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
Future of B2B Key Account Management
It is often too risky or even hazardous to make predictions these days. The pace of change is so fast and the possibility of disruption so high that divining the future would be impossible even for Nostradamus. But let me hazard a guess on the future of Key Account Management! Relationship Myths of B2B Key Account Management I always believed that the role of ‘relationship’ was misconstrued by many Concerning strategic account management. Relationships don’t give us business. The communication and delivery of ‘value’ build relationships and that in turn allows us to find more value creation opportunities. The myth of winning and dining or taking a corporate box in a baseball game to build relationships with clients will certainly be busted shortly. Social Media’s Role in Key Account Management OK, I am sticking my neck out here. Simply because social media marketing has been the buzzword for practically the past decade! To acquire new customers and to create awareness social media is a great place. But that is sales and marketing. On the other hand, if you go by the purist definition of Key Account Management where its role is played out in existing strategic accounts, social media has practically no role. An account manager should be able to reach out directly to contact(s) in existing accounts for any info, intelligence, changes, or even landscape. If an account manager is relying on social media for KAM, then s(he) is on the wrong foot already. Technological Impact on Key Account Management No discussion about the future is complete without understanding how technology can impact it. Finally, we are seeing, at least for simpler, low-value products – software has replaced human beings for generating top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) leads and also to push them to the middle of the funnel (MoFu). However, human beings are still needed to handhold the leads from the middle to the bottom of the funnel. Account Management comes in after the customer is acquired, which is beyond even the bottom of the funnel; especially for complex high-value solutions. Therefore, I can safely predict that software will not replace key account managers for at least the next 4 years. The role of key account management software will only increase. What will they do best? 1. Provide a single platform for all critical key account data (opportunities, contacts, account plans, org charts, account intelligence) 2. Enable better collaboration 3. Helps in institutionalizing key account management across the organization 4. Provide insights by analyzing aggregated key account plan data 5. Technology will facilitate key account planning and execution to make it much simpler. But what about Artificial Intelligence? Can a humanoid with AI replace key account managers soon? If you’re curious to understand how Artificial Intelligence could impact Key Account Management do take a look at my blog here. Download Now: The Future of Key Account Management Report – A Global CSO study Platforms to Watch Out For I think B2B key account management software will increasingly be embedded in Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics platforms. With Salesforce undoubtedly being the world’s favorite CRM, it is highly improbable that people will be willing to purchase standalone key account management software. But these are just my predictions and I just might be wrong. What do you think the future of B2B Key Account Management truly is? What do you think, especially if you disagree? What are your predictions? Ebook: AI-Assisted Account Planning – Conversations of the Future Part 1
4 Lessons for Key Account Managers from Tony Robbins
It’s that time again! When you watch the future unfold right in front of you! Yes, Dreamforce’16 is right around the corner, due next month! Did you get a chance to check out the keynote speakers this year? I was super curious, and I’m sure so are you, but Salesforce has only confirmed a handful of speakers so far. The good news is that among those is already the who’s who of leaders, thinkers, and innovators, plus one of my all-time favorites – the “Michael Jordan” of thought leaders – Tony Robbins. A recognized authority on the psychology of leadership, negotiations, and business turnaround, Tony Robbins, is the nation’s #1 Life and Business Strategist. When it comes to making a positive difference in people’s professional life, there is nobody in the game with stronger credentials than Tony Robbins. And like on millions of others, he’s made a significant impact on me too. Inspired by what’s to come in his session, I scoured the web to remind myself of some of his best nuggets that I found Evergreen for all professionals, including Key Account Management practitioners like us: 1. Know who to know: In his own words, Tony Robbins said one of the most amazing pieces of advice he ever received was “proximity is power.” His journey to becoming a great leader included positioning himself in proximity to the people who possessed the expertise, skills, knowledge, and connections that he could access directly. Such an approach opened various opportunities that helped achieve his goals. As KAM Leaders, one of the biggest challenges is to first identify the key stakeholders internally and externally. Large organizations have a web of complex and dynamic networks. The trick is really to identify, nurture and leverage – at the opportune time – the right relationship mapping, make the right connections and join the dots to spot the not-so-obvious opportunities. Building trust internally and client-side requires proximity, understanding, and acumen all at once. It’s also critical to make oneself accessible to the stakeholders and win their trust. I’ve found the possibilities to be endless when I’ve made relationship management central to my approach. 