9 Steps to Build a Successful Key Account Management Process
This ebook contains 9 steps to go over key account planning, setting up, implementing and reviewing a key account management process. They include analysis to make a profit, understanding your customer, assessing your relationship health, drawing up a key account plan blueprint and getting into action with a plan. Find out more about resource planning for your key accounts, improving communication with internal and external stakeholders. Monitor, control and review the Key Account Management process to determine its success.
Key account management skills for the new paradigm
Account planning has evolved from the wine and dine times to providing strategic solutions – and shows no signs of stopping. The tribal knowledge present in the teams can become enterprise memory with digital KAM and narrate a story of the client’s needs to the Key Account Management team – allowing them find innovative ways of meeting them. This means key account managers can focus on proactively understanding and trying to solve client’s problem, instead of trying to keep the records straight. The changes to working conditions all over the world provide another reason to relook at skills required to manage key accounts – the old ways are not relevant anymore. The changes to the way we work have been so drastic that in a couple of years, organizations that don’t have any sort of key account management practice that relies on structured data – will not be able to succeed. With structured information about clients and insights derived from AI and ML tools, Account Managers can provide the necessary human touch efficiently. The key customer representatives want to succeed in their positions – and are looking for strategic partners who can empathize and help them achieve business goals. By treating key accounts as strategic partners, organizations can see the real value of the business relationship – where the skills of account managers are enhanced by the tools at their disposal.
Predicting the next move in sales and account management – the AI and machine learning way
It is essential for organizations to understand which accounts are ‘strategic partners’ and the relationships where they act as a tactical vendor. Once the distinction is made, treating the strategic partners as key accounts requires a thorough understanding of the customer’s business, structure, details about individual business units, strategic initiatives, and management changes. While having this data is essential, using it to create solutions that create more value for the customer or answer the customer’s business challenges is what fortifies relationships – and AI and ML help in this regard, by identifying areas of focus and/or concern. The intelligence present in the organization about its key customers can be termed as ‘tribal knowledge’, and it resides in the way clients and key account managers interact, while adding value to the relationship. This seemingly unstructured information can be captured into an enterprise memory which can be seamlessly used by multiple members of a team to manage the same key account. When properly structured, the data can be used by AI and ML tools for Key Account Management – and ease the process of collaborating and building relationships with the customer organization. They provide insights which help in making account plans which lead to revenue goals, specific actions, and timelines. Every key account will have unique situations that necessitate customised solutions or approaches and require a fair amount of cognitive thinking. The insights that AI and ML tools provide help in the process, but the days of tools providing viable courses of action are not that far off.
Account Planning – A Strategic Approach to Grow Your Key Accounts
What is Account Planning? Account planning is the process of building strategic plans to improve value-driven relationships with your key customers that can help in long-term development and retention, thereby maximizing the revenue potential. Effective account plans help account managers to gain a more in-depth understanding of the client. 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. 71% of companies believe that sales improved by less than 26% since launching their Account Management programs. KAM Glossary: Crucial Account Management Terms Explained Why is Account Planning essential for your business to grow? A recent Account Planning Book of Evidence study surveyed 1034 people from 62 countries to determine why organizations undertake the account planning exercise. Most of the results were unsurprising: Better Win rate (75%) Increased understanding of customers’ business (72%) Shorter sales cycles (58%) Better customer loyalty (55%) Increased deal size (49%) Better executive access (47%) Identify non-competitive deals (27%) While this gives us an insight into the benefits of Account Planning as a whole, it also goes to show that there is some ambiguity when it comes to defining the overall purpose of account planning. A better win rate is too vague and can apply to all key account management processes. ‘Increased understanding of customers’ business’ is important but it doesn’t talk about outcomes. Download Now: 9 Steps to Build a Rock-Solid Key Account Management Process Purpose of Account Planning There are a couple of reasons why companies struggle with effective account management. The first is that technological innovation has shifted the landscape across departments and industries, and account management has also changed with it. As a result, companies that weren’t able