Consistent b-to-b account growth is often hindered by organizations creating barriers to cross-selling and up-selling. This white paper outlines the 3 critical components of Strategic Account Management (S.A.M.) Plans that high performing b-to-b organizations use to eliminate those barriers and excel at organic account growth.
Is your company having trouble driving more revenue from current clients?
Are you losing your current clients to competitors?
Watch this presentation to learn how to build B2B strategic account teams to generate 3X more revenue and profit than originally believed, within a short period of time.
In this SlideShare, Richardson discusses how decreasing customer loyalty, higher expectations, and constant competitive threats are making forecasted business from your best customers anything but a certainty. Richardson analyzes how to Driving Key Account Growth by Planning and Execution to Access the White Space.
Is your company having trouble driving more revenue from current clients?
Are you losing your current clients to competitors?
Watch this presentation to learn how to build B2B strategic account teams to generate 3X more revenue and profit than originally believed, within a short period of time.
In this SlideShare, Richardson discusses how decreasing customer loyalty, higher expectations, and constant competitive threats are making forecasted business from your best customers anything but a certainty. Richardson analyzes how to Driving Key Account Growth by Planning and Execution to Access the White Space.
Sales/Marketing Strategy for the Startups Praveen K
A complte sales strategy and sales management for the Startups helps in building a good organisation.
Please contact for more info at : PRAVEEN22Y@GMAIL.COM
Managing and developing your accounts is the key to sustainable business. As such, sales people and account managers need to be able to create strategic business relationships with their clients in order for the clients to remain loyal to them and the company. Sadly, most sales people and account managers treat their relationship with their clients as transactional instead of strategic.
In this short “Nine-Grid Key Account Management” training course, we will focus on creating strategic business relationships with clients by understanding how to manage their time and activities to better serve their key accounts.
By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:
1. Select and rank their key accounts
2. Create strategies to handling the different levels of key accounts
3. Manage time and activities for each type of key account
Key or strategic accounts are your most important clients. Not only are they your most important clients; they are also the ones that are at most risk of being wooed by your competition. For most companies, reducing prices to compete has become a staple sales strategy. However, this strategy seriously threatens the survival of the organization. This is why managing and developing key accounts is an essential skill to have, if we want to stay ahead of the competition!
We have to realize that, in today’s market place, price alone does not determine sales or profitability. It is essential for you to be able to differentiate yourself and your products and services in order to survive it this cut-throat environment. If you can’t compel, you won’t sell. If you can’t maintain your influence over your key clients, you may as well kiss them goodbye.
Our Knowledge Asia’s “Dynamic Key Accounts Management” training course will help you develop strategic account management techniques that ensure not only the protection of your existing clients from competitive attack, but, more significantly, build long and sustainable relationships resulting in excellent customer retention, improved sales, increasing margins and ongoing customer loyalty
The Strategic Account Plan is designed to help the account management team effectively prepare and stay focused on the customer’s business objectives and goals to ensure they achieve the planned results, create a consistent experience for the customer, and ultimately identify how they can make a positive impact on the customer’s business.
business development sales plan is an overview of the coaching program for how to generate leads and sales of your products, services and solutions
More info available at http://www.fraserhay.co.uk
sales plan
business development plan
sales strategy
sales pipeline
sales training
sales coaching
business development
pipeline selling
social networking
social selling
online selling
sales management
sales planning
business development strategy
business development checklist
sales training checklist
Are you dependent on the Rigid frameworks or on the Heroes in your Organisation to institutionalise KAM process?
1
Key Account Planning & Management needs strategic planning and thinking.
2
DemandFarm brings best flexible and configurable frameworks and make this process easy
3
Get introduced to a framework which is best of both Automated tools and Human intelligence
2019 may feel far away, but now is the perfect time to start planning for it. Join Joe Gelata, VP of Business Operations at Axonify, as he discusses strategies for:
- Capacity planning
- Building predictive funnel models
- Target setting
- Territory development
- Rep compensation
Whether you do these yourself or work with Sales Ops, it’s important to understand each in order to setup your team for success next year. Joe will discuss high-level strategy and tactical execution of each component including how it can be done, things to consider, pitfalls to avoid, and how to align with the rest of your organization.