2. Shift focus from creating products to creating value: According to one of the “7 Forces of Business Mastery” defined by Robbins, it is imperative to understand, anticipate and realize the deepest needs of our customers consistently. The more value we create for our customers, the more we can dominate the marketplace. Sounds simple but practitioners will obviously know the myriad complexities hidden under this seemingly simple statement. It takes a lot to keep tabs on the dynamic landscape – be it customer industry and business goals, competitor offerings, regulatory needs or our own capacity. It takes a lot to build a watertight internal business case to invest in new capabilities because that’s where we believe the customer needs us to go. The idea is not to fall in love with our product or service, but to fall in love with the client and their needs, fears, goals. This way we have the right knowledge to create more value for clients than anybody else. 3. Embrace the magic of ‘strategic innovation’: When Robbins said that, as a leader, you have to strategically innovate; he meant being better than what currently exists. Not just in product, but in processes, service, delivery – every facet. Strategic Account Planning innovation is another pillar for creating unbeatable value for customers. Now here is the thing about innovation that struck me. It doesn’t have to be fancy; it doesn’t have to be the responsibility of unseen wizards sitting in the ‘innovation department.’ You get my drift. In fact, my favorite Tony Robbins phrase is ‘innovation is a daily habit.’ So how do we constantly identify new opportunities to serve customers better through fresh and inventive approaches that also help meet their goals? In my experience, the key is real-time knowledge available to all team members. If all internal stakeholders know what is going on now, that gives us multiple perspectives and multiple ideas and therefore multiple possibilities to innovate. Less time spent on admin and housekeeping tasks, more on collaboration and connection. 4. Keep your eye on the goal: Today’s Key Account Manager skills include a sharp track of the business results even before the client notices a declining goal metric. Robbins points out that opportunities for maximization are plenty such as lead generation, conversions, sales, etc. The key is to document the results in each area and anticipate the challenges that hinder efforts to achieve goals. Because you can’t manage what you don’t, measure. Measuring an outcome further mobilizes the team to work on key areas of improvement and further cement positions of strength. In my years as a Key Account professional, I’ve found that quantifying the qualitative and qualifying the quantitative is a real art, and can hold the key to success. It is easier said than done, of course. Managing Key Accounts is both – art and science. Finding a balance between the two is something I take both as a personal challenge and a key focus area for innovation with my company, DemandFarm. Needless to say, Account Managers are the cornerstone of the organization, responsible for a bulk of the revenue from just a few strategic customers. Following Tony’s advice can certainly help up the chances of success. What are your favorite Tony Robbins insights? We’d love to hear them and how you used them in the Account Management Context! Write in and share the secrets!
Key Account Management Vs. Regular Account Management
The one common mistake many organizations, both small and big tend to make and repeat, is to treat all their accounts the same. It is never too late, however, to correct the situation and start looking at your account types more closely. You will notice, there is a key difference in the account types, organizations like yours, have in their portfolio. Largely, accounts can be divided into two key categories- the Key Accounts and the Regular Accounts. Each of these two categories needs a different management style, system, and people. An Account Management process is required to manage Key Accounts, which require more nurturing and attention than normal accounts. Let’s look at why these two categories are different and to be treated differently. What is Key Account Management? Key Account Management is a strategic approach to managing and nurturing business relationships with the most important customers of an organization. These key accounts are typically a small group of customers who contribute significantly to the company’s revenue and long-term success. The purpose of Key Account Management is to maximize the value of these key customer relationships by providing personalized and tailored solutions that meet their specific needs. This helps in building strong, sustainable partnerships that can lead to increased sales, higher profits, and better customer retention. Furthermore, Key Account Management is not a one-time process but an ongoing one. It requires continuous nurturing and adaptation to changing market dynamics, customer needs, and business goals. What is Regular sales? Regular sales is a common criteria of selling products or services that has been used for many years. It involves the direct interaction between sellers and customers, often through face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or cold calls. Traditional sales also rely heavily on advertising and promotional activities to reach potential customers. Key account management vs regular account management : Key differences High-Value and High-Volume Your Key Accounts are the high-value accounts. So, the number of projects or tasks or transactions you win from each of these accounts may be small, but the value of each of these transactions is big. Whereas your regular accounts, maybe