How to Measure Sales Enablement Efforts?
Efforts. Data. Metrics. Efforts. Data. Metrics. Repeat. Without metrics, efforts don’t work. Without results, efforts don’t count. This is true in today’s data-driven world of sales too. If you look at the Sales top down, you will see that things are pretty measurable. As you travel down the funnel, things don’t seem so clear. We talk about increasing the sales pipeline, about white space opportunities, traffic, leads, warm, hot, cold but once we get to those numbers, no one can tell how to prioritize the projects on hand. This is the Sales Enablement Measurement conundrum. Organizations are uncertain about how to measure sales enablement efforts. How do we measure the alignment between marketing and sales? We have tried to resolve your conundrum here to some extent, using both, qualitative and quantitative methods of measurement. These are at best taken as indicators but will help your sales enablement efforts stay on track. 5 ways to track and measure your Sales Enablement efforts. Track the lead-to-deal rate or lead-to-conversion rate: The Sales Enablement team should be more focused on the bottom end of the sales funnel. This means tracking the lead to conversion rate. This is what will indicate the impact of your sales enablement strategies. Although not entirely, because the conversion rate depends on the number and quality of the leads. Besides this, this can be a good measurement index that also helps to identify trends over a period. Ask yourself the question “Will this project help me close more deals?” If the answer is “yes”, put it on priority. The others can be taken up later or delegated. Measure win/loss rates against key competitors: Sales is a race to the finishing line for every lead to be cracked. Your sales team needs your help and support all the time as they face the toughest of competitors. Monitoring your wins and failures and comparing them with your competitors’ wins and losses, will help you identify the gaps and fill that in. It will help you even further to know where you need to put your energy. Your CRM system will help you with this metric. Amplify your content so that it influences a decision to buy: Content is a universal weapon in the sales arsenal; right from the top end of the funnel to the bottom end. Supply your sales team with the right documents and decks but also, leverage the online medium to publish content through visual media. Then monitor it to see which one is more influential as the buyer is in the last stages of his buying decision. Scaling up online with content is good as you can measure the results of what works and what doesn’t. A good CMS and an analytics tool will help you in this task. This will be a perfect time to go for a sales enablement tool. Also, keep a track of and measure your content production – how many pieces of videos, infographics, newsletters, blogs, etc. produced in what month. This will help you measure the time invested and resultant output from these. Do not dismiss attribution reporting: Attribution reporting helps you to see what content helped influence the buyer in the latter stages of his buying journey. This helps in building more content that was successful and cutting down on content that produced weak results. Sit with your sales team: We mean ‘physically’ sit with your sales team regularly. Maybe for some time, every single day. This helps you to know what content they are sharing with customers, what they are saying to leads, how they are doing their demos. By physically being there, you also absorb the underlying vibes, energy and understand a lot that is unsaid or unseen to the naked eye. The team also finds you more accessible and is more inclined to share feedback openly. This helps them voice their needs when it comes to sales enablement efforts. The above 5 are indicators to measure sales enablement efforts. Share your experiences once you start putting these into practice, or in case you have already done so.
