Tag: Sales Management

Key Account Manager vs Sales Manager: Navigating the World of Digital Key Account Management

Is a key account manager the same as a sales manager? Meet Anna, a diligent Sales Manager at Brilliant Solutions, a thriving software company specializing in cutting-edge automation tools. Her daily tasks revolve around driving sales, managing the sales team, and ensuring sales targets are met. She focuses on generating leads, closing deals, and keeping her team motivated to push their limits. With a knack for numbers and an eye for detail, Anna tracks her team’s performance and ensures they have the necessary resources to succeed.  On the other side of the same office is Ted, an experienced Key Account Manager. A typical workday for Ted involves nurturing long-term relationships with Brilliant Solutions’ most valuable clients. He’s the go-to person for these clients, addressing their unique needs and ensuring they receive personalized attention. Ted is a master of collaboration, working closely with various departments within Brilliant Solutions to guarantee top-notch service for his key accounts. While both Anna and Ted contribute to the organization’s success, their roles differ in critical ways. There are plenty of similarities between the roles of a Sales Manager and a Key Account Manager, but equally, they are quite different. While we examine these, let’s also look at how each role can benefit from Digital Key Account Management.    Similarities between Sales Managers and Key Account Managers You might be wondering if is key account manager a sales job. Both Sales Managers and Key Account Managers play essential roles in driving business success. They share some core responsibilities like: 1. Revenue generation Sales Managers: Focus on acquiring new customers and achieving sales targets.  Sales Managers aim to expand the customer base and generate revenue for the company. To achieve this, they devise and implement sales strategies tailored to their target market. They set measurable goals for their team, ensuring that the company meets its financial objectives. Sales Managers also monitor their team’s performance, providing guidance and coaching when necessary.  Key Account Managers: Responsible for maintaining and growing revenue from existing high-value clients.  Key Account Managers focus on the company’s most valuable clients, striving to maintain and grow their revenue streams. They analyze client data to identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling and devise strategies to improve client satisfaction. By fostering long-term relationships, Key Account Managers ensure a steady flow of revenue and increase the client’s lifetime value. 2. Collaboration Sales Managers: Work closely with marketing, product development, and customer support.  Sales Managers recognize that collaboration is critical for business success. They partner with the marketing team to create campaigns that generate leads and align sales strategies with overall company objectives. Sales Managers also collaborate with product development and customer support to ensure a smooth sales process and exceptional after-sales experience.  Key Account Managers: Collaborate with different departments to develop custom solutions and services for key clients.  They understand the importance of interdepartmental cooperation in meeting the unique needs of their high-value clients. They collaborate with product development to create customized solutions, work with marketing to develop tailored promotional materials and liaise with customer support to ensure their clients receive exceptional service. This cross-functional collaboration helps maintain strong relationships and client satisfaction.  3. Relationship building Sales Managers: Foster relationships with clients and team members. By cultivating relationships with both prospective and current clients, Sales Managers can secure sales and ensure customer loyalty. They understand that building trust and rapport with clients is crucial for long-term success.  In addition to external relationship-building, Sales Managers focus on nurturing strong internal relationships. They motivate their team, offer support, and foster a positive work environment that encourages growth and collaboration.  Key Account Managers: Excel at nurturing long-term relationships with high-value clients. High-value clients are critical to the success and longevity of the business. Key Account Managers develop the special skillset to foster and maintain long-term relationships with these high-value clients. They take the time to understand their clients’ unique needs, provide personalized attention, and consistently exceed expectations. By demonstrating genuine interest and commitment, Key Account Managers strengthen client loyalty and ensure continued revenue growth.    Differences between Sales Managers and Key Account Managers Despite the similarities, Sales Managers and Key Account Managers have differences in their roles. Some key aspects where these differences can be seen are: 1. Client scope: Sales Managers: Focus on the broader market and on growing the customer base. Sales Managers concentrate on the overall market, seeking to acquire new clients and grow the company’s customer base. They manage the sales pipeline, monitor the flow of leads and opportunities, and ensure that their team actively pursues potential clients.  Key Account Managers: Concentrate on a select group of high-value clients. Key Account Managers dedicate their time and effort to a select group of high-value clients. They focus on retaining and growing these relationships. They prioritize the unique needs of these clients, delivering customized solutions and services that cater specifically to their requirements.  2. Long-term vision Sales Managers: Driven by short-term sales targets.  They are primarily concerned with achieving short-term sales targets. Sales Managers thus focus on generating revenue quickly and efficiently by closing deals and meeting their teams’ sales quotas.  Key Account Managers: Emphasize long-term growth and client retention Key Account Managers, on the other hand, prioritize long-term growth and client retention. Their primary goal is to ensure key accounts remain loyal and satisfied with the company’s products and services over an extended period. By focusing on nurturing these relationships, Key Account Managers contribute to the company’s long-term success and stability. 3. Problem-solving Sales Managers: Address general client concerns and overcome objections.  Sales Managers work to sell the company’s existing products and services. They do this by addressing general client concerns and overcoming objections during the sales process. They use their expertise in the company’s offerings and their understanding of the target market to provide solutions that meet the clients’ needs, ensuring a smooth sales experience.  Key Account Managers: Coordinate custom solutions for client-specific issues. Key Account Managers take a more tailored approach to problem-solving. They act