to keep up with changing trends in account management have suffered. Apart from technology shifts, there is another reason why some companies struggle with effective SAM (Strategic Account Management). The key to effective account management lies in sound Account Planning. Many companies either ignore account planning or do account planning for the sake of it, without a clear understanding of its purpose and expected outcomes. Without effective account planning, account managers are simply unable to create the kind of impression on their clients that they need to. We decided that we needed to get a better understanding of the role of account planning, the technology trends in account management, and the way forward for organizations. Account Planning Template – The Key to Revenue Growth We sat down for an in-depth discussion with Mr. A. Ghosh, Founder, and CEO of Netfotech Solutions. Netfotech is a cutting-edge IT services company that works with clients of all sizes and all across the globe including India, the UK, and Singapore. They also provide many solutions from social e-commerce Solutions, big data consulting, web site development to web hosting, mobile application development, BI & Analytics, and Robotics Process Automation. With such a diverse clientele and a broad range of services, the effective strategic account management plan has emerged as a key growth driver for Netfotech. Here are some key excerpts from our conversation. Mr. Ghosh believes that there are two major reasons to do strategic account planning. Together, they define both the essence and the ultimate purpose of the sales account planning exercise. The first and foremost priority of Account Planning is to ensure that the gross margin in the account is consistent from one year to the next. It’s very easy, especially in a services business, for the cost of client servicing to increase without a corresponding increase in revenue. A detailed account planning template helps to overcome this problem by ensuring that the gross margin stays consistent. Read Now: Account Planning Template – Step by Step Strategic Account Planning The second major reason for Account Planning is to strategically grow the account. Cross-selling and up-selling are some of the easiest ways of maximizing revenue and it is only possible through effective account planning and management. The probability of selling a new service to an existing customer is between 60 to 70% whereas the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5 to 20%. Together, these two reasons, maintaining profitability and horizontal growth, are the fundamental reason why account planning exists in the first place. In search of an Account Planning Template to grow your Strategic Accounts? Look no further! Overcoming Account Planning Challenges The first step in account planning is an in-depth understanding of the client and their needs. Unfortunately, this is the step at which most account planners falter. If the understanding of the client is superficial, effective account planning is simply not possible. According to Mr. Ghosh, there are three major challenges that most account managers face while trying to get an accurate and comprehensive understanding of their clients. 1. Lack of Ground-Level Intel The devil, as they say, lies in the details. In many cases, account planners simply don’t have access to key strategic information about the client. For instance, a client that is currently using our website development services may soon be looking to get an analytics set-up in place. Unless account managers have access to this kind of strategic information, they may lose an opportunity that is there for the taking. The only way to solve this conundrum is by building closer, more meaningful relationships with clients. 2. Lack of Connection to the Right Stakeholder Sometimes, account managers are unable to get a more comprehensive understanding of the client simply because the person they are in touch with is not
The secret to winning a key account for long-term
Key account retention, when seen from the eyes of vendor partners, is not just about proving the solution that was asked, but to understand the client’s business and help them grow. But with the fragmented state of data on customers, it is difficult to understand what drives the decision making on the customer’s side. With the right strategy and the right tools, however, key account managers can ensure they have relevant data which allows them to work smart. With proper data about the client in place, Account Managers can demonstrate value to the key account by knowing their business and industry, helping them set goals, develop corresponding strategies and create a concrete, actionable plan. With properly organised data, even a new member of the accounts team can start on an even keel with the information available. With proper data, reaching out to key accounts regularly becomes a meaningful activity, which works towards enhancing the relationship. At the end of the day, technology enables us to do what we already do better. People buy from people they trust, and with sophisticated key account management tools – the task of establishing trust can be simplified. Also, with AI and ML being used increasingly in Key Account Management solutions, we are seeing the software provide helpful suggestions, touch points, key focus areas and more. Watch the complete DemandFarm Fireside Chat to learn how your organization can have a long and fruitful relationship its key customers here
Digital Key Account Management- Unlocking the secret to managing Key Accounts