Key Account Retention – The 4 Key Dos
The better your Key Account Management, the better the chances of your Key Account Retention. Key Account Retention is a straight derivative of how you build your relationship with your Key Accounts. It is not a data or a numbers game, but a relationship-building regimen. It is something you work at, for the long haul. There are certain Key Dos for Key Account Retention. We spell them out so that you don’t leave anything hanging loose when it comes to keeping your Key Relationship under a tight fist, yet nurturing it in a way that blossoms and keeps growing into a richer and mutually rewarding business association. The 4 Key Dos Look at KAM as a joint venture A vendor-buyer relationship takes away the ‘joint’ and ‘trusted’ feeling from a relationship. It becomes more of an association that a relationship. But if you work with your Key Accounts for a joint win, make joint plans with clear metrics, you will succeed at super speed in winning your customer’s trust. Joint objectives, joint strategies, joint plans, and joint ownership is the best way to look at your Key Account Relationships. Measure it to grow it Every plan is only so good as it is measurable. Without tangible figures to showcase the success of your plan or otherwise, there is no way you are going to win the trust of your customer. It is best to clearly define the measurable at the beginning of a relationship and measure it periodically as decided. This sets the tone of expectation, ownership, transparency and, therefore, trust. Every plan, every step, every point of value-added, is only as good as its measure of success. Numbers are important, keep them looped into your plan and be open for discussion. Timely reporting is key As support to #2 above, it is important to keep the flow of communication open on both ends between you and the customer. This establishes and nurtures trust because relationships are about being open about everything, including setbacks. Timely and periodical reporting with facts and figures help to keep the strategy on track as also the relationship. Build one-on-one relationships Your relationship cannot happen with an organization. It is built with real people. It pays to understand the hierarchy, the straight lines, the dotted lines and everything in between. It helps to know people at all levels in your customer’s organization and especially those who are influential, seniors, your brand champions and even those who play the devil’s advocate. This way you can build an individual relationship with every person in the customer’s organization who you think is instrumental in building and growing your Key Account. There is no substitute for hard work when it comes to building a one-on-one relationship with your customer’s key people. 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.
What is wrong with today’s Account Planning?
If I were to answer that in a word – it is ‘Static’ account plans. For too long, Account Plans were long-term in nature (3-5 years) with a fixed set of analyses leading its creation. I think business reality today is far more dynamic and unpredictable to really make long-term account plans. Let me elaborate with examples. Manufacturing companies enjoyed a product life of 8+ years earlier. A car model would last 8 years. So a supplier could work with the manufacturer in the design phase and in turn commit order volumes for several years. Today, products have a maximum life of 24 months. The new manufacturing process and technology favor a smart & nimble supplier. So a manufacturer prefers a tactical vendor who has invested in strategic process & tech. Account Management is a more internal strategy and tactical win with a customer. For over 2 decades, IT services companies enjoyed multi-year-billion-dollar deals. So Account Planning was to ensure the relationship with the CIO & cornering maximum pie in the several billion dollars IT budget. With the SaaS way of IT consumption on the cloud, this model has changed. Almost all department heads are IT buyers but want an expert point solution provider with the ability to connect easily with other software(s). No wonder, small, nimble & smart vendors are winning Martech, Salestech, HRtech, and Fintech deals while larger suppliers are saddled with dying legacy systems management. Our beloved highly skilled Account Managers are expected to make their 2019 account plans with archaic mindset & templates created decades ago. They also know that this is a futile exercise since reality in their account changes in 2 quarters. I believe technology can come to the rescue here. Smart Account Planning tools that can help create plans easily that are simple and dynamic. Also, these Account Planning templates should be able to track these plans and nudge the Account Manager for action. I am in no way saying that strategic account management now is only tactical. Perhaps it is more strategic now. The strategy is in thinking of a better solution for the customer that they haven’t thought about. Earlier the strategy was supplying to customers’ defined strategy. Salesforce account planning is a big bonus favoring you to do all these activities inside the CRM. If you’re interested in transforming your sales post the pandemic, explore our blog on Sales Acceleration in Account Management and how it can help you grow your business in 2021.