Download the Sales Strategy Template
fourquadrant.com/product/strategic-account-plan-template/
Sales Strategy Template - The outline for s sales strategy plan should include an assessment of the customer’s business, opportunities that are prioritized, a summary of the team’s capabilities, an evaluation of relationships and a sales action plan.
Strategic Market Planning - Assessing a customer’s business is a fundamental element of strategic market planning. Start with a basic SWOT and then drill down to develop value statements that specific to specific business initiatives.
Sales Strategy Plan - The sales strategy plan should be centered around the opportunity area that provides high value to both the account and the vendor. Other opportunities may exist but win / win’s are the best possible outcome.
Marketing & Sales Strategy - Document the sales strategies and capabilities required to penetrate and or expand into the account.
Sales Tactics - The identification of key customer contacts required to advance the strategic and tactical aspects of the sales are key sales tactics. Formalize the collection of this information for the entire account team to leverage.
Market Development Strategy - The market development strategy must document the tangible, objective, quantitative measures of success. These sales metrics are typically expressed as subscription, bookings or revenue.
Download the Sales Strategy Template
fourquadrant.com/product/strategic-account-plan-template/
A comprehensive account planning and strategy template. Strategy development and execution are critical to a successful selling environment. This template is an easy to follow yet powerful tool to increase sales success.
Employee Engagement Data - A Crystal Ball for Strategic PlanningEngagement Multiplier
When it comes to strategic planning, where you’re starting from comprises more than just your numbers. What are your team’s perceptions? How aligned are they with your goals? Do they know how their roles contribute? What concerns do they see?
If you rely solely on KPIs for your starting point, you won’t have plotted your position accurately. You won’t know where you really are because you don’t know how your team feels, how aligned they are with purpose and strategy, what opportunities they see or how engaged they are.
In reality, the team is the deciding factor. It is mad to not consult them and understand what they’re feeling great about and what concerns them in this moment.
Sales/Marketing Strategy for the Startups Praveen K
A complte sales strategy and sales management for the Startups helps in building a good organisation.
Please contact for more info at : PRAVEEN22Y@GMAIL.COM
Managing and developing your accounts is the key to sustainable business. As such, sales people and account managers need to be able to create strategic business relationships with their clients in order for the clients to remain loyal to them and the company. Sadly, most sales people and account managers treat their relationship with their clients as transactional instead of strategic.
In this short “Nine-Grid Key Account Management” training course, we will focus on creating strategic business relationships with clients by understanding how to manage their time and activities to better serve their key accounts.
By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:
1. Select and rank their key accounts
2. Create strategies to handling the different levels of key accounts
3. Manage time and activities for each type of key account
Key or strategic accounts are your most important clients. Not only are they your most important clients; they are also the ones that are at most risk of being wooed by your competition. For most companies, reducing prices to compete has become a staple sales strategy. However, this strategy seriously threatens the survival of the organization. This is why managing and developing key accounts is an essential skill to have, if we want to stay ahead of the competition!
We have to realize that, in today’s market place, price alone does not determine sales or profitability. It is essential for you to be able to differentiate yourself and your products and services in order to survive it this cut-throat environment. If you can’t compel, you won’t sell. If you can’t maintain your influence over your key clients, you may as well kiss them goodbye.
Our Knowledge Asia’s “Dynamic Key Accounts Management” training course will help you develop strategic account management techniques that ensure not only the protection of your existing clients from competitive attack, but, more significantly, build long and sustainable relationships resulting in excellent customer retention, improved sales, increasing margins and ongoing customer loyalty
The Strategic Account Plan is designed to help the account management team effectively prepare and stay focused on the customer’s business objectives and goals to ensure they achieve the planned results, create a consistent experience for the customer, and ultimately identify how they can make a positive impact on the customer’s business.
business development sales plan is an overview of the coaching program for how to generate leads and sales of your products, services and solutions
More info available at http://www.fraserhay.co.uk
sales plan
business development plan
sales strategy
sales pipeline
sales training
sales coaching
business development
pipeline selling
social networking
social selling
online selling
sales management
sales planning
business development strategy
business development checklist
sales training checklist
Are you dependent on the Rigid frameworks or on the Heroes in your Organisation to institutionalise KAM process?
1
Key Account Planning & Management needs strategic planning and thinking.