Previously published under the Council Post for the Forbes’ Business Development Council The Pareto principle, better known as the 80/20 rule, is applied for numerous purposes in boardrooms all over—but the essence holds true for a majority of cases in the business world, especially when it comes to managing and retaining customers. The idea and allure of gaining new users always outweigh the duty of catering to existing customers. And it makes sense why: More customers result in better streamlining of resources and approaches, leading to more savings, higher profits, and better output. But this shouldn’t come at the cost of key accounts contributing to the company’s ongoing revenue. Handling these key accounts is often considered an art. As anyone with knowledge of the enterprising history of business would know, it is only the suavest, sociable account managers who can manage relationships between organizations that are mutually beneficial. The roots and troubles of Key Account Management At the peak of the industrial age, about 50 to 60 years ago, businesses differentiated between strategic customers and regular ones. They treated their large accounts preferentially, and the practices to maintain a big account were translated into methodologies which led to creating templates. This led to a layer of complexities in which consultants would create a sometimes 50-page template to manage a key account. Over the years, this has become theoretical and no longer actionable. In the end, account managers end up creating account plans which amount to nothing but filling in the fields of complex templates which may never be referred to again. What began as an initiative to improve product and solution quality by focusing on the most valuable customers has turned into a complex process that is, at best, seen as a nuisance. And at worst, it can harm relationships between organizations. The cracks in traditional key account management practices have proven untenable in the current scenario, where it is often impossible to have a meeting in person. The fundamentals of account management, which relied on keeping in touch with key clients, are no longer viable across industries and verticals. This luxury of time doesn’t exist in the current scenario, as customer preferences change regularly. The representatives for key customers are looking for a partner who can empathize and help them succeed in their business roles, not a cog who provides what is necessary for the supply chain. When organizations treat their key accounts as strategic partners, the real value of relationships can be seen. Finally, a renewed focus on individual careers has made the movement of employees between companies much more common. This often means that the traditional KAM data is rendered obsolete much more quickly. Why Key Account Management? Even after all the drawbacks, organizations keep trying to accomplish key account management the traditional way because it yields results. Yet key accounts are responsible for 33% of sales revenue, according to a survey by Gartner. A poll on Analytics and Advice for B2B Leaders by Gallop shows that organizations that excel at key account management see disproportionate account growth solely by their ability to engage their customers. The numbers are impressive, too: 34% more profitability, 50% more sales and revenue, and 33% greater chance of being the top choice of clients for future business. The results can be seen fairly early as well. One survey shows that customer satisfaction increases by 20% within a few years of establishing a key account management program, which usually is reflected by a 15% increase in profits and revenue. The benefits compound over time, as KAM programs that are operational for five-plus years usually report figures that are nearly double. Taking the Digital Way Ahead With digital account planning, we are seeing a significant shift for the good in the area of strategic account management. B2B companies that had the luxury of time in the past are moving at a faster pace. The employees typically lasted for years in one organization and often could negotiate multi-year deals to provide products, parts, or services. This is almost unheard of in this era of constant change and optimization and one-year contracts. But when the focus was on keeping the client representative happy earlier, account managers could span out their planning across multiple years at once. Digital tools help in key account management by ushering in a new way of business. Digital key account management transforms key account planning into a dynamic, data-driven process that provides actionable information and insights. The intelligence present in the organization regarding its key customers—what one might term tribal knowledge—resides in the way clients and key account managers interact and add value to the relationship. But this seemingly unstructured information can be captured into an enterprise memory which can be replicated or used by a team rather than a single person. What the Future holds With the record created by digital key account management, an enterprise memory is built which narrates the story of a client’s needs and problems. This provides a solid start to those filling in for their colleagues or replacing someone. With the help of these tools, employees can approach the problem of managing a key account more creatively and provide the necessary human touch with efficiency. The cognitive skills of account managers still rule the roost, and no level of automation can replace the intuition an experienced key account manager brings to the job. It can only enhance it.