How To Manage Large Accounts Successfully
While the short-term success of any sales organization relies on the quality of its offering and the individual abilities of sales team members, long-term success is rather different. Indeed, success in this area is less about sales skills and more about the ability to manage relationships with existing clients through key account management. In this article, we look at the best ways to manage those large accounts successfully, so that you build lasting relationships, are able to adapt as their needs change and, ultimately, maximize the lifetime value of customers. Learn More: Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Large Enterprise Account Planning Identifying Key Accounts One of the first steps to successfully managing your large accounts is to identify them and decide which of them constitute key accounts. The precise definition of a key account will vary from business to business, but there should be some shared attributes that separate them from your other accounts. It may be that your key accounts are all your biggest accounts, but this is not always the case. You should consider things like the frequency of business, whether there is the potential to sell them additional products or services in the future, whether there are further collaborative opportunities to work towards, and so on. “Good advice here is to start small,” says Lynette Ryals, writing for the Harvard Business Review. It is easier to add customers to your account management program than it is to ‘demote’ customers once you have told them they are key accounts. Be clear about what defines a key account and stick to that. Understand Your Customers Next, you need to truly understand the people and businesses behind those key large accounts, because the more you know about them, the more personalized your service to them can be. Obviously, you need to know what their business does, but it is also important to understand what the key challenges in their industry are, who their competitors are and what their goals are as well as recent developments and news within the organization. Miller Heiman Group’s Large Account Management Process goes into more detail about enhancing the relationship between the buying and selling organization, helping to unlock the true potential of strategic account management. The aim of the program is to help businesses to analyze relationships and set measurable goals. Of course, technology also has a key role to play, not only in terms of organizing information through CRM systems but also in acquiring some of that information in the first place. Thanks to the internet, a huge amount of useful information is now publicly available and can be used for sales management and sales prospecting purposes. Manage For the Long-Term Finally, it is important that once large accounts have been established and key accounts have been identified, those accounts are managed for the long-term, rather than sacrificed for short-term success. This means maintaining relationships during non-sales periods and using the information you have to spot potential changes in advance. “Key account relationships should outlive the KAMs and all the members that constitute the key account management teams,” says Milind Katti, CEO of DemandFarm. Therefore, it is critical to building account and people knowledge into the system so all internal stakeholders are tuned in and can do their part seamlessly. Crucially, a huge amount of large account management is not actually about making a sale – at least not right now. The absolute key to account management is customer retention and this should be over several years. As a result, the focus should not simply be on today’s opportunities, but also on opportunities in the distant future. If you’re interested in transforming your sales post the pandemic, explore our blog on Sales Acceleration in Account Management and how it can help you grow your business in 2021.
Account Planner – Simple is powerful and beautiful too
Key Account Planning over the decades has become complex and theoretical. Most Account Managers just check the box by filling in the template at the beginning of the year and forget about it. In some companies, I have seen the worse. Good Account Managers (who achieve their numbers) just ignore the templates. Account Planning has been around for years. Did you know that 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers? Or that 80% of your future profits are likely to come from 20% of current customers? In other words, building and cultivating healthy relationships with clients is one of the most effective pathways to exponential growth. With so much at stake, it’s no wonder that 61% of companies consider strategic account management as the key to increasing revenue, profits, and customer satisfaction. While the importance of account management is unquestionable, its implementation leaves a lot to be desired even today. In fact, 71% of companies believe that sales improved by less than 26% since launching their Account Management programs. This observation made us launch ‘Account Planner Pro’ last month while we already have ‘Account Planner Enterprise’ with all the bells and whistles. Account Planner is simple, beautiful, and thus powerful. This is the easiest account planning ever if you use Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics. This is an one pager app inside your CRM where: Zoom in to your account to build an Account Landscape in 60 seconds. Map opportunities to know where your current engagements with the customer are and therefore where are ‘whitespaces’ of growth. Map competition & relationships. Create a plan with revenue goals and activities. Track the progress I promise you that Account Planning was never this easy. Salesforce Account Planning and MS Dynamics Account Planning are at your fingertips. Go ahead TRY – Ask your CRM admin to install
Key Account Management sans Org Chart
What does a 19th-century management tool get to do with modern-day key account management.It is not surprising that the org chart never gets its due. Partly because it is just that – an org chart. How about looking at the org chart as a key account management enabler?Interesting, right?I was as surprised as you are. The current version of the org chart that your business is using may not be equipped to do so. But, org charts do hold that power. If you aren’t using any, even better. You could give a new growth dimension to your existing key account management process. To understand how an org chart software enables key accounts, it is vital to understand the ‘powerful’ role of the key account manager (KAM). The Key Account Manager (KAM) The KAM is the face of the supplier to the key account. Over the many months and years, the KAM gathers many insights across : Business and market environment Relationships amongst the key account stakeholders Context of the relationships with the suppliers Assessment of internal capabilities to deliver towards common goals with the key accounts All this is powerful knowledge that unfortunately resides