Sales vs. Account Management: The Relationship between Sales and Account Management

Account Management vs. Sales: The Difference Between Key Account Management and Selling. Managing accounts and selling products seem different, but the functions of both practices share plenty of similarities. The relationship between Sales and Account Management is about getting the product in front of the customers, but while sales processes end when a product is purchased, Account management never stops. In simple words, sales teams bring customers in, and account management nurtures them and helps both entities grow. Both account management and sales have goals that are similar – building strong customer relationships, and increasing revenue of their organization. Both are important for the organization to be successful, but the skill sets required are very different. What is Sales? Sales, for B2B companies, involves a wide range of responsibilities on a day-to-day basis which are carried out to connect the solutions/products/services of the organization to relevant customers. Members of sales teams should know the solutions/products/services they’re selling inside out, so that they match & offer solutions that suit the unique needs of their clients. By discussing the benefits of different products, they connect with possible clients – and are involved in creating special deals for high-value clients. It is their job to keep up with sales reports and marketing data, writing contracts (and invoices once the sale is closed), and achieve sales targets set. What Do Sales Managers Do? Sales managers are the backbone of any sales team. Their primary responsibility is to drive revenue growth by meeting sales targets and closing deals. They lead a team of sales representatives, setting sales goals, developing sales strategies, and monitoring sales performance. Sales managers play a pivotal role in qualifying leads, creating sales presentations, and ensuring that the sales process runs smoothly from start to finish. What is Account Management? Account managers should also be proficient in sales activities, but few key differences can be observed between the roles. Account management roles are created to build a strategic relationships with clients after the sale is done, so that the satisfaction levels with the product or solution are high. Account management teams also act as advisers to their customers, and help them plan their long-term growth strategies. Apart from customer development and upselling to grow existing accounts, the account management team also keeps customer service success as their first priority. Case Study: TaskUs registered a 30% increase in up-selling & 20% increase in cross-selling What Do Account Managers Do? Account managers, on the other hand, focus on building and maintaining long-term relationships with clients. Their goal is to ensure customer satisfaction and foster client loyalty. They manage key accounts, providing personalized solutions and addressing client concerns. Account managers excel in relationship management, often acting as the main point of contact for clients and ensuring that their needs are met consistently. Where sales and account management work well together! In small and medium-sized businesses, organizations can have their sales teams handle account management too. This gives the members of sales teams a better look at their customer’s needs, and allows them to craft customized plans. As both sales and account management are critical roles, organizations should consider bifurcating them once they have reached a considerable size. Since account management also involves cross-selling and upselling whenever opportunities arise, sales teams can build their product presence quickly – but managing the account where no selling is involved might get a bit difficult in some cases. Even if sales team members are responsible for strategic account management, leaders of the vendor organization must ensure the team members understand the different skills required to execute both roles successfully. Sales Vs. Account Management: The Difference Between Key Account Management and Selling Understanding the difference between the elements of each discipline, can help the two teams work together, exchange information and share best practices, and grow faster. Some differences that can be highlighted between the functioning of sales and Account management teams are listed below. 1. Pre-sale and post-sale activities Sales teams are traditionally responsible for bringing in new customers, and they usually have only transactional relationships with the customer’s employees. The ownership of the customer transfers to account management teams, who develop a relationship with the customers, understand their issues and help them grow their business. Using key account management software can help both teams equally, as the data about the customer in the vendor organization’s enterprise memory can be used by both teams to great effect. While the sales processes can convert better with personalised solution scenarios, account management can start delighting the customer from day 1 with the data about the issues and how the solution is being used. Deep expertise in the solution’s capabilities allows both teams to seize the opportunity presented by the extra information at their disposal. 2. Hunting for customers and farming that adds value to them Allusions to hunting are aplenty in sales circles, where sales executives scout out the prospects and then close the deal (or ‘hunt’ them). The task of account management, in this scenario, is to ‘farm’ the value brought by the sales team and keep all involved parties satisfied. The data about customers can help them identify ways to cater to the customers’ needs and respond quickly. This is important for client satisfaction and to build good healthy long term client relationship. 3. Shorter and longer frequencies While both teams follow different cadences of work, at the end – they are tied to the client’s decisions. There’s no way to know how long closing a deal will take – ranging from weeks and months to even years (for large enterprise customers), sales teams keep their pitch on all the time. They don’t rest until the sale is closed and the account is handed to… the account management team. The account management team starts selling once the sales team stops – and doesn’t rest. In that way, both teams work on unpredictable cycles, and the amount of information they collect in either stage can hugely benefit the other team. Even if the sales process fails to close, for example, after 8 months – the sales team would have

