly to the unique desires and needs of each customer. AI can analyze data on individual customer interactions, preferences and past purchases. Through this data, AI can then personalize sales messages and content recommendations that are more likely to engage prospects and convert them into customers. Sales teams can therefore build stronger relationships, improve customer satisfaction, and ultimately drive higher sales performance. Download: The Future of Key Account Management Report – A Global CSO study by DemandFarm AI-driven strategies: Innovations transforming sales enablement Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world of sales and strategic account management. Advancements in AI can help businesses analyze, strategize and engage with key accounts more effectively. Sales teams are rapidly adopting AI-powered digital tools. This helps them improve their strategies, enhance their productivity and ultimately, drive growth. Here are some ways in with AI can assist improvement and growth in Sales: 1. AI-assisted account planning: AI can be used to recommend ideal account plans for the year. This is done by reviewing data, sales intelligence and historical performance across a company’s portfolio of key accounts. This data-driven approach is more efficient and ultimately leads to planning and implementing more effective and impactful strategies. Read
Benefits of Digitalizing Your Key Account Management Program
The quest for the right solution is never-ending in B2B spheres, as organizational needs constantly change and evolve. Large organizations rely on technology to streamline their processes and improve their efficiency – and are constantly looking for tools that can help them in this regard. With digital key account management tools, sales teams can offer numerous advantages over traditional methods, including increased security, convenience, and visibility. Buyer behavior has drastically changed over the last couple of years, and a significant portion of post-pandemic interactions are expected to remain virtual. This shift in behavior has brought key account management to the forefront of many organizations’ strategies, prompting CSOs and CROs to rethink their approach to managing accounts. With key account management evolving and becoming more complex, organizations are turning to AI as a key differentiator and enabler. Meeting buyer needs with digital account management solutions Buyers have significantly changed their behaviors, and more personas are coming into the digital key account management sphere. It’s becoming critical for organizations to leverage technology to enable their employees to develop better connections with buyers. However, adding additional steps or work for the sales team can create friction and become a significant hurdle for organizations to leverage technology better. To create a frictionless and seamless process, organizations must evaluate the additional work that gets added on to the sales team when they are selling. This approach is not just about technology; it’s about how technology and processes can work together to create a better experience for everyone involved. Large clients are looking for solutions that can help them drive optimize processes, streamline growth and reduce costs. However, the decision-making process can be complex, involving multiple stakeholders, technical buyers, and influencers. As a result, companies need to have an effective key account management tool that can help them navigate this complex landscape and identify the key decision-makers within an organization. Check out more on the DemandFarm account planning masterclass on ‘Making Account Plans Actionable, Measurable and Sustainable’ here. Managing key accounts digitally is important for companies, as conversations have largely moved online – rendering the traditional methods powerless. Having tools to visualize the customer’s organizational structure, understand the influences among stakeholders, and identify key decision-makers provides much needed context for sales teams. With this context, key decision makers can use relationship maps to target the right decision makers. Start small and take a hypothesis-driven approach Every company is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to implementing and managing the relationship. The best way to manage is to test at a small scale and expand organically through the learnings. Develop a hypothesis for how the objectives can be accomplished and allow teams to test them out. By collecting data to measure success, teams can adjust course where needed. Iteratively testing and learning leads to an approach that works for the organization and can be scaled organically in the sales team. Find champions Champions are the people in the organization who spearhead change and advocate for digitalization of key account management. They empower others to share the vision and help teams focus on the goal. Focus on competitive advantages Finding ways to extend competitive advantages can involve white space mapping, identifying new opportunities with existing clients, or finding new clients for existing solutions. Having a unique digital relationship strategy gives a surgical and intentional approach for how sales teams identify key areas of communication. To build trust and relationships, sales teams can play on their strengths and highlight related features prominently to meet stakeholder needs. One of the most important factors when selecting a digital key account management tool is its ability to integrate with the company’s existing solution set – so that teams don’t feel like they are using a third-party product. If the tool is easy to learn and operate, minimal training is required for employees to understand its functionalities. When implemented effectively, a digital key account management tool can transform the way companies manage their large clients. It can help sales teams to better understand their customers’ organizational structure and the key decision-makers involved in the purchasing process. This understanding can lead to more effective sales strategies and ultimately, increased revenue. Companies that work with large clients need to invest in digital key account management tools to effectively manage their relationships. By leveraging these tools, companies can gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs, and develop more effective sales strategies that drive growth and reduce costs. The need for digital tools to manage customer relationships Organizations have completely overhauled their strategies over the last two years, especially when it comes to customer relationship management. Small and medium sized businesses that rely heavily on personal interactions with clients now use a digital-first approach to Key Account Management. To remain relevant with customers, solution providers have to create and implement a digital account and relationship strategy that could help them retain or even grow their key relationships in this new remote world. There are a few factors that sales teams have to consider: Aiming for a data-driven approach to relationship strategy and management. As consultants, the sales team helps clients define business problems, collect data, and use that data to inform decisions that produce positive outcomes for their organization. However, by turning that lens internally, organizations can come up with a suitable approach to manage opportunities, and improve their outcomes through managing accounts and relationships. Managing culture and people changes is important while shifting to a new approach. It requires proactive and sustained communication across a variety of stakeholder groups to influence broad behavior change across the company. To make it stick, sales teams should align incentives and the way they measure things to reflect the business outcomes they really care about as a business. Enabling teams with the right tools powers them to punch well above their weight. Even with the best approach and a workforce ready for change, lack of infrastructure and relevant tools to do the work can cause frustration,