only with the KAM. If lucky, some of this knowledge will get documented, only to go missing in someone’s hard drive (or cloud).No wonder when key account managers leave organizations, they carry the Key Accounts with them. Not fair. It just doesn’t make sense. A key account management org chart is capable of addressing this shortcoming. And if such an org chart leverages cutting-edge modern technology to integrate with HR and CRM systems, it could go beyond the human prowess of a KAM. A modern-day org chart will not only answer key questions on KAM relationships, it will also show and prompt the necessary business action. No Org Chart, No Key Account Management To help DemandFarm’s audience understand the value of a key account management org chart, an eBook titled “No Org Chart, No KAM” is being released. This eBook covers the following : The Origins of Org Chart – This historical context will help establish the prevalence of the Org Chart as a potent management tool that has transformed business and society. Strategic Role of Org Chart in Key Account Management – It is a misconception that an Org Chart is only an HR tool. The section of the book attempts to provide a new context. Org charts can add valuable insights into the depth of relationships within key accounts. An Org Chart is not enough – A simple key account management org chart on paper or a PPT is a good start. But what is truly needed is a dynamic ever-changing org chart builder that represents hierarchy, influence, power equations, and relationships. KAM Power of an Org Chart – An org chart for strategic account management done well has the power to do better than ‘human’ account managers. It ensures continuity. It institutionalizes key account management. It is after all just an Org Chart. It may be times for a new perspective. Do read the eBook. Also, note that DemandFarm offers Salesforce Org chart and MS Dynamics Org chart
Measuring Sales Effectiveness for Social Selling
Social Selling is quite becoming the norm for many organizations. While most are quick to adopt newer ways of selling through the new age media like Social Media in the hope of bettering the sales targets, many may not be aware of whether these new techniques are even effective. Many are not aware of how to measure the sales effectiveness of these techniques for their sales force. Social Selling involves a more personal mode of selling, it involves the building of relationships, one-on-one through Social Media. It means measurement takes on a new meaning entirely. It takes into account the fact that sales is not merely about a number of calls and emails sent, meeting scheduled, but about lead farming and nurturing. Here, we give you ways to measure the Sales Effectiveness of your sales force for these sales techniques. These techniques will measure your sales team’s ability to build a quality relationship mapping by tracking these skills and activities. Since most Social Media has both, a qualitative and quantitative angle to them, we need to consider both, as we move through the ways of measurement, below: Let’s begin. Establishing your online professional brand: What is the effort that your salespeople are putting in to build their profiles on Social Media? What are they doing, sharing, discussing there that keeps the prospects engaged with your products and services? Are they writing blogs in the domain, which establish your company as a thought leader? Are their blogs read, followed and commented on? It is found that salespeople who display a willingness to talk about what value their company offers to a prospect, with equal enthusiasm time and again, is an indicator of their ability to connect with prospects better. What are the salespeople publishing about your brand online? Are they well prepared with their elevator pitch as well as their nurturing methods? Do they know what differentiates their product from the competitors? What the salespeople post online and how it is received by their online audience is a good indicator of sales effectiveness in Social Selling. Finding the right people. Building the right network: Social Media Channels have various tools, many of them free for a certain limited number, that help in identifying prospects. Are your salespeople using these tools or if not, doing things manually – making lists of people they would like to be connected with? Are they increasing their sales pipeline? Do they know who the decision-makers are? Do they have a strategy and a calendar plan to connect with these prospects? How networked is your sales team? Salespeople should leverage their first level contacts on their network to seek an introduction to their second or third level contacts; unless they do that, or they personalize their invite while sending out a request to connect, it may be seen as a cold call and may die a premature death. Sales effectiveness can be measured by analyzing the strategy your sales team uses to build a network and a strong pipeline. Insight knowledge and insight mining: As we have already seen in one of our earlier blogs, insights into the domain of the customer is a strong skill set every salesperson needs to possess. In Social Selling, this domain knowledge and insight into what exactly the customer may be looking for is seen through how your salesperson authors content. Is he writing like a thought leader, thinking like one and connecting with prospects through his content? Has he been able to hit the pain points and offer a solution for those? The fastest way to connect with a prospect is to be able to precisely identify his pain point and take the time and effort to provide information to solve it. Another way of measuring effectiveness is to measure the open rates of InMails sent by your salespeople. This is a LinkedIn tool that measures the open rates. It depends on how you craft your sales messages. You have to have a method that is more nurturing than pushy. Who are the people that matter? Who should you connect with? Social selling is not about the number of connections you tote on your profile. It is about the right kind of connections. Are you connecting with the decision-makers? This can be tracked by measuring the accepted requests vis-à-vis the sent requests. Another way of measuring is to find out how many key connections does your salesperson has in each of his Key Accounts. It is important to have multiple good contacts and key contacts into a single Key Account. A merging of your CRM contacts with the building of contacts on Social Media could make all the difference to your customer relationships and your Key Account management relationships. Social Media marketing Tools built into Social Media can pretty much measure Sales Effectiveness, effectively. However, there are going to be missing links in these tool measurements, which with time will be filled. Until then, Social Selling measurement for impact can be used as a complement to more traditional ways of measuring sales effectiveness. Explore our blog on cross-selling and up-selling in which we’ve elaborated how it can be used to grow business in 2021.