many in number, and each may give you, a large number of projects or transactions, but the value from each is smaller. Such accounts are therefore popular for their volumes. What is important is to remember that both types of accounts are important to your business, only that, you need to manage both differently. Customer-centric and Transaction-centric Accounts The high-value accounts are your customer-centric account, that is, the focus is on building a long-lasting relationship with the customer. These accounts usually have a longer buying lifecycle and hence, repeat orders may be fewer; but the value for each of these orders makes up for everything. The customer becomes the key here and more so, your relationship mapping with him. Trust is never easily won and needs to be maintained and built upon. These high-value accounts are important to your overall business plan. The other type of accounts is the transaction-centric accounts, where each transaction is important. Here, the transaction is not high in value, but the number of transactions is more important. Repeat business takes center-stage and that is the sales team’s objective. For effective key account management, your brief to the sales team should be to nurture the relationship of your KAs (Key Accounts) and in the transaction-centric accounts, your brief should be to increase the value of each transaction. Personalized and Automated Accounts Automation is the name of the game today and helps your transaction-centric accounts when it comes to being regularly updated about their purchases, stocks available, lead time and service issues if any. These are RAs (Regular Accounts) who have established a certain sense of comfort and rhythm for you and with you and can be managed through an automated system with minimal personal interaction. On the other hand, are your KAs who need personal and personalized interaction at all times and at every stage of your journey together. They should also be on your automated system but only so long as it helps them to function uninterrupted in matters that are more operational. Key Accounts need to be handled with TLC of the professional kind; you need to invest in the relationship by meeting them personally, understanding their needs and exceeding their expectations. Key Accounts need frequent and regular personal attention; if you take this as a non-negotiable in your business plan, you will go far with your KAs. F2F and F2A Accounts Face2Face or F2F is the nature of the interaction with your KAs and F2A (Face to Automated System) is the nature of your RAs. The main objective of your KAs needs to be personal and interactive in almost real-time; whereas the main objective for your RAs needs to be largely data-based. The course of your interaction with your RAs will be decided on the numbers that the automated system throws up, but your KAs will have to be more qualitative in nature. KAs is about managing relationships and RAs are about managing numbers. 80-20 Accounts The famous management rule applies in this case too, where 80 % of your profit will come from 20% of your accounts, which are your KAs and 20% of your profit will come from 80% of your accounts, your RAs. What resources to invest and how and where, are the key questions you have to handle. Automated systems will work best for the 80% of your accounts – RAs, whereas, you can safely invest and focus your personal time on 20% of your KAs. Knowing and serving these two different account types is the key to maximizing the potential of your sales force. It will pay to look at specialized Key Account Management Softwares to help you mine your Key Accounts and enrich your relationship for the long term. Read our blog on Strategic Account Management or Explore the complete guide to Cross-selling and Up-selling to identify unexplored opportunities for your business as well as your clients’ business and grow better in 2021. The Importance of
The 5 Skills Every Kickass Key Account Manager Needs in 2024
We’ve gone over the fact that 80% of your key account revenue comes from 20% of your accounts. Thus, the key account manager who manages this 20 % of accounts plays a key role in the ongoing success of your business. He/She needs to nurture your company’s most valuable customers and build a long-term relationship with them, not just as salespeople but as trusted advisors. This key account manager can have such a huge impact on the fortune of a company is in a very influential position. The responsibilities and expectations may be many, but the time on their hands is very less and hence certain skills are needed to do the job well. Guide: Career progression for key account manager Here are the top 5 Skills that every Key account manager Professional should have to do his job amazingly: #1. Effective Communicator Key Account Managers are in a unique position where they constantly interact with people within the client organization who have extremely powerful roles and positions. Communicating with such high flying corporate executives is not easy. They need training on the specific key account they are handling. Key Account Managers must strive to constantly keep communication flowing to establish themselves as trusted advisors. The client touchpoints should feel that they can reach out to their account managers with any question/concern and that they will receive a helpful and thoughtful response. In order to be a successful key account manager, he/she should be indispensable to the client in every way. It is truly an art to keep clients engaged without being intrusive. #2. Proactive Key Account Management The biggest mistake that Key Account Managers do is thinking that they don’t need to rock the boat too much. They believe that their job is just wine and dine clients and build a relationship mapping through this. A