Digital Key Account Management: Challenges and Solutions
In the world of B2B software, having large technology companies as key clients is critical for growth and success. However, supporting and fostering these accounts requires a strategic and dynamic approach. Traditionally, account plans were created once a year and reviewed by the executive team. However, in today’s dynamic business environment, plans change quickly, and regular updates are necessary. This is where digital key account management comes in. Digital key account management provides several benefits over traditional account planning: it is dynamic and flexible, allowing for quick updates and changes. It provides a step-by-step approach to account planning, ensuring all account owners use the same approach. With digital key account management tools, employees can share information across the organization easily, ensuring everyone is aligned and up to date. Watch Now: Insights on Digital Key Account Management by David Shen, Head of Revenue Operations at Cambridge Mobile Telematics Factors to Consider While Adopting Digital Key Account Management As businesses continue to adapt to the digital world, one aspect that needs to be considered is key accounts and how they are managed. Shifting towards digital key account management is becoming increasingly essential, especially in sales. With B2B software sales moving majorly digital due to the pandemic, organizations need to identify the need to adopt a digital approach to key account management that is tailored to deal with large businesses that come with large buying committees. It is no longer just a matter of someone coming to the vendor asking for the tool. Now, sales teams must go outbound and convince people within that business to buy their product. This requires a different selling motion, and getting buying across the whole group is now a requirement. Digital Account Management Masterclass by Pawanjeet Singh – AVP & Head of Sales at DemandFarm To make this process easier and more organized, businesses need a solution that integrates well with their existing tech stack. It should be easy to use and represent the parent and child customer structure accurately. The software should be visual and easy to navigate, making it easier for sales teams to learn new muscles. It should also be able to provide comprehensive views of all data and not have little islands of data scattered around. It also provides other teams within the organization, such as customer success, BDRs, and ABM teams, access to this data. This means that the software chosen for digital key account management must be accessible to everyone within the organization. To make the transition smoother, businesses should consider software solutions that integrate well with their existing tech stack, accurately represent their customer structure, and provide a comprehensive view of all data. By choosing the right software, businesses can streamline their sales process and make it easier for everyone within the organization to access the data they need. Challenges in Adopting Digital Key Account Management As businesses continue to embrace the digital age, many are finding that adopting digital key account management tools can help them streamline their operations, increase efficiency and effectiveness, and ultimately drive better results. However, like any new technology or process, there are challenges that come with adopting these tools. The following are some factors to consider when making this shift: Maturity level and discipline: Is your organization ready to leverage a digital tool, and do you have the discipline to use it effectively? Executive buy-in: Do you have the support of the executive team to ensure adoption across the organization? Account complexity: Are your accounts growing in complexity, and do you need a strategic view to manage them effectively? Business transition: Are your clients going through a transition, and do you need to keep a dynamic planning approach to stay aligned with their changing needs? Team transformation: Do you have the right team to drive the transformation, and do you have champions who can lead the adoption process? Integration and training: Have you integrated the digital tool into your existing processes, and have you provided the necessary training and support to ensure successful adoption? Follow & Listen to: The Shift Podcast on Digital Key Account Management One of the biggest challenges businesses face when adopting digital key account management tools is ensuring that these tools do not detract from customer or client interactions. It is essential to ensure that these tools add value and do not add more internal steps or processes that pull the account team away from building relationships with clients. Therefore, it is crucial to think through the transition process and assess the impact of these tools on client face time. By doing so, businesses can ensure that they are not only adding value but also maintaining strong relationships with their clients. Many businesses have other corporate tools and systems in place that these tools need to integrate with. This can be particularly challenging when it comes to financial tools, as revenue tracking against plans and budgets for the year is essential. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that these tools integrate seamlessly with other systems and that any changes or updates do not cause undue disruption. Ensuring that the tool aligns with the requirements of the organization. Every organization has its processes and terminology, which can differ from the standard used by the industry. To overcome this, organizations should work to ensure that the tool’s requirements are aligned with the organization’s needs – this can be as simple as remaining fields to make sense to its users. This ensures that there are no misunderstandings that can cause naysayers to reject the tool. Training is another challenge that businesses face when implementing digital key account management tools. It is essential to ensure that everyone is trained properly and understands how to use the tools effectively. However, lengthy training sessions can be time-consuming and may not be the most effective approach. Instead, businesses can consider rolling out training over a more extended period, with shorter, more focused training sessions. This allows individuals to try out the tool, ask questions, and
Ebook: AI-Assisted Account Planning – Conversations of the Future Part 1
The Future of AI-Assisted Account Planning The future of account planning is here, and it’s time to take advantage of it! Let’s ask Mindy, our helpful AI, and learn more about the role of AI in account planning and find out how AI-assisted account planning can revolutionize the way we do business. This is a 3-part series where we discuss the potential of artificial intelligence, build on connected apps ecosystem, and understand how a shift towards a digital-first mindset is changing how we approach key account management.
