Tag: B2B

Best Practices for the B2B Side of Key Account Management

Focus on key accounts is a lot more important in the B2B sector, and for good reason: the complexity of B2B businesses demands efficiency, and handling a large roster of customers all of whom clamor for attention can stretch teams thin. B2B businesses rely on customer management heavily to keep a steady sales flow. While they focus on key accounts, the management strategy usually follows regular account management practices. Based on the size and the products offered, vendor organizations can have multiple criteria for identifying key accounts, but it is important to understand the nuances of customer needs before embarking on a key account management process. Leaders of the organization can guide or collaborate on creating a plan for key accounts, with multiple departments – and implement practices that benefit both the customer and the vendor. The business of key accounts The first factor that pops up when ‘key’ accounts are mentioned, is revenue. Classifying customers based on the revenue share they bring to the organization is a common classification method, as any customer that drives a large chunk of revenue should be treated well. These key account contacts can also refer new prospects, because word of mouth carries a lot of weight when critical business functions are involved. Their endorsement can also lend credibility to the organization and its products, along with opportunities to learn, evolve and innovate. The major focus should be on prioritizing the future of the partnership, instead of instant gains. Understanding parameters like recurring sales, customer’s lifetime value, scope of innovation and common growth, and shared goals can make the choice of key customers obvious. Collaboration between multiple teams is necessary to provide a strong support that successfully nurtures them. Re-evaluating the current sales process can shed light on how long-term relationships can be formed with key customers, and can reveal if the upselling potential of the product is a feasible option. What does a successful key account manager do? Providing training in strategic account management is the preferred option for 61% of organizations to achieve greater revenue and customer satisfaction. Training teams on understanding best account management practices, allows managers to determine what accounts can be termed ‘key’ ones and apply different tactics instead of focusing on closing a one-time deal. Strengthening ties and aligning with customer goals for the short and long term requires key account managers to think beyond the box.  1. Making personal connections that focus on business might sound like an oxymoron, but strategic account managers with their in-depth customer knowledge can provide extremely personalized solutions to the problems faced by their customers. They can change their pitch sequence to address these issues, and convince customers on how the product is suited to fulfil their needs. They can also pitch customizations and add-ons that customers can use to extract additional value from their operations. The understanding of accounts keeps teams to be proactive, anticipate customer needs, and stay up-to-date on industry trends.  Having a personal equation also allows employees to alert and educate customers about potential changes. Customers nowadays want a partner who can guide them into understanding best practices and why they matter, so that they can focus on the core aspects of their job and not spending time on researching a tangential aspect of their task. Results show that customer satisfaction can lead to a bump of 20% and more in engagement, while improving revenue generation by more than 15%. 2. Tailoring solutions in the best way possible right from the moment of pitching, can allow managers to create customer-specific product plans and benefits. Showing the benefits of the product usage to the customers on a regular basis switches the focus of customers on to the extra value provided, can be even interested in upselling opportunities with the same product, or other offerings from the vendor. based on the needs of each account. By tailoring the services to meet specific needs, the relationship can be elevated from buyer and seller to business partners. The big-picture view of key account management gives managers the freedom to fit relevant services in regular workflows of customer organization. The streamlining promotes confidence in the abilities of the solution provider, and interactions between both parties can take a consultation-based role. 3. Enabling decision making is essential for managing high-value accounts, which require time and resources of multiple teams and employees. Having a strong manager who can take calls that are in the interests of both parties and not just short-term gains, can drive operations smoothly. People skills and clarity in communication are essential for key account managers who handle large accounts that have multiple client stakeholders. Organizations should also look into tools that help in structuring and analyzing data, so that managers can plan future strategies with certainty, and keep team members on track.  Why can’t all customers become key accounts? There’s a limit to key account management practices, and no matter how sophisticated a vendor’s processes are, some customer partnerships don’t develop past the transaction phase. Trying to convert such clients by assigning more resources, can only complicate matters – as it is really difficult to scale a client don from ‘key’ status, without losing it. Enthusiastic managers might be keen to designate the account they’ve just won as ‘key’, but leaders should have steps in place to negate such euphoric decisions. Highlighting differences between one-off transactions and potential partnerships through various lenses can solve this issue, and also helps managers look at factors beyond revenue (which is very important, but not the only important factor).The ratio of revenue to cost for customers shows the current state, while determining potential to expand ensures future growth, and highlights any mismatches with product fit. Based on the trajectory, key account managers can look at upselling and cross-selling, and push their customers toward high value status. Unlocking value from digital analytics AI and ML (machine learning) have made further inroads into efficiency and usability, and they can help B2B account management practices evolve too.