Selecting Account-Based Selling Tools: The Essential Features
Account-Based Selling / Account-Based Sales (ABS) Tools Account-Based selling is no easy feat. It’s a complex, time-consuming process that can take your team months to perfect. But once you’ve cracked the code, it can be a compelling way to grow your business. Thankfully, advances in sales technology are making it easier than ever to implement an account-based selling strategy. Today, account-based sales tools empower sales leaders to understand the nuances of customer interactions with the proper context of their accounts. And the end results are no less than significant boosts in the CLV of each account. Account-based sales tools are software or technology solutions that support the execution of an account-based sales strategy. These tools help sales teams identify, target, and engage with high-value accounts by providing insights and intelligence about the accounts and their key decision-makers. But all this is only possible if account managers can overcome the involved limitations of traditional CRMs such as not being equipped enough to execute account planning to its full potential. This is primarily because traditional account planning execution happens offline with an increased reliance on PPTs and spreadsheets. This often leads to the absence of a single source of truth for data and reports along with a missing systematic link between Account-based Management and Account-based Selling. Thus, this calls for a system that empowers account managers to paint a comprehensive account picture and collaborate with every account stakeholder. Fortunately, new sales tools are emerging that help account managers overcome these limitations. These account-based sales tools provide a centralized platform for managing customer interactions and account data. They also offer features specifically designed to support an account-based selling strategy. 8 crucial must-have capabilities in account-based sales / account-based selling tools: Account Intelligence : The ability to surface insights about individuals and companies that can be used to identify new opportunities and create a strategy for targeting these accounts. Relationship Mapping : The ability to see how different individuals within an account are connected and track all interactions between team members. Whitespace Identification : The ability to find and target new prospects in accounts with the most growth potential. Account Planning : The ability to map out essential information about prospects such as the decision-makers, competitive position, and the core strategic components to win these accounts, among others. Opportunity Management : The ability to track all interactions with an account and all related opportunities and identify which deals are most likely to close starting from the first to the last stage. Pipeline Management : The ability to manage all deals in an account and their associated stages and values. Forecasting : The ability to predict future sales outcomes by understanding which deals are most likely to close and estimating the value of those closed deals. Collaboration : Identifying and updating contact and account data by unlocking a holistic picture of every key account. Creating coaching content alongside, such as process playbooks is also crucial. Once you have the right account-based sales tools in place, it’s essential to ensure everyone on your team is using them effectively. That means appropriately training sales reps on using the tools and giving them the tools they need to be successful. The best account-based sales tools make it easy for sales reps to identify and target key accounts, build relationships with key stakeholders, and track all interactions with those stakeholders. This information can then be used to create targeted content and sales pitches relevant to each account. How Account-Based Selling Tools Help Maximizing Account Revenue Account-based selling tools are vital to maximizing the revenue from every key account by bridging the gaps between intent signals and growth opportunities. They do this via Connected Apps Ecosystem : Account-based selling platforms integrate with existing data and tech stacks to drastically improve forecasting accuracy. Predictive analytics can help identify which deals are most likely to close by analyzing past customer interactions and current account data. Sales Enablement : Account-based selling tools provide the sales team with the right content at the right time to help them close more deals. This content is tailored to the specific needs of each account and is delivered through channels that the customer is most likely to use. Account-based Selling Strategy : The right account-based selling tools can help sales leaders to develop a detailed account-based selling strategy and an account-based selling framework. This strategy will identify the best path that best integrates with the existing complexity of tech stacks. We are proud to share that DemandFarm has been recognized as one such leading account-based sales tool from a globally leading Independent Research Firm in the space of Account-based Sales Tools. Forrester Recognizes DemandFarm as a Mature Vendor in Account-Based Sales Technologies The report gives insight into what companies that use Account-Based Selling tools can expect. DemandFarm is mentioned as one of the few vendors that can provide account insights, opportunity tracking, and relationship mapping. For more information on how to maximize account revenue, please contact us. We would be happy to discuss our services and the many benefits of using an account-based sales tool!