Powering Sales Intelligence in KAM to Drive More Leads

“There was once a factory that was run by a large engine at its core. One fine day the engine broke, shutting down the entire operation. ‍ After several engineers failed to solve the problem, the factory owner approached a veteran engine expert as a last-ditch effort. ‍ The expert inspected the engine for a whole hour, pulled out a hammer from his toolkit, placed it above a specific spot, and tapped once with panache. ‍ The engine roared and started working again at once. ‍ The owner, ecstatic at the result, thanked him and inquired about the fees. The expert handed him an invoice for $10,000. ‍ Angry at the ‘atrocious’ amount, the owner exclaimed, “You hardly did anything! $10,000 for a single tap? I want to see an itemized bill.” ‍ Without saying anything, the expert simply made another invoice that read: ‍ Tapping with a hammer: $2 Knowing where to tap: $9,998” Every time I think or read about Automated Sales Intelligence, it reminds me of this story. As sales leaders, we come across such scenarios every day. Whether it is about finding qualified leads, pushing customers through their buyer journeys, or boosting the conversion with landing pages, every information about the customer helps to ‘place the hammer’ at the right spot for the ‘decisive tap’. Today’s blog delves into what automated sales intelligence is, how to gather sales intelligence effectively, and how integrating CRM with sales prospecting intelligence can transform your sales engine. What is Automated Sales Intelligence? Automated sales intelligence refers to the technology and processes that empower sales teams to gather, analyze, and leverage substantial amounts of data about prospects and existing customers. This intelligent approach allows sales professionals to derive actionable sales intelligence that enhances their decision-making capabilities. This helps sales leaders and teams to: Track key changes and information bytes of existing accounts Map key stakeholders in prospective organizations Understand the needs and wants of prospects Collate and index real-time company information And much more… Sales Intelligence = Intelligent Prospecting When done right, Sales Intelligence is all about selling hard and more in the least possible time. Naturally, the benefits extend to a crucial arm of the new-age sales process – Prospecting. By overhauling prospecting and equipping it with ‘Intelligence Data’, Sales Intelligence tells salespeople who they should be talking to, the precise conversations that they should be driving, ideal times at which they should be reaching out to prospects, and more. Ideal Sales Intelligence tools also go to the extent of eliminating manual processes of scraping for critical insights, verifying for their authenticity, and providing a 360-degree view of the prospect. Such benefits have been driving the adoption of Sales Excellence to the point of no return. As per a report from GrandViewResearch, this has witnessed the global market to be valued at $2.29 Billion in 2019 with the expected CAGR to be 10.5% from 2020 to 2027. For instance, consider a scenario where a salesperson is in charge of generating new leads. She is armed with a list of ‘potential’ prospects and the blueprint criteria of what the company’s ideal customer profile stands as. By feeding such data into a Sales Intelligence tool, she can be instantly notified when any new company falls under the purview of the ideal customer profile. And all this without the customary stalking behavior that we usually exhibit as salespeople! Importance of Data in Sales Intelligence As you may have caught up by now, data naturally plays a central role here. But long and complex sales cycles often need much more than numbers and addresses. And as reported by Salespanel, most sales intelligence platforms focus on providing intent data. This usually includes key behavioral information about the prospect’s digital activities. Sales are all about making the right decisions at the most ideal times, a natural habitat for data to thrive in. But while the quantity of data matters here, so does the accuracy. With hyper-contextual marketing and sales data, sales intelligence can drive successful relationship-building that focuses on the correct conversion or engagement parameters. And that’s not all. Sales Intelligence also seeps into the foundation by transforming how customer profiles are shaped. Hunches, feelings, and opinions are categorically eliminated and all intelligence is driven by a consistent profile that does not deviate from one leader or department to another. Such a stable approach keeps every stakeholder on the same page and channels sales and marketing efforts in the right direction. How Sales Intelligence Affects: Data Quality and Management Poor sales data is one of the foremost challenges that salespeople face. Sales Intelligence places immense focus on assessing data quality and improving it with a data quality strategy that brings positive ROI. Key metrics that are usually leveraged here include: Email Bounce Rates: The number of emails that go undelivered due to bounce backs directly correlates with the health of your sales data. The ratio of Data to Errors: Tracking redundant, missing, or incomplete data entities that are depleting data quality. Improved data health here translates to fewer errors with constant or growing data size. The number of Empty Values: Corresponds to missing information or data that has been entered incorrectly into a field. Keeping a track of empty fields and how this number changes over time is a characteristic of sales intelligence. Data Transformation Error Rates: Converting existing data into a different format can introduce another class of errors. As a sales intelligence metric, it becomes important to keep track of data transformation tasks that fail. Quantity of Dark Data: Dark data refers to complicated data quality issues that may not be resolved easily. They are best resolved with elimination and require close monitoring. Data Storage Costs: If the amount of data that you are leveraging in sales remains constant but the storage costs are rising, it can be a sign of poor quality issues. Data Time-to-Value: Another way to measure quality is the time it takes for salespeople to derive actionable value from a given data set.