Driving Sales Excellence in 2025: What, Why, and How?

Our story begins in 2003, a time of great distress in British Cycling. The national cycling team of Great Britain was the epitome of mediocrity at the time, having won just one medal in a century of existence. Fast-forward to 2008 and the squad took home 7 out of the 10 available medals in the Beijing Olympics – a remarkable feat that they would repeat in the 2012 London Olympics. In fact, by 2015, the squad had even won three Tour de France – the holy grail of competitive cycling. Make no mistake. This is much more than your average rags to riches story. But a natural question begs – how did the worst cycling team in the world suddenly turn into world champions? Our answer lies in the strategy of “the aggregation of marginal gains”. It was Introduced by Dave Brailsford in 2003 when he was appointed the new performance director of British Cycling. The idea was simple yet hauntingly effective – to think small and not big. This involved breaking the entire process of competing into its constituent elements and then improving each of them by 1%. In practice, this meant painting the floor of the team truck white to spot impurities that undermine bike maintenance, hiring a surgeon to educate team members on ideal hand-washing techniques to avoid illnesses, making athletes sleep in the same postures every night, and other such countless initiatives. Why does this work? How can such small improvements accumulate into such head-turning results? And most importantly, what can we learn here that can be implemented in sales and account management? Sales Excellence: Getting Ready for 2024 The What and Why of Sales Excellence As reported by Salesforce, organizations spend anywhere between 5 – 15% of their entire revenue on sales. Revenue. Not profits. This is as significant as an investment can get in a single organizational department. Naturally, it makes sense to have a well-defined framework that milks the maximum possible ROI from the equation. And this is where Sales Excellence comes in. In Key Account Management, Sales Excellence is an amalgamation and progression of all possible sales functions. Drawing parallels from the management philosophy of Dave Brailsford, this would mean constant improvement in all key initiatives that go into sales – sales training, sales culture, sales tools, sales technology, and more. From a 360-degree point of view, Sales Excellence model translates to stepping into the world of British Cycling. It cares about everything – the number of deals that are closed, deals closure times, deals won rate, the support level extended to salespeople, and much more. What Ideal Sales Excellence Looks Like For Sales Excellence and Sales acceleration to function at its ideal capacity, leaders and the organization at large need to live and breathe the practice. For a concept that involves attention to detail at unprecedented capacity, anything less than 100% buy-in would be a shame. What does such dedication look like in practice? At the foundational level, Sales Excellence strategy begins with staunch onboarding, training, and up-skilling support for salespeople in a manner that grows into the shoes of a pan-organization culture. Sales Excellence means that salespeople are not only attuned to the best practices of sales but also work closely with other departments (such as marketing) to better understand the personalized needs of every buyer. Key ingredients to formulate an ideal Sales Excellence framework includes: Sales Strategy: Scoping, understanding, and implementing ideal sales targets and budgets by taking into account both current and potential customer segments. Market Penetration and Development: Defining the best mix of digital channels that promotes market penetration at maximum capacity. Sales Processes: Defining the end-to-end sales structure and making crucial decisions related to key account management, customer classification, customer acquisition, and more. Pricing Strategy: Increasing profitability with the right pricing strategy in place. This includes closing the right number of deals, defining key accounts, order management, and more. Impact of Sales Excellence on Deal Closures In a traditional capacity, sales are driven by taking into account how effective the entire organization or sales department is in executing their roles and responsibilities. But such monitoring is often undertaken at a bird’s eye level with KPIs catering to teams or entire sales functions. Sales Excellence goes way beyond this and brings a fundamental shift in this practice. Sales Excellence questions not just the leaders or the sales functions but every individual salesperson. This means monitoring metrics such as the deal closure time, deal win rate, the training and proficiency levels of salespeople with the tools, organizational support, and the like. What does this mean? When the spotlight is on every individual salesperson, improved deal closure is nothing more than a natural byproduct of the practice. Revisiting the story of the British Cycling team, focusing on every detail in the small picture ultimately has a significant cumulative impact on the big picture. How to Measure Sales Excellence Now that you know what Sales Excellence is all about, the next step is figuring how to measure it. The age of Sales Enablement and Sales Transformation has paved the way for many key metrics and frameworks that need to be put to ideal use to measure success in Sales Excellence. Here is a round-up of the key metrics that you should be focusing on: Time to Full-Ramp: How much time does a salesperson spend to put up his/her shop? The quicker they are set up and running (in both individual and organizational capacity), the better the results. Collateral Engagement: So you have provided every salesperson with the ideal content and sales collateral. But are they putting them to good use to move prospects through their buying journey? Communication Analytics: Are salespeople eager to up-skill and keep up to date with organizational and product updates? Monitoring communications (at a high level) can be indicative of their eagerness to be prepared. Sales Performance: This is a direct measure of the effectiveness of all sales efforts and includes monitoring KPIs such as