2
DemandFarm brings best flexible and configurable frameworks and make this process easy
3
Get introduced to a framework which is best of both Automated tools and Human intelligence
2019 may feel far away, but now is the perfect time to start planning for it. Join Joe Gelata, VP of Business Operations at Axonify, as he discusses strategies for:
- Capacity planning
- Building predictive funnel models
- Target setting
- Territory development
- Rep compensation
Whether you do these yourself or work with Sales Ops, it’s important to understand each in order to setup your team for success next year. Joe will discuss high-level strategy and tactical execution of each component including how it can be done, things to consider, pitfalls to avoid, and how to align with the rest of your organization.
Download the Sales Strategy Template
fourquadrant.com/product/strategic-account-plan-template/
Sales Strategy Template - The outline for s sales strategy plan should include an assessment of the customer’s business, opportunities that are prioritized, a summary of the team’s capabilities, an evaluation of relationships and a sales action plan.
Strategic Market Planning - Assessing a customer’s business is a fundamental element of strategic market planning. Start with a basic SWOT and then drill down to develop value statements that specific to specific business initiatives.
Sales Strategy Plan - The sales strategy plan should be centered around the opportunity area that provides high value to both the account and the vendor. Other opportunities may exist but win / win’s are the best possible outcome.
Marketing & Sales Strategy - Document the sales strategies and capabilities required to penetrate and or expand into the account.
Sales Tactics - The identification of key customer contacts required to advance the strategic and tactical aspects of the sales are key sales tactics. Formalize the collection of this information for the entire account team to leverage.
Market Development Strategy - The market development strategy must document the tangible, objective, quantitative measures of success. These sales metrics are typically expressed as subscription, bookings or revenue.
Download the Sales Strategy Template
fourquadrant.com/product/strategic-account-plan-template/
A comprehensive account planning and strategy template. Strategy development and execution are critical to a successful selling environment. This template is an easy to follow yet powerful tool to increase sales success.
Employee Engagement Data - A Crystal Ball for Strategic PlanningEngagement Multiplier
When it comes to strategic planning, where you’re starting from comprises more than just your numbers. What are your team’s perceptions? How aligned are they with your goals? Do they know how their roles contribute? What concerns do they see?
If you rely solely on KPIs for your starting point, you won’t have plotted your position accurately. You won’t know where you really are because you don’t know how your team feels, how aligned they are with purpose and strategy, what opportunities they see or how engaged they are.
In reality, the team is the deciding factor. It is mad to not consult them and understand what they’re feeling great about and what concerns them in this moment.
I'm afraid to ask an executive to do a touchy feely management assessmentLeslie S. Pratch
Knowing before or shortly after you invest in a company whether management can do what you need done and can cope with unexpected change is important, especially in volatile industries. It makes sense to have management assessed with a method that informs you of what the managers can do and how best to work with them for all of you to be successful.
Some investors almost always do rigorous and informative management assessments. But others are very skittish about asking leaders of the companies in which they are investing to be assessed. They say they are worried about losing the deal by asking before it's closed or of straining relationships with management afterwards.
Happily, you can get you what you need – enough knowledge long enough in advance to be maximally useful – without risking the deal.
Canny Bites Book 4 - successfully scale up or exit your business - A BLUEPR...The Pathway Group
Canny Bites books by Safaraz Ali
In the 4th Canny Bites book: successfully scale up or exit your business, Safaraz shares with you a blueprint for sytemising, productising and scaling your business and helping you go past that "next level".
We introduce Clarity and Accelerator Programme under the name of "Scaleezee" to successfully scale up or exit your business
What SMBs are Neglecting: Experts Weigh In
The demands on small business owners and management can be overwhelming. There is so much to do and only so many hours in the day. From tracking sales, to marketing, to maintaining client relationships, managing staff, and about a million other tasks — something is almost always being neglected.