Sales Transformation in Key Account Management

It was the year 2015 and Coca-Cola was sitting on a goldmine of an ever-growing customer database. The roadmap ahead was clear – to boost the consumption of their existing line of products through sales transformation. Because we are talking about one of the most recognizable brands in the world, this was no easy feat. With a thirst-quenching range of 500+ beverages, over 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola products are consumed every day! As expected of any global brand, they led a graceful response. They placed data at the heart of their sales transformation journey by listening to customer opinions over the phone, email, and social media. The next step was to curate targeted content for different audiences that aligned with their passions. The result? Consumers are 4 times more likely to click on their digital adverts (according to Bernard Marr & Co.). If there is one idiom that can accurately sum up the entire digital age, it is this – using data to learn about customer behaviors and point them towards relevant conversions. That’s what every innovation on the planet is about – to be a relevant building block towards making the ultimate sale. And as it turns out, data has always been the missing ingredient when it comes to Sales Transformation in the digital era. What is Sales Transformation? Sales transformation is the process of aligning every cog in the wheel of driving the growth of an organization. At its core, sales transformation is about implementing big ideas and the shift in sales focus that is required to deliver the target results. It is as much about the “change” in sales techniques and skills as it is about making that change stick. With that being said, the end goal of sales transformation is to make the change in behavior, skills, and results measurable. For instance, let’s say that a business is targeting to close more deals this quarter than the last. As the leader, your goal would be to revamp the current operations and processes of the sales team and provide them with the required tools and frameworks to meet the new sales targets. Importance of Strategic Sales in Key Account Management There is no denying the fact that growth in Key Account Management is closely tied to the ability to drive the execution of sales strategies. This is a deciding factor that can make or break the reputation of organizations, and even sales leaders. Richardson reports that the average tenure of a sales leader lies between just 18 to 24 months! This is an alarming statistic and only accentuates the importance of a coherent sales transformation strategy. In Key Account Management, the criticality is at another level altogether. Not only do sales leaders need to meet short-term business objectives, but they also need to ensure the long-term viability of the entire business development vertical. For instance, if an organization is launching a line of key services to capture a bigger piece of the market share from their competitors, the value of stakeholders can only be driven in the long term if the sales strategy is updated and redefined according to the new targets. Looking Past Traditional Account Management Strategies As a sales leader, being adept at new-age account management strategies would make you realize that traditional account management can cause more harm than good. To meet the growth targets in today’s digital landscape, account teams need to pinpoint, hand-hold, develop, execute, and deliver on every growth opportunity. This is especially the case if such opportunities are the side-effect of a well-defined Land and Expand ideology. With a traditional backdrop, account management channels tend to perform much below their full potential with cross-selling and upselling initiatives falling short of the intended growth targets. This is backed by key reports from Gartner. Source – Gartner.com Therefore, there is direct and clear potential for cross-selling and portfolio expansion. This is primarily due to the evolving nature of the job of account managers who are now expected, more than ever, to deliver services, resolve issues, and maximize ROI while also driving the exposure and conversions of new services or products. Driving sales growth now requires a rather fundamental shift in skill sets and on-the-job attitude. And this is exactly where the need to explore new models of account growth comes into the picture with ‘customer improvement’ at the helm. Source – Gartner.com Such a shift would involve leaving behind product success and service and instead implement tactics such as: Finding and simplifying the process of identifying opportunities for customer improvement within key accounts. Measuring the effectiveness of sales strategies and tracking the potential of key account growth. Delivering customer improvement via growth-oriented account teams. Clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of every team member. Key Elements of Sales Transformation To drive effective sales transformation, you need to relook at your key accounts as solutions, rather than mere transactions. To implement this, 6 key ingredients can function as perfect fodder: Employee engagement: Focusing on boosting employee engagement and retention to create a strong internal team and culture that is hell-bent on driving customer success. With a team of better-motivated employees, the path to sales excellence becomes easier and shorter to achieve. Cross-functional collaboration: Key account management teams that work closely together even when assigned to different roles or cases. With dedicated cross-functional Account Management KPIs that are tied to each other, personalized support can be driven for every use case of cross-selling/up-selling. Capability building: Regularly helping the sales teams to up-skill themselves to create employees that are highly engaged and in-tune with experiential and war-room sales strategies can be a trigger for sales acceleration. The end goal is to create a motivated sales team that can deliver impeccable and memorable customer experiences. Digital transformation: With the ever-changing digital landscape, customer expectations are constantly evolving with a never-ending work of bridging the gap between their wants and the ground reality of implementation. Effectively managing such expectations with a bull’s eye digital transformation

Key Account Management, The Jewel in Sales’ Crown

Sales is a critical function in any organization and have always been able to attract internal resources, both human and capital. Key Account Management began as an add-on to sales or a different way to structure departments and assign responsibilities. Though it received plenty of account management focus, there were few specialized human resources and even less capital or technological resources. Only when the number of key account managers reached a tipping point did firms felt the technology-pinch, unable to support collaboration, consolidation or standardization of methodology. But the times changed and with them the behavior of the Key Account Manager. So why have companies been willing to spend resources on CRM, sales training, etcetera but not on KAM? It could be because top-line results are credited to front-line sales while key account managers slog behind the scenes. Top management commitment is important, but it is not enough to create a successful KAM program. Without adequate resources can a company create the foundation on which to build a robust KAM system? In our experience, a three-pronged approach to KAM yields the best results. 1. Choosing the right Key Account Managers: Your best salesperson is not necessarily the best key account manager. Along with influencing skills, they also need collaborative and general management skills, the ability to interact with internal and external stakeholders, to identify problems and design appropriate solutions. It definitely helps to have a manager who can take a long-term perspective on building relationships. While you may choose a person for the role based on some inherent traits and skills, it is also important to invest in training key account managers to help them achieve their full potential. 2. Choosing the right technology: Just as sales managers are enabled with CRM, key account managers need to be enabled with KAM-specific technology. Key Account Management software draws data from a CRM like Salesforce, thereby avoiding data entry and duplication. It supports collaboration across multiple departments and executives at different hierarchical levels. It helps create a relationship matrix and identifies white space or white space opportunities. A standardized process and unified view help improve performance. 3. Measuring and monitoring achievements: Here is a truism that is often ignored: Sales targets and key account goals are not the same. If you want a key account manager to develop a long-term perspective, you have to create long-term goals and pick quantifiable criteria that measure the health of a key account. Account management tools are a great asset as it gives you a multi-dimensional view of the key account; revenue, profitability, deals in the pipeline, relationship strength, untapped potential, share of customer’s purchase and more. Each parameter is measured and monitored individually, followed by analytics to calculate the overall health of a key account. The first CRM software, introduced in the nineteen-eighties, was a simple digital Rolodex! It took several decades and massive technological innovation before CRM became a necessity, not an option or luxury for sales professionals. However in today’s technologically advanced world, decades have shrunk into years and companies that have not invested in KAM technology are not able to exploit, or even recognize, the potential of their key accounts.  Your budget should no longer be a debate about CRM or KAM. If you want to maximize growth and tap the potential of your key accounts you need to enable your key account managers by investing in KAM technology. Stop treating KAM as a stepchild. In today’s customer-focused, solution-oriented market, KAM is the jewel in sales’ crown.

The Real Challenge for KAM is What Happens After the Sale?

Key Account Management is a challenging function in an organizational setup, alright. Because although it is not responsible for direct sales, it is responsible for nurturing the customer after the sale is done, for as long as is possible. The nurturing is not as easy as the Key Account Management has to work with the customer as a partner would. The Key Account Manager has to understand the customer thoroughly, understand their problems, especially the not-so-obvious ones, and work out win-win solutions to resolve the problem or fill the gaps. Like any relationship, this is one key relationship that an Account Manager has to work on continuously, without letting up. For this, a CRM alone simply won’t do. The Key Account Management needs a specialized system tailor-made for the role of a KAM. This system provides an overall view of the entire account, the people involved, the multiple roles they play, their influencer-potential, the stakes that a complex account brings with it and customer dynamics, in order to take the right action at the right time. The new system takes into account the existing CRM and builds on it. Focus on the Accounts from which you can derive maximum value Organizations need to identify Key Accounts and help their Key Account Managers to focus on them. There is no point in spreading the Key Account Managers overall accounts. Key Account Managers have a lot of work to do within their Key Accounts. They need to be clear about: What their customers are trying to achieve and how they can help them. Whether they are aware of and know the customer’s corporate objectives and personal goals? How well they understand their customer is important Whether they and their strategy is in sync with the customer’s goals and can lead them to success. This way, the Key Account Managers can lead their customers to success, which is a win-win. A Key Account Management Software helps the managers fill in the information with the knowledge they have gained about your Key Accounts. It helps them monitor, control and manage their Key Accounts centrally. It is a reservoir of all that is important to their customer – his goals, objectives, current plans, actions, future plans, concerns, risks, updates, the strategy, the impact, the failures, the measures are taken to correct if necessary – everything is held together in a central place by the specialized system for the Key Accounts. This bank provides a single-window knowledge to an organization’s Key Accounts and provides deeper insights into the customer relationship. It helps the manager be on the same page with his customers about the actions being taken and their impact and future plans being made jointly by both. With the right system for KAM technology, the Key Account Manager becomes a trusted partner to his Key Accounts. They can see that he is more than a vendor to them. They know that he provides value for every step planned, every action taken. The system also provides transparency and clear accountability for both, so that everything happens in time and there are better chances of success when both partners are in it together. This system with its knowledge and information bank about all stakeholders and influencers at the customer level ensures that he is not left high and dry when his first contact leaves his job. This system takes care of people’s movement which is a natural phenomenon in an enterprise setting. It accounts for the fact that a relationship is between two organizations, and people may come and go, but the trust factor and knowledge built painstakingly over a period, is taken good care of. Key Account management allows the Key Account Managers to take on the challenges of his role while achieving success with his key relationships for the long term. If you found this blog insightful, you can also read our blog on Account Management or Explore the complete guide to Cross-selling and Up-selling to identify unexplored opportunities for your business as well as your clients’ business and grow better in 2021.