The Best Org Chart Software doesn’t help KAM
If you are wondering what is the connection between what an org chart software does and key account management, I encourage you to read one of our previous blogs. The connection isn’t apparent. But, organizational charting is critical to key account management success. The org chart software market is crowded, fragmented, and under-penetrated. Not all organizations need sophisticated software to draw organizational charts. Excel, PPT, and good old paper still do the work, pretty much. I am sure you don’t want me to write about the reckless org chart printouts that users take. Let us dig a little deeper. A search for “Best Org Chart Software” throws up many options. At one end you have enterprise versions like LucidChart, software to support Visio to many products for small businesses that are also free. Can these aid key account management and its associated complexities? I am afraid, “No”. The following are the reasons why the best org chart software in the market does not help Key Account Management at all. Purpose of the Best Org Chart Software Org Chart Software is not designed for Key Account Management. The software’s purpose is very different. Let me illustrate this with an example. Turn to any of the software listing websites like Capterra, Software Advice, G2Crowd. Did you notice that Org Chart Software is usually a sub-category under Human Resources Software? What does that tell you? The org chart software available in the market caters to HR requirements. The software features, at best, address the operational problems in building business-friendly usable organizational charts. Key Account Management Insights Org Chart Software for Better Key Account Management explained the role of a specific type of org chart that would be a valuable aid for key account managers. Key account managers require an account facing an external organizational chart. Such an org chart builder must highlight the possibility of value creation for the KAM’s account. The existing software in the market cannot serve this purpose and innovations in KAM technology over the years have experienced a dormant growth rate. Because they are inherently passive and do not capture the changing situations under which KAMs operate. An Organizational Chart for key account management has very specific requirements that are often nuanced. Salesforce Integration Businesses with established key account management practices also happen to be Salesforce power users. The best organizational chart software for key account management should sit on top of existing CRM systems like Salesforce. This would give it the necessary prowess to render org charts dynamically, as demanded by business. DemandFarm offers Salesforce Organization chart and MS Dynamics Org chart software in the market integrates well only with ERP systems and other HR software. Key Account Management needs its own Org Chart DemandFarm’s blog has always made a case for a continuous strategic approach to key account management. Understanding the role of stakeholders that comprise an account is a valuable piece of information. As stakeholders increase within an account, insights tend to decay. This adds ambiguity to decision-making. At times, it could also mean compromising revenue goals. Thus, impacting even the business plan. A good organizational chart for key account management is just good business. Isn’t it?
Best Organizational Chart Software for Key Account Management
Org Charts are traditionally created to illustrate graphically the organization’s formal hierarchy. Its main purpose is to show the relationships and job positions of all the employees of the organization. Employee names and titles are depicted in boxes with lines linking them to departments and other employees. By looking at the chart, viewers can understand the structure of the organization, levels of seniority, and where each employee lies in it. Various organizations can use org charts internally to do any of the following: Leaders can effectively manage growth/change Employees can understand how their work impacts the organization Improved communication An employee directory for ready reference Present other types of information, such as business entity structures and data hierarchies Org Charts can be quite helpful internally, but did you think that they would be even more so externally? We, at DemandFarm, believe that there are better uses for it than just creating a formal hierarchy for internal use. As discussed in this blog the essence of key account management is value creation. But what if a key account manager can create an incredible value proposition, but doesn’t know who to tap into the client organization to ensure that it is given a fighting chance? The best organizational software is one that allows this hapless key account manager to understand how to navigate the murky waters of value addition for clients. I would love to say that this is the perfect business opportunity and you should rush out and make such software. But unfortunately, there is no denying that many have already understood the value of this type of org chart software. There are many options in the market currently. But with so many options of organization chart software how is a key account manager to decide which one is the best? Which is where we come in! We’ve collated a list of the key features that the best of the best organizational chart software should certainly have to effectively help key account managers. Superior UI and UX The way a user interacts with the software and how his experience with it is has to be one of the most important features. It isn’t enough to just give great results, the user shouldn’t struggle to reach those results. Highly Visual An ideal organization chart software shouldn’t be list-oriented, it should be extremely visual. A user should be able to understand in a single glance exactly what relationships the different participants have with one another and the key account manager’s organization. Drag and Drop Functionality Key account managers are a busy lot and physically sifting through large volumes of data and changing properties can be much too time intensive. Having a simple and quick drag and drop functionality that allows users to drag and drop contacts into an org chart is a feature to look out for. Flexibility in Purchase Although an organizational chart software isn’t a big-ticket purchase like a comprehensive key account management software, flexibility in payment terms should be sought out. Try before you Buy Isn’t it very annoying when you download the free version of the software and have to purchase it for additional features? Some Organizational Chart Software allows you the option to try a full version for free for a limited period and then purchase it if you like the functionality. Flexible Payment Options Organizational Chart Software can have multiple payment options. Depending on feasibility you can either opt for a monthly, quarterly, or yearly payment. These tailor-made payment plans can allow your organization to allocate limited resources elsewhere. Key Account Manager Specific Minimal Data Entry Having a standalone Org Chart Software will require key account managers to input large volumes of data which is highly unnecessary in the golden age of Salesforce. A 100% Native to Salesforce app can allow you to use your Salesforce data to create org charts eliminating any additional data entry. Internal Influences A formal hierarchy can only take key account managers so far. In an organization some people may have a considerable influence on the budgetary allocation and some may also be in a position of influence with CXO level officials; despite being lower in the formal structure. An ideal Organizational Chart Software should represent this data visually to ensure a better understanding of which contacts to tap for key account managers. Relationship Strength In large organizations, there may be some contacts who may be ardent supporters of your organization and others may have proven to be detractors. Trying to tap a detractor can lead to a key account manager running around in circles. The ideal organization chart software should clearly define all champions, promoters, and detractors to ensure that key account managers know exactly who to approach. Accessibility across Teams The biggest problem with key account management teams in the presence of “tribal knowledge“. A key account manager handling a particularly prime account may take with him this tribal knowledge if and when he leaves the organization. If the organization chart he created can be accessible to the entire key account management team, the loss of data can be limited to a large extent. These are just some of the features we think that every Organizational Chart Software should have but what do you think? Do let us know in the comments below!