To help sort through it all, we’ve reached out to a panel of small business and sales experts and asked them all a single question: “What is one thing that many SMBs are neglecting and shouldn’t be? “
LA HUG - Video Testimonials with Chynna Morgan - June 2024Lital Barkan
Have you ever heard that user-generated content or video testimonials can take your brand to the next level? We will explore how you can effectively use video testimonials to leverage and boost your sales, content strategy, and increase your CRM data.🤯
We will dig deeper into:
1. How to capture video testimonials that convert from your audience 🎥
2. How to leverage your testimonials to boost your sales 💲
3. How you can capture more CRM data to understand your audience better through video testimonials. 📊
Putting the SPARK into Virtual Training.pptxCynthia Clay
This 60-minute webinar, sponsored by Adobe, was delivered for the Training Mag Network. It explored the five elements of SPARK: Storytelling, Purpose, Action, Relationships, and Kudos. Knowing how to tell a well-structured story is key to building long-term memory. Stating a clear purpose that doesn't take away from the discovery learning process is critical. Ensuring that people move from theory to practical application is imperative. Creating strong social learning is the key to commitment and engagement. Validating and affirming participants' comments is the way to create a positive learning environment.
Discover the innovative and creative projects that highlight my journey throu...dylandmeas
Discover the innovative and creative projects that highlight my journey through Full Sail University. Below, you’ll find a collection of my work showcasing my skills and expertise in digital marketing, event planning, and media production.
Kseniya Leshchenko: Shared development support service model as the way to ma...Lviv Startup Club
Kseniya Leshchenko: Shared development support service model as the way to make small projects with small budgets profitable for the company (UA)
Kyiv PMDay 2024 Summer
Website – www.pmday.org
Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/startuplviv
FB – https://www.facebook.com/pmdayconference
Implicitly or explicitly all competing businesses employ a strategy to select a mix
of marketing resources. Formulating such competitive strategies fundamentally
involves recognizing relationships between elements of the marketing mix (e.g.,
price and product quality), as well as assessing competitive and market conditions
(i.e., industry structure in the language of economics).
Tata Group Dials Taiwan for Its Chipmaking Ambition in Gujarat’s DholeraAvirahi City Dholera
The Tata Group, a titan of Indian industry, is making waves with its advanced talks with Taiwanese chipmakers Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) and UMC Group. The goal? Establishing a cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication unit (fab) in Dholera, Gujarat. This isn’t just any project; it’s a potential game changer for India’s chipmaking aspirations and a boon for investors seeking promising residential projects in dholera sir.
Visit : https://www.avirahi.com/blog/tata-group-dials-taiwan-for-its-chipmaking-ambition-in-gujarats-dholera/
Enterprise Excellence is Inclusive Excellence.pdfKaiNexus
Enterprise excellence and inclusive excellence are closely linked, and real-world challenges have shown that both are essential to the success of any organization. To achieve enterprise excellence, organizations must focus on improving their operations and processes while creating an inclusive environment that engages everyone. In this interactive session, the facilitator will highlight commonly established business practices and how they limit our ability to engage everyone every day. More importantly, though, participants will likely gain increased awareness of what we can do differently to maximize enterprise excellence through deliberate inclusion.
What is Enterprise Excellence?
Enterprise Excellence is a holistic approach that's aimed at achieving world-class performance across all aspects of the organization.
What might I learn?
A way to engage all in creating Inclusive Excellence. Lessons from the US military and their parallels to the story of Harry Potter. How belt systems and CI teams can destroy inclusive practices. How leadership language invites people to the party. There are three things leaders can do to engage everyone every day: maximizing psychological safety to create environments where folks learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo.
Who might benefit? Anyone and everyone leading folks from the shop floor to top floor.
Dr. William Harvey is a seasoned Operations Leader with extensive experience in chemical processing, manufacturing, and operations management. At Michelman, he currently oversees multiple sites, leading teams in strategic planning and coaching/practicing continuous improvement. William is set to start his eighth year of teaching at the University of Cincinnati where he teaches marketing, finance, and management. William holds various certifications in change management, quality, leadership, operational excellence, team building, and DiSC, among others.
RMD24 | Debunking the non-endemic revenue myth Marvin Vacquier Droop | First ...BBPMedia1
Marvin neemt je in deze presentatie mee in de voordelen van non-endemic advertising op retail media netwerken. Hij brengt ook de uitdagingen in beeld die de markt op dit moment heeft op het gebied van retail media voor niet-leveranciers.
Retail media wordt gezien als het nieuwe advertising-medium en ook mediabureaus richten massaal retail media-afdelingen op. Merken die niet in de betreffende winkel liggen staan ook nog niet in de rij om op de retail media netwerken te adverteren. Marvin belicht de uitdagingen die er zijn om echt aansluiting te vinden op die markt van non-endemic advertising.