Unlocking White Space Opportunities Using AI-powered Analytics in Account Planning
Analytics is making inroads into influencing sales decisions, but there is still a long way to go. McKinsey’s Unlocking the power of data in sales survey shows that 57% of sales organizations their advanced analytics practice as inadequate. While organizations have more data than ever before, many of them struggle to benefit from even basic analytics. Many are on the verge of developing well-designed analytics programs, but the question of delivery of significant top-line and margin growth remains. Using AI-powered analytics can be the answer, as it can nudge sales teams by offering better facts and views. Organizations should identify areas where analytics can add value and implement AI power wisely. Ebook: AI-Assisted Account Planning – Conversations of the Future Part 1 Organizations need a commercial strategy that is not just focused solely on attracting new business while maintaining the status quo with existing accounts. Today’s B2B sales environment requires teams to balance retaining and growing existing accounts, just to keep pace with the competition. A Gartner survey supports this – teams that focus on improving ongoing customer conversations on an account, typically grow that account by 48%. Learn More: Analysts’ Predictions of AI for Sales, Account Management and Sales Enablement in 2023 The Shift toward Digital Account Management Companies are constantly looking for new ways to improve their sales and marketing strategies – and digital account management leverages technology to create personalized marketing and sales campaigns for specific accounts, resulting in better customer engagement and increased revenue. Shifting towards digital account management and powering it with AI-based tools can allow sales teams to target their products effectively. Listen to The Shift Podcast – A DemandFarm Original on Digital Key Account Management Account-based selling and account-based marketing are not new concepts, and many organizations have already adopted these techniques successfully. However, before adopting any new technology, it is essential to have the right processes in place. Companies should start with a pilot or proof of concept (POC) where they select a handful of accounts and test the effectiveness of their digital account management strategies. By doing so, they can identify the benefits, obstacles, and potential value that the approach brings to their business. Learn More: Key Account Management Scorecard Template to Identify Key Accounts Incorporating digital account management involves creating a transparent process that involves everyone in the organization. By involving people in the process, companies can increase transparency, gain buy-in, and ensure that all stakeholders understand the impact of the new approach. Therefore, involving employees from different departments such as marketing, sales, and customer success, and making them understand the value of digital account management, can make the transition smoother. Organizations must focus on driving revenue goals by leveraging digital account management, by ensuring every account receives a personalized experience and better engagement, leading to increased revenue. Relationship-based selling has become more critical in B2B spheres. With digital account management, companies can tailor their approach to individual accounts, building strong relationships that drive revenue growth. By providing customized marketing and sales campaigns, companies can increase customer engagement and drive better results. The shift toward digital account management can be a game-changer for companies looking to improve their sales and marketing strategies. To do so successfully, companies must have the right processes in place, involve their employees, and focus on driving revenue goals. By starting with a pilot and scaling the approach based on results, companies can realize the potential of digital account management and enhance their overall sales and marketing effectiveness. Case Study: 2x Improvement in Customer Relationships with Org Chart Infusing AI-based Analytics in Key Account Management Key account management can be a lot more effective with up-to-date data. The relevance of data can be assured by capturing details automatically and regularly while keeping key account managers free to focus on customer engagement. They can streamline their activities and define the usefulness of their engagements, and identify if accounts are getting the right amount of engagement. With AI, they can define what the right amount of engagement is, leverage existing relationships, and more. Identifying Account Intent AI can be helpful during account selection, by providing managers with details about the total addressable market, like revenue threshold, sector, previous engagements, and other parameters. From this, sales teams can whittle down their accounts list and create relationship maps. This refining of target accounts allows key account managers to enhance the probability of success instead of spreading themselves thin across opportunities. With the help of AI-based tools, they can establish customer intent quickly, and strike before competitors do. Optimizing Customer Touchpoints While sales graphs give the impression that customer journeys can be linear, seasoned sales executives know this is far from the truth. The buyer’s journey and its existence is something that’s been discussed many times, but it’s very hard to predict what their needs will be. AI can help in creating more realistic versions, and build a persona based on online behavior – which can be more pointed in B2B scenarios. This can allow key account managers to make the right move at the right time, and close the deal. Personalizing to the Customer With B2B tools, education, and continued knowledge transfer is essential for continued success. With AI, sales teams can create repositories that cater to the specific needs of customers – if the audience gets what it wants to see and read, it is bound to stay engaged. AI can lead to accurate content planning by using data to build a profile of interests on individual accounts. The rest is to pull the most relevant content to the front of the website, as per the user’s preferences. Hyper-targeting the Messaging The ability to hyper-target prospects is the predecessor to personalized website content – the same essence, but the value it brings is different. AI can utilize data on what prospects are researching and identify areas of growth that come under the product goal. By understanding the areas customers are looking to invest in, key account managers can