Key Account Manager must proactively glean insights from the customers about how the product model is functioning for them, if there are gaps in product fitment and if there is any reason for them to be unhappy. This description can allow him/her to proactively put out key account management fires, even before they arise. This information can be used for new product development to address any gaping need, as spoken about in this blog. #3. Empathizing with Customers A Key Account Manager must, of course, have research and analytical bend of mind where he/she understands the client’s goals and expectations deeply, but it is also important to understand any problems that they may be facing. Key account managers must collaborate with customers to create a plan of action to work towards business goals. If the KAMs follow through with those plans while adjusting for market conditions they stand to demonstrate the real value of their company. A true Key Account Manager will consistently help clients achieve their end goals while remaining in a fiduciary position. When a client can show its senior management that a Key Account Manager positively impacted their bottom line by putting their blood, sweat, and tears in there is bound to be a lasting collaboration. #4. Challenging The Key Account to Use Optimal Strategies Look for opportunities to educate your key accounts, or even challenge them with a new way of thinking when appropriate. If they’re asking how to do something a certain way, and you know of a better way, use that chance to educate them for everyone’s good. When a key account asks you how to do something, seek to understand why they want to do that. By understanding their motives and reasons, you’ll be able to recommend an alternative course of action. Your job as a key account manager isn’t to make friends with your key account, and not even necessary to “satisfy” them. Your primary job is to push your key account, challenge them, and get them to think, in order to make them generate more revenue. #5. Becoming a disruptive growth key account manager Nevermore has there been a better time for key account managers to reposition themselves by taking charge of the disruptive growth agenda. Such initiatives by managers are often the most creative and have the biggest revenue potential. Key account managers that want to do their job well and reach their potential and move into a disruptive growth role in 2024 can do so by: Breaking the barrier: The manager that can best articulate a disruptive growth strategy will be king of account management. As most companies look to grow, key account managers should be the ones to step forward to create the platforms that will catapult their key accounts forward into new business possibilities. Data Monetization: While traditional key account management activities continue to be important, more focus can be allowed to drive disruptive growth initiatives that present data visualization and analysis. New tools and initiatives in mining data can help the key account managers to take necessary actions towards monetizing it. Competition analysis: The landscape of competitors is always changing. Every day new competitors enter the market. It is necessary to watch out for innovations your competitors are bringing up to stay aligned with the trends in the industry. Only a few key account managers believe defending their key accounts against new competitors that have not traditionally been part of their industry is a priority to their key accounts today. Key accounts can avoid being disrupted, but only if they can see what’s coming. As a Key account manager, you are now at an inflection point in 2024. You have a clear opportunity to step up to the plan of growth and expansion in 2024. So far, most have missed the opportunity, resulting in others being in front of the line for the role. Currently, the plan is ripe for the taking, but opportunities such as this one have a shelf life. With swift, sure action, key account managers can capitalize on their window of white space opportunity.
Is An Account Manager – Robot? Iron Man? Or Superman?
The approach to problem-solving was superbly explained to me by Dhiraj Rajaram of Mu Sigma. I loved the simplicity of the framework & its analogy. The implication in the business process and problem-solving is profound. I kept revisiting this framework for the Key Account Management process. So what persona do you want your Account Managers to have? Robot: Key Account Management is not that simple. One cannot ‘automate’ the whole process and have Robots run the process. There is a uniqueness to every b2b company in terms of what value they add to their strategic accounts. Their uniqueness to each account of the same b2b company. So unless you sell something that is completely commoditized, you cannot make your Account Managers into Robots. Superman: You would want all your Account Managers to be Supermen of course. That’s not going to happen. Few could be, that too for some time and not all the time. Training all your Account Managers to be Supermen is not scalable or sustainable. Iron Man: I like him. He is a human and if provided with the right tech and account planning tools can do amazing things. A reasonably intelligent and passionate account team provided with tech & tools (read DemandFarm). They return amazing results. This is scalable & sustainable. At DemandFarm we automate the repetitive & simpler tasks of an Account Manager (Robot). We also provide frameworks that can be configured to suit your company’s Strategic Account Management process (Iron Man). We leave the ‘human’ in your Account Manager to do what only humans can do (Superman). That’s why 5000+ Account Managers love using DemandFarm’s key account management software to manage and grow their accounts. Let us show you how we do it.