Personal Brand Statement:
As an Army veteran dedicated to lifelong learning, I bring a disciplined, strategic mindset to my pursuits. I am constantly expanding my knowledge to innovate and lead effectively. My journey is driven by a commitment to excellence, and to make a meaningful impact in the world.
1. 1
Companies should be selling
more to their existing customers.
Yet, year after year, too many don’t, resulting in increased
burden and expense to acquire new clients.
Consistent, predictable account growth is usually hindered by
organizations inadvertently creating barriers to cross-selling and up-
selling, such as:
Compensation is not aligned for people to focus on growing
their accounts
Lack of time or resources are available to the account
manager to grow the account
Account growth potential is not properly identified so
accounts are improperly assigned to the wrong people
Too many accounts spread account leaders too thin
Lack of account planning frameworks and templates
Pressure to focus on short-term results vs. long-term growth
Account leads don’t know enough about the other offerings
of the organization to know how they would be valuable to
their client
Account leads don’t trust other areas of their organization, or
are territorial about their pieces of business
Management doesn’t bring the right people together to
explore ways they can add more value to clients
Existing personnel don’t have the skills to fully explore the
value they can offer to clients internally
Conversely, high performing organizations excel at organic growth
(i.e. generating incremental revenue by selling additional products or
Strategic Account Management (S.A.M.) Plans
services beyond the initial client engagement). They do so by doing
at least two things better than their mediocre peers:
1. THEY UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLE
OF VALUE CREATION
They know the more clients value you, and what you bring to the
table, the more they’ll buy from you by allowing you to expand the
relationship. Value is defined as the monetary worth of something;
that is, whether and how much someone will pay for something.
Value creation hinges on honestly answering these questions:
Why does the client buy from you now?
Why are they willing to pay what they pay?
What else would they be willing to buy from you, and
at what price?
2. THEY EMPLOY EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT (S.A.M.) PLANS
Designed to assess additional value firms can bring to their accounts.
S.A.M. Plans allow for internal and external collaboration with specific
personnel to co-create value in innovative ways. All good S.A.M.
Plans analyze, strategize, and communicate additional areas of
value a company can offer their accounts and include the following
three components:
i. Relationship Evaluation
ii. Right Players Fulfilling Distinct Roles
iii. Regularly Scheduled Planning Meetings
S.A.M. Plans ensure your firms’ offerings resonate with your clients
and the current reality they’re dealing with. They help you more
effectively demonstrate how your client’s pain points can go away,
or how your solutions provide an attractive enough upside, that
they’ll be open minded enough to consider your solutions. And
when it comes time to share incremental offerings, S.A.M. Plans help
2. 2 Strategic Account Management (S.A.M.) Plan
you differentiate and make it easier for you to stand out from the
other available substitutes. And finally, when you’re ready to close a
deal, S.A.M. Plans inform how you can mitigate the client’s risks by
helping them believe that you can deliver on your promises. You’ll be
better able to substantiate via process-framed case studies, pricing
models, and/or warranties.
...What Buyers Say
Weak
Resonance
Difficult to
Substitute
Able to
Substantiate ➟ “I don’t need it.”
Strong
Resonance
Easy to
Substitute
Able to
Substantiate ➟ “What’s your best
price?”
Strong
Resonance
Difficult to
Substitute
Not Able to
Substantiate ➟ “I can risk it.”
I. Relationship Evaluation
Ask most salespersons or account managers about the
strength of their core client relationships and they’ll say,
“Great. Rock solid. Very deep.”
However, too often they are commenting on how much rapport or
trust they feel they have with the client instead of through the lens of
business value the client receives.
More enlightened questions include:
“ Can your team call top management and get
through easily?”
“ If your relationship with the account ended, how
difficult would the majority of people there perceive it
to be to replace you?”
“ Would the account themselves describe their
relationship with you as trivial, worthwhile, important,
or essential?”
The companies that grow accounts are analytical about relationship
analysis and specific about their relationship growth strategies. They
view relationships less on how much they like each other and more
on the business value of the relationship as the client perceives it.