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

How can KAM Sales help your Organization?

What is Key Account Management (KAM) Sales? Key Account Management, or KAM as it is called, is usually not a transactional activity. It involves larger stakes and requires a buy-in from all stakeholders that are involved. After all, KAM Sales is not a single activity we are talking about, but a whole relationship that we are putting on the table. Essentially KAM Sales is a much wider term than sales will ever be. Typically, there are certain challenges that arise with it every now and then, such as, short-term interest wins over long-term goals. Secondly, it can be overpromising. This often leads to mishaps and even fatalities of Key Accounts, especially in cases of overpromising and under-delivering. When everyone at the organizational level is not looped in, there could be a rise in confusion, chaos, and inefficiencies. But all these probable gaps can be taken care of if certain things are seen to. Identify the Key Accounts for KAM Sales Every Account can’t be categorized under Key Account Sales. Identifying key accounts is crucial. Strategic and complex organizations, which are inclined to participate in collaborating and co-creating value should be adopted as Key Accounts. These Key Account Sales should have potential and considerable long-term possibilities to ensure maximized lifetime value. Conduct a historical study of KAM Sales data Key Account Management Sales does not mean jumping into an engagement that may turn out to be lopsided, one way or the other. Once the potential is identified, it pays to study past data to understand the dynamics of the account in areas such as product, pricing, service- gaps if any and growth potential. Based on this, a mutually beneficial contract can be drawn. Find and train the right people for KAM Sales positions Key Account Managers may not be your best salespeople and vice versa. Sales Acceleration needs a unique skill set in the key account management scenario. It is more of an overarching function like that of a Project Manager. This is a CFT, a cross-functional team that will come from top to bottom in the hierarchy and left to right, across functions. It is integral to have the right team who knows what the stakes are and what they have to do for their accounts to grow exponentially. Track, Measure and Build The true measure of a Key Account is in the lifetime value of that customer to your company and the value-added to the customer’s bottom line. This is what one needs to track and measure regularly and build a Key Account Management Sales program that evolves with the customer’s or rather, the Key Account’s evolving needs. The Sales team overseeing the Key Accounts should comprise of people who can identify customers that can be moved up the KAM status. The alignment between marketing and sales will define the success of your KAM technology adoption program. It is all about collaboration and co-creating success. This is how we feel KAM Sales can be a fruitful endeavor for any organization, please reach out if you have any thoughts to share on this topic! I’d love to hear from any reader who’s been inspired by this blog.