Time to Question key account management relationships
Key account management relationships So you are in a key account management review meeting, going over the year’s plan with the global accounts team and the business heads. During the meeting, it emerges that your key account planning could fall short this year. As a senior key account manager, you present the reasons – Team Churn in the Key Accounts, followed by Organization restructuring in the accounts. All present go into a ‘thinking’ mode, only to be interrupted by the CEO, who steps into the meeting to exchange pleasantries. “Hey, what’s going on?” You say, “Boss, unexpected organization development issues at my account could jeopardize this year’s goals. “Pop came the question, only CEOs ask.” OK. So how are we doing in terms of our relationships with this account? And how does this relationship scale with time and corporate actions?” The question didn’t surprise. For you, yourself have been looking for account planning solutions since the time people issues have been surfacing at the key account. Key Account Management Relationships are the core As we see in the example above, key account managers can make significant gains by taking good care of their relationships at the key accounts. Surprisingly, it does not get the necessary attention until confronted by a dire situation. It is ironic because sound strategic account management is supposed to anticipate such issues and propose proactive remedial measures. Gaps, when discovered, could be both – strategic and transactional. Strategic Gaps Such gaps are identified because the key account management strategy missed considering such factors in the overall strategy. It does happen that while collaborating with the key account for value creation, teams from the key account side tend to discount disruptions that could emerge from their side. It is natural for key accounts to be more cautious about their suppliers. An established Key account management process driven using systems and structure can very well address such limitations. At times, the hunting nature of the business at supplier organizations also tends to impact the focus on relationships within key accounts. Transactional Gaps These are mostly operational issues that are discovered only when they happen. The reasons could range from incorrectly updating the CRM to not documenting minutes from the last meeting. Identifying, addressing and testing these gaps will enable key account management driven businesses to leverage relationships better. Eventually, this could help better value creation and confront challenges when they crop up. Questions to Ask If you are an account planning driven business that has witnessed situations where depreciation in relationships (for reasons whatsoever) has compromised business goals, the following questions are a good place to start. Who are the people who count in the Key Account? Status – Can you connect each name and role back to the existing client relationship? Budget – What budgets does each person at the key account control? Decision Makers – What specific areas of the decision-making process does each person participate in? Power Equation – Who is a champion, gatekeeper, influencer, detractor orally? Influence – What internal stakeholders or networks can be activated to develop or nurture the right relationships? What are the relationship dynamics amongst the team members at the Key Accounts? Capturing the who’s who in the key accounts is ok. It is indispensable to push further. Key account management teams don’t stop at that. They go further and capture the intensity of the relationships that exist within the key account teams. Ask yourself – Are you able to bring a real-time, flexible, and responsive approach to managing multiple stakeholders? How to map and track people and their ever-shifting connections, motivations, dispensations, and affinities? Are you set up to have custom-made contact plans that can evolve with the relationship dynamics? Can these changes be captured formally and reflect throughout the system to all internal stakeholders? Relationship Context? Actionable insights from the above relationships require the presence of context. Context would help set the agenda at all times. Big Picture – Can you connect the roles and titles to the bigger picture of the account relationship? Are you set up to create value in the customer’s context and not just in your own comfort zone? Quick View – Do you have an easy and convenient way to view these networks of context and spot opportunities for value creation? Institutionalizing Relationships? Key account relationships should outlive the KAMs and all the members that constitute the strategic account planning teams. Therefore, it is critical to building accounts and people’s knowledge into the system so all internal stakeholders are tuned in and can do their part seamlessly. The key questions to ask are as under. Time – How much time and effort is spent on making – in real-time, and as productively as possible – the right information and context available to internal stakeholders? Institutionalising – How safe you are from attrition and losing control of valuable relationships because of people’s changes? Process – How easy is it for you to capture the right information into the system as a part of the process What can technology do for this web of Relationships? Technology holds the power to automate many manual tasks. Thus, freeing up time the KAMs time to ‘think’. Manual management of vital relationships with a spreadsheet or notebook is not just inefficient, it’s also a risk. It only makes key account management vulnerable. Are any of your relationships being managed manually? Do you then face the following limitations? Missed Opportunities – Are you missing opportunities due to a lack of visibility or ability to connect people to the business context? Single View – Can your tool help connect the dots across all the variables and show both – the big picture and the micro-picture, based on the need? How many of these 15+ questions on account relationships can your current key account management strategy answer with confidence? Should there be more questions that need to be addressed? Should we also look beyond relationships into the realm of product/services, market,
Key Account Management, The Jewel in Sales’ Crown
Sales is a critical function in any organization and have always been able to attract internal resources, both human and capital. Key Account Management began as an add-on to sales or a different way to structure departments and assign responsibilities. Though it received plenty of account management focus, there were few specialized human resources and even less capital or technological resources. Only when the number of key account managers reached a tipping point did firms felt the technology-pinch, unable to support collaboration, consolidation or standardization of methodology. But the times changed and with them the behavior of the Key Account Manager. So why have companies been willing to spend resources on CRM, sales training, etcetera but not on KAM? It could be because top-line results are credited to front-line sales while key account managers slog behind the scenes. Top management commitment is important, but it is not enough to create a successful KAM program. Without adequate resources can a company create the foundation on which to build a robust KAM system? In our experience, a three-pronged approach to KAM yields the best results. 1. Choosing the right Key Account Managers: Your best salesperson is not necessarily the best key account manager. Along with influencing skills, they also need collaborative and general management skills, the ability to interact with internal and external stakeholders, to identify problems and design appropriate solutions. It definitely helps to have a manager who can take a long-term perspective on building relationships. While you may choose a person for the role based on some inherent traits and skills, it is also important to invest in training key account managers to help them achieve their full potential. 2. Choosing the right technology: Just as sales managers are enabled with CRM, key account managers need to be enabled with KAM-specific technology. Key Account Management software draws data from a CRM like Salesforce, thereby avoiding data entry and duplication. It supports collaboration across multiple departments and executives at different hierarchical levels. It helps create a relationship matrix and identifies white space or white space opportunities. A standardized process and unified view help improve performance. 3. Measuring and monitoring achievements: Here is a truism that is often ignored: Sales targets and key account goals are not the same. If you want a key account manager to develop a long-term perspective, you have to create long-term goals and pick quantifiable criteria that measure the health of a key account. Account management tools are a great asset as it gives you a multi-dimensional view of the key account; revenue, profitability, deals in the pipeline, relationship strength, untapped potential, share of customer’s purchase and more. Each parameter is measured and monitored individually, followed by analytics to calculate the overall health of a key account. The first CRM software, introduced in the nineteen-eighties, was a simple digital Rolodex! It took several decades and massive technological innovation before CRM became a necessity, not an option or luxury for sales professionals. However in today’s technologically advanced world, decades have shrunk into years and companies that have not invested in KAM technology are not able to exploit, or even recognize, the potential of their key accounts. Your budget should no longer be a debate about CRM or KAM. If you want to maximize growth and tap the potential of your key accounts you need to enable your key account managers by investing in KAM technology. Stop treating KAM as a stepchild. In today’s customer-focused, solution-oriented market, KAM is the jewel in sales’ crown.
Will Real Time Reporting for KAM Help Sales Ops Breathe Easy?