Specifically, they map out three areas:
1) 3x3 Relationship Mapping
Client’s Boss
Client Peer Client Client Peer
Client
Subordinate
2) Personality Profiling
7 Persona types, each requiring different sales approaches:
Decisive Danielle – Code name “Driver”
Decisive Danielle is directive. She solves problems
in a decisive, active, and assertive manner. She’s
proactive, results driven, and wants to win. If you’re
dealing with Danielle, she might seem pushy and
overbearing, and may lack tact. She’s probably
pretty demanding and wants things to happen her way and in
her time‑frame.
Collaborative Claire – Code name “Consensus”
Collaborative Claire is the yin to Decisive Danielle’s
yang. Collaborative Claire likes to solve problems
with other people. She’s deliberative, tactful,
diplomatic, and adaptable. In a world where people
can be pretty blunt, it’s likely you’ll find her to be
respectful of you and everyone else.
Relationship Renee – Code name “Friend”
Relationship Renee is interactive. Social interaction
and engagement are important to her. She’s
enthusiastic, a creative problem solver, a team player,
and (of course) a relationship-builder. She likes the
big picture, and she’s not shy about taking up a lot of air
time in discussions. A question or two will really get her going.
Skeptical Steve – Code name “Guardian”
Skeptical Steve is the yin to Relationship Renee’s
yang. Steve is introspective. He’s a reserved critical
thinker. Skeptical Steve won’t embellish and doesn’t
want you to do so either. It takes a while for Steve to
develop trust with people, which can be great for you if
you put in the time and effort. (By the way, Steve doesn’t mind being
called a skeptic. He’s proud of the realism he brings to the table.)
Analytical Al – Code name “Spreadsheet”
Past success is an indicator of future success. The
way it’s been done, established methods, and data
are important to Analytical Al. This doesn’t mean he
won’t lead the pack and do something new, it just
takes a lot of processing for Al to take a leap of faith. Al’s
cautious. He follows rules, procedures, and established standards.
He’s a comprehensive problem solver because he examines from all
the different angles.
Innovator Irene – Code name “Maverick”
Innovator Irene is the yin to Analytical Al’s yang. When
it comes to rules, procedures, and how things were
done before, Irene couldn’t care less. While Al might
say, “Past success is an indicator of future success.”
Irene would say, “What got us here won’t get us there.”
Innovator Irene develops ideas and strategies independent of rules.
She’s informal and solves problems creatively. Boundaries are for
testing, pushing, and crossing…that’s what Irene says. (Anyone who
has a 3 year old has met this side of Irene.)
3. 3Strategic Account Management (S.A.M.) Plan
3) Relationship Strength Matrix
RELATIONSHIP
STRENGTH
PARTNERSHIP
PERCEPTION OF
VALUE
RELATIONSHIP
LOSS EFFECT
REACTION TO
REPLACEMENT
COMPETITIVE
BIDDING
REPLACE US BY
THEMSELVES
5 - Essential
“Trusted Partner”
Proactive strategic
co-development
(partnership with
power)
Breakthrough
Catastrophic
difficulties
Fights
Rare or “through
the motions”
bidding,
typically shape
procurement
No
4 - Important
“Strategic
Suppliers”
Proactive input
(access to power)
Major Major challenges Resists
Sometimes sole
source, sometimes
“shape” bidding
process
Unlikely
3 - Worthwhile
“Preferred
Supplier”
Reactive input
(some access to
power)
Some Some challenges May resist
Typical -
sometimes
preferred with
early knowledge
May listen to
overtures
2 - Trivial
“Supplier”
None
(trivial executive
access)
Trivial to none No challenges Unlikely to resist
Typical - rarely
have early
knowledge
Likely
1 - No Relationship N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
0 - Peer / Negative
Avoidance of
interaction
Negative
Benefits outweigh
challenges
Positive
Avoidance of
including you
Yes
II. Right Players Playing the
Right Position
Often account leaders are what we call Relationship
Leads. They’re historically experts in a particular area
of products or services the company offers. They often
sell a lot of—and do a great job with— the area that they
have historically sold. Their relationships with at least a
few stakeholders at accounts are solid. However, they
frequently don’t:
Drive the account-growth process— they’re commonly happy
with the business they have (even if they wouldn’t say it)
See the opportunities where their company can offer value
outside of their personal area of expertise and comfort zone
Do a good job building account plans
Stay on top of implementation (if they do happen to build an
account plan)—they don’t act on action plans consistently,
don’t find new buying centers, create new opportunities, and
if they do, they don’t win them often enough
The key is to not try to find one person who can do everything well,
but rather to make sure everything that needs to get done gets done
well by assigning an appropriate team.