4 account penetration strategies to take your retention revenue to the next level
One of the most important laws of growing a SaaS business commands that every company has to face the proverbial “valley of death”—long and dry spells of famine caused by several factors. It’s par for the course that most high-growth SaaS companies stall out in the range of $20–$40 million ARR despite a breezy initial success in scaling their business from 0–1. Other times, external market forces—such as the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic—can cause growing businesses to hit a plateau in their growth trajectory. In many ways, such episodes of growth impediment are sort of trial by ordeal to test the perseverance of a business and its teams. If a company is able to storm the rough weather, it will likely come out of it stronger and ready to take on any challenge. If they don’t survive the challenge—too bad, they probably didn’t have the mettle, to begin with. One way ambitious companies and their GTM teams cope with the rough times is by shifting their focus on an area that is often overlooked, i.e. their existing customers. Of course, it’s tempting to double your business just by pounding out hundreds and hundreds of new leads every month. It’s the exact kind of growth playbook that makes you a VC darling and helps you secure several rounds of funding initially—but not when you hit a wall. When your company is tumbling down the death valley, it’s more logical to focus on your existing base of users to extend a helping hand than to scream for help in a vacuum. There are many upsides to refocusing on your current users to expand your retention revenue. An average sales cycle when selling to existing accounts is 50% shorter than closing deals with new accounts. That means little to no investment in new customer acquisitions, exploiting new revenue channels, and expanding your TAM potential. In a long time horizon, most B2B companies earn 70% of their revenue from 20% of their customers. Taking that as an average, it’s only logical to have a pre-emptive account planning strategy to enable sales opportunities on your immediate radar. Here are four strategic account penetration tips to expand your revenue potential, improve customer lifetime value, and enrich sales velocity. 1. Leverage account-based customer marketing Account-based selling and marketing are nothing but evolved, perhaps more refined, versions of account management or account farming. Sales coaches and theoretical consultants keep adding new templates and playbooks around this topic to reframe it as a new concept, which has made ABS and ABM more complex topics than they actually are. The result? In one of its recent findings, CSO Insights reports that 54.9% of B2B companies have gaping holes in their account penetration strategies. Often, the culprit is the broken hand-off processes between cross-functional teams and information silos even when the teams are catering to serve the same account. For account-based customer marketing to succeed, you should have a proactive strategy to implement your campaigns—not a reactive approach to upsell and cross-sell when an account matures. Start by identifying the target accounts and engage in frequent conversations with them to understand their broader business requirements. This will help you gain visibility into their business environment, sales pipelines, revenue targets, growth bottlenecks, and end-customer needs. Once you have the data, create powerful content stories and messaging to show them the opportunity cost around wasted money, process delays, and long conversion cycles. Strategically position your solution—through a blend of display and retargeting ads—to showcase how using your solution can help them not just to overcome their current problems but achieve their revenue milestones. The idea here is to present your team and solution as strategic partners in their growth rather than mere software vendors or implementation partners. Here’s yet another strategy to leverage account-based sales and marketing to expand revenue growth—use whitespace analysis for farming key accounts. It’s basically a tool to help you identify whitespace farming and mining opportunities, discover areas where you can grow your account, and align or map your resources to accomplish your goals. Whitespace analysis gives you the advantage of strategically positioning second-order selling opportunities with a clear view of the account landscape. For instance, you can use whitespace analysis to identify potential cross-sell and upsell opportunities within your existing key accounts. With whitespace mapping, you can easily find opportunities for additional account penetration and expansion based on an account’s past performance, similar purchase patterns, and competitive landscape. A well-done whitespace analysis of key accounts will help you identify your best selling offerings or products, see gaps in product or service lines, spot revenue opportunities with little to no competition, anticipate and build capacities, and maintain a high-growth pipeline. To pull off most of the ABM campaigns successfully, you would need a solid partnership between marketing and sales because the silos between the two teams would jeopardize your chances of exploiting lucrative revenue opportunities. A tight alignment between marketing and sales can lead to a 32% increase in year-over-year revenue growth. When the two teams join forces with each other, the partnership opens new doors of business opportunities for expanding your retention revenue. For example, sales enablement is an arena where the two teams can come together to improve their team KPIs while bumping up their companies’ revenue. According to stats, businesses that have sales enablement as an integral part of their sales process have a 49% win rate on achieving forecasted deals. This lends itself over to account penetration too. The marketing already has core first-party data that they can leverage to create impactful content assets and create account-based email drip campaigns. They don’t have to open their purse to spend a dollar on acquiring new customers while the sales can borrow marketing’s expertise to create valuable sales collaterals like pitch decks, comparison docs, business cases, and so on. The collaboration is a win-win tactic for both teams and you can even tether the two teams to a common KPI to encourage a tighter alignment.