Alleviating Key Account Management pain with Salesforce
Alleviating Key Account Management pain with Salesforce How do you feel this time of the year with Yuletide and the New Year’s around the corner? “Mixed emotions.” If you are a Key Account Manager, I can perhaps understand your answer. It isn’t so much about the pressure of time than the complexity of doing key account management in perfect detail. DemandFarm, in its many posts, has dealt with the issue of complexity in key account management. Here is a short recap. The complexity stems from two broad factors: Strategic – Key account managers confront the tough job of thinking clearly and unambiguously on two business fronts. One, about the client’s business challenges or growth opportunities. Two, understanding one’s product and service offerings, to offer a credible solution to the client. Operational – On top of the strategic ambiguity, there is a long list of operational hassles account managers have to deal with. Account plans siloed across systems – many powerpoints, word documents, meeting minutes and emails. Ineffective activity management thanks to multiple excel sessions which becomes unwieldy quickly. Managing meetings with stakeholders both internal and external. Plus the added trouble of managing CRM applications across many devices. To address the above challenges and the complexity associated with it, businesses the world overturned to CRM applications, particularly Salesforce. For businesses, it was to instill a new way of working on Leads, Contacts, and Accounts. Well, almost !!! Everybody loves Salesforce The world’s favorite CRM should not sound like an exaggeration when it comes to Salesforce. “Salesforce is to businesses what the iPhone is to consumers,” said someone. This statement may sound too casual, but reflects the inherent power of the Salesforce.com CRM system. The latest Salesforce study from Bluewolf – an IBM global Salesforce consulting agency – is a strong testimony to the power of this CRM system. 86% of the surveyed 1800 Salesforce customers believe they can use Salesforce to drive innovation in their business. The survey goes on to highlight that 83% of the IT function believe the same. It is indeed noteworthy that Salesforce has been able to get vehement buy-in from one of the most challenging user segments, in this change management exercise. Such is the power of Salesforce. Salesforce faces challenges, nevertheless. The single biggest risk to a Salesforce implementation remains – Change Management. Because it is a new way of doing sales, business development, customer experience. Yes, it is about changing the culture, capturing data, maintaining activity logs, getting rid of spreadsheets, putting rigor into doing and documenting sales meetings. Yes, it is not easy. Organizations and teams who look beyond the ease, find the rewards. Salesforce Key Account Management Fundamentally, Salesforce isn’t built for Key Account Management. It is built for opportunity management. It keeps sales teams focused on what needs to be achieved. It does by providing them with a ready-to-access dashboard that documents every day how sales teams are going about their planned goals. Given the structural difference in how Salesforce is built, it does not ‘naturally’ address the necessities of key account management. Account management and sales leaders address this gap, through Salesforce customization requests and applications from the Salesforce App Exchange. A good bunch also learns to live with the inherent account management limitations of Salesforce. In most cases, DemandFarm finds that account management is done outside of Salesforce. Dgt27, a Salesforce consultant in NYC, assists businesses in doing account planning. These account plans reside in distributed documents – PowerPoint, Excel, notes, and Word documents. We are yet to fully understand why? If you are an account management professional and see this happen in your organization, I request you to document your perspective in the comments section. So how do strategic account management teams address limitations with Salesforce? 1) Strategic One – View of Key Accounts This is a fundamental issue faced by many strategic account managers. The Salesforce system’s inability to present a single view of the overall account plan. Not all the reasons are directly related to Salesforce. Scattered & Siloed Data – During the planning process, account plans tend to get distributed. Multiple versions of the same file tend to exist, creating confusion and wasting precious key account manager time. Non-standard approach – Many variations exist in account plans thanks to the lack of a standard approach in capturing data and checking its quality. Account Planning outside Salesforce – It is ironical but true. All accounts data and information are within Salesforce, but all the planning actions happen outside of it. In many cases, the carefully drafted plans also remain outside of salesforce, thus unable to impact the accounts to the maximum. KAMs lack a central view of account plans. This compromises insights. Thus, resulting in improper forecasting and inefficient allocation of resources for maximum impact. Account structuring also takes a knock because of this issue causing ineffective account management initiatives. 2) Usability User experience is an important driver to usage and adoption. A lack of ease of use is a deal-killer. It is not an issue that is discussed too often in the context of key account management. It is not difficult to figure out why this is important. Just look around. Every human on the earth is using cutting-edge web and mobile apps on the latest smartphones. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Amazon shopping, LinkedIn and the list is endless. So, how would their expectations be about using digital applications? As good as it gets, right? Usability of Salesforce account planning is not cutting-edge, yet. Salesforce Lightning has been a welcome surprise, but there is more ground to be covered. The platform nature of Salesforce also contributes to ‘wanting’ usability. IT Teams and CIOs love Salesforce since its ‘platform’ nature allows them to make, break, make, break and remake. This customization flexibility comes at the cost of UI and UX, not something that IT teams prioritize during their development stages. The result is usually a compromise for the user. In this case, the key account managers. 3)