Real-Time Reporting won’t just help; it could power Key Account Management model to success. A veritable game-changer, possibly. The DemandFarm Blog has consistently argued how Key Accounts are latent revenue drivers. The hourglass metaphor neatly sums up the growth potential Key Accounts hold. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not evident to the extent that they become compelling. Thus, most of the time, the Key Account Management strategy is fraught with a ‘business as usual’ approach. The absence of real-time reporting plays a little role in accentuating this problem. The sales operations team entrusted with the reporting function recognizes this challenge. But what can they do? Reporting on Key Accounts is saddled with complexity. On one hand, we have the overwhelming business of the Key Account and on the other, the way organizations manage Key Accounts internally – endless Excel files sitting at various locations, PPTs whose templates keep changing, not to forget the occasional paper memos and thesis emails, and ultimately some closed-door meetings that may not have been minuted. The sales operations team has its task cut out. Why anytime reporting? Because, why should it be any other way? Ok, that was the short answer. The longer one starts with the status quo and ends with transparency. Diagnostic Status QuoToday, Sales Ops teams prepare reports by collecting data from various sources. Some of the data sources are within their control and mostly a click away. However, some, including financial metrics and sales team activities, require coordination and repeated email requests. This adds ‘point of failures’ to the workflow. Even if things work out on time, manual reconciliation issues, omission commission errors and ‘Acts of Man’, make reporting one BIG job. What this means is that the reporting process takes a couple of weeks or more? This lead time runs the risk of depreciating the value of any reporting insight if derived. What may be needed is a real-time, insight-driven report that Spurs necessary and relevant business action. Not a diagnostic that just presents what happened. Transparency to the C-Suite Key Accounts are core to an organization’s strategic plan. Their performance gets attention not just from the Head of Sales, but also from the CEO. The C-Suite, especially, is well-positioned to make a material difference to Key Accounts, by virtue of existing relationships and scale. The current diagnostic approach to reporting compromises the leveraging power of C-Suite in 3 ways. Reactive: The C-Suite has a dependency on reporting teams for insights. Thus, their reactive response. Additionally, review meetings become clarification/ correctional sessions instead of collaborative engagements designed to move forward. Optimistic Dressing: A manual approach to reporting, inadvertently, encourages optimism, and to a great extent when it comes to C-Suite reporting. How do we correct this? The big picture: the C-Suite gets reports from various Key Account teams at various times and may miss out on the BIG PICTURE of multiple Key Accounts and what that may mean to the overall organizational strategy or health. It also helps track several Annual Plans and how they are faring compared to the projections. A real-time accessible report can make the C-Suite an integral team member of the Key Account Management process. Sales Ops leaders realize this potential of any time reporting but have their own problem of plenty. The Tough life of Sales Ops An article from Harvard Business Review cleverly presents the hardships of Sales Ops by jotting down some job descriptions (JD) for the role of Sales Operations. Here is what one of the JD looked like: Strategy Contribute to the 1- and 3-year business vision as a member of the executive leadership team. Evaluate sales force strategies, plans, goals, and objectives. Contribute expertise to optimize sales force and territory sizing, structuring, and alignment. Operations Oversee sales performance analyses and reporting, territory alignment, and customer profiling and targeting activities. Administer quarterly sales incentive compensation plans and the goal-setting process. Manage sales force automation and CRM systems and processes. Provide data, analyses, modeling, and reporting to support sales force quarterly business reviews. This 85-word excerpt from a JD had just ‘one’ word for ‘reporting’. Beat that. The good folks at SalesLoft in one of their eBooks dedicated to sales operations leaders broke down this role into three. Process Data, and Implementation As you guessed correctly, reporting falls under Data and is just one of the functions executed by Sales Ops. So without automation, there is a good chance of reporting becoming a distraction. In addition to this, Sales Ops are also burdened with technology and account planning tools. These days, the best sales teams are empowered by technology solutions, tools, and data. These technology solutions and tools have enabled many organizations to create sales force effectiveness and sales growth. This flow towards technology has indeed made Sales Operations a vital part of the sales by uniquely positioning them to leverage data and technology. All this requires Sales Ops to put strategic time into sales enablement, warranting the need for automated reporting. After all, we are talking about expensive salesman hours. KAM Technology to the Rescue A Key Account Management tool can surely help organize data better and enables sales leaders and indeed all stakeholders to have access to reports and data anywhere anytime. Leverage Existing Data – Leverage existing CRM data to populate analytics rather than depending on the managers, SDRs, and KAMs to fill it out for you. Collate all the data into a single format and store it in a single place so everybody can access and interpret it consistently and in real-time. The platform for Collaboration – It can provide a platform for collaboration between the many stakeholders involved in managing and growing the most strategic customers by making reports and actions shareable and interactive. Insights Like Never Before – Deliver the right customer-centric insights for clarity and action. The landscape, whitespace, opportunities, relationship ‘type’, ‘health’, and ‘attractiveness’ everything to make strategic decisions about key accounts. KAM Technology empowers Sales Ops teams to service and drive business focused