What DemandFarm brings to the table! (Milind Katti at the SaasHoles Podcast)
Milind Katti at the SaasHoles Podcast Key Account Management is rapidly changing from traditional methods to becoming digitized. Watch Milind Katti, COO & co-founder at DemandFarm, in conversation with Kevin Gaither and Pete Jansons in the SaasHoles podcast. Find out how DemandFarm came to be pioneers in Digital Account Planning. Track the shift from individual-driven to data-driven account planning. Get to know the benefits of converting tacit knowledge to enterprise memory. Check out the following topics in this podcast: Relationship Mapping & Account Management Building relationships as account managers The role of automation in SaaS Hunters vs Farmers in business
The rise of Digital Account Planning and how DemandFarm created its own niche
When we started DemandFarm, we realized that for B2B firms, winning an opportunity is not enough. It is about winning an account in the long run. Keeping that in mind, our vision was to build digital tools for making account-centric sales effectiveness even more prominent. That was the vision with which we had founded the company. And then, we started building account planning tools around the central theme of account-centricity, and over the years, we have seen astounding traction as it took over and helped in making account managers productive and the overall account management process far more effective. The Market Gap we have filled While the CRM has been very good with Opportunity Management, it does not have any process to support large account management, like account planning. Even today, a majority of companies do account planning on PowerPoints and Excel sheets. It is a disparate process with very little standardization. While account-based marketing solutions have helped, there was a big need for a technology solution to address account planning, or account-based sales, which was still very relationship selling driven. With our digital account planning solution, we have done that, and have addressed a big market need. We have helped enterprises answer relevant questions such as: How relevant are your offerings? Does it solve a specific challenge that the customer is facing at that point in time? Do you have on-demand data that can help you make the right decisions and make the right interventions at the right time? How strong are your relationships in terms of breadth and depth? Digital account planning tools can help organizations take a measure of how mature is your communication with the customer. In simple words, digital account planning tools can provide much-needed intelligence and clarity into some of your key accounts. For example, when multiple members from a sales team interact with a large client, there is a lot of information about the client that is there with the individual account managers. DemandFarm’s OrgChart can help in converting this tribal knowledge to enterprise memory by capturing the organizational hierarchy, affinity with client stakeholders, their decision-making power, budget control, internal political mapping, and more into a visual canvas available to all. Similarly, DemandFarm’s Account Plan module is designed to help enterprises create an annual plan for each key account with clear goals and objectives using both qualitative and quantitative insights. Account plans can be created based on account segmentation parameters such as relationship health and account attractiveness or competitor analysis going beyond SWOT to wallet share analysis. Our key account management software has now evolved to a point where we have been able to create a new category, Digital Account Planning, which was not known as a category a few years back. We have succeeded in institutionalizing the account planning process and have helped several organizations standardize the key account management process across organizations in less than 3 months. Once implemented, account managers are equipped with all account insights that may impact their active opportunities and leadership has a global view of key accounts at the click of a button. More importantly, they are able to effectively plan across regions and across multiple teams in a seamless manner. Enterprises also have increased visibility of potential and growth ambition within key accounts. Digital account planning tools give meaningful insights to overcome questions raised by the account manager such as – How to keep track of who all they know and what all they know about them? Where do they lie in the formal hierarchy of their organization? Who controls what budgets? More importantly, DemandFarm helps enterprises evolve contacts to relationships. Account Managers are able to keep a check on internal influences within their customer organizations. The heat maps help Account Teams take informed decisions in the opportunity pursuits. Who to target? Who else to bring into the meetings? Who is our champion? These questions can be easily answered now.