There are six distinct strategic account management roles that must
be played to maximize account success. These are:
Relationship Lead
Entrepreneur
Innovator
Technical Expert
Project Manager
Skeptic
4. 4 Strategic Account Management (S.A.M.) Plan
of below-average performers
struggle with cooperation and
collaboration among various
groups at their companies.
36%
(People may play several roles; rarely is any one role “dedicated”.
Also, people can play these roles for multiple accounts. The key is
to foster a culture of collaboration).
RELATIONSHIP LEAD
This role is the embedded player on the account who creates and
strengthens relationships. This person defends against competitor
inroads by staying abreast of how the client’s business is performing
and how your firm is delivering on your promises. When a good
Relationship Lead is missing, you don’t penetrate accounts deeply,
and repeat business suffers.
ENTREPRENEUR
Entrepreneur leads the charge for maximizing business inside the
account. Entrepreneurs are itching for growth. Many companies think
their Relationship Leads can be molded into Entrepreneurs but that
rarely works. Good entrepreneurs are more focused on what’s
possible than who or how something can be sold.
INNOVATOR
This is the visionary who understand the marketplace and creates
new capabilities. Innovators are internal evangelists for the
breakthrough change your company can create for clients. The
higher up you go within a client’s executive-level, the more this kind
of vision and energy is appreciated. Otherwise, clients lose interest
and you end up working a level, or two, or six lower in
their organizations.
Three Optional (or Outsourced) Roles:
TECHNICAL EXPERT
Technical Expert is the specialist / analyst / technician who has
relevant depth of knowledge in specific areas and the ability to solve
problems and facilitate discussions in technical areas.
When the Technical Expert is missing, your possibilities are limited
and ideas get shot down when “it can’t be done” trumps “we can
figure it out.”
PROJECT MANAGER
The Project Manager is the organizer of the process that helps the
Relationship Lead optimize the revenue possible from the account.
Good Project Manager gets necessary resources in place, formulate
an actionable, appropriately thorough account plan, and Tracks
actions and outcomes When the Project Manager is missing,
deliverables may not consistently be run on time or on budget.
SKEPTIC
Skeptic is the foil, the reality checker, and the devil’s advocate for all
the big ideas your team develops to maximize your account success.
Skeptic makes sure assumptions are questioned, strategies and
plans are tested and vetted (and thus strengthened), and only the
most promising opportunities move forward. When the Skeptic is
missing, you move plans forward before weeding out the bad ideas.
Of the six, Skeptics are most commonly outsources.
III. Regularly Scheduled
Planning Meetings
Companies that don’t have regularly scheduled S.A.M.
Plan meetings are clearly not committed to employing
a systematic approach to account growth success.
Particularly organizations just beginning will require
significant time to learn new behaviours and unlearn
some bad habits. Change isn’t easy, and only time and
committed effort will make the difference.
Effective S.A.M. Plan meetings
focus on:
Outputs: Outcomes of each stage
Actions: Core set of activities designed to produce
those outputs
Concepts: Methods and conceptual models that the SAM
team must understand to execute each stage
Rising to the Occasion: Understanding what high performers
do that sets them apart from the rest
Each meeting Agenda should include the following talking points:
What is the annual revenue target and how are we trending?
What is the overall measure of our relationship with this
account? What does it need to be?
What do we need to do to get to a stronger relationship level?
What are our overall strengths with this account?
What vulnerabilities exist with our current relationship with
this account?
Across all buying centers in this account, where can they
benefit from our existing offerings?
What will surprise and delight this account?
How are we unseating competitors, or preventing
their inroads?
Who’s responsible for executing these strategies, and when
will key actions be completed?
5. 5
There’s no question that high performers in strategic account
management achieve higher revenue growth, profit, and customer
satisfaction than the rest. The right training, coupled with the right
advisory services, can have a significant effect on your success. At
Cult, we help build and execute strategic account management
initiatives that achieve the greatest possible success. We’ll work with
you to build the processes and skills needed to penetrate, expand,
and protect strategic accounts.
We help clients succeed by:
Build account plans that actually work and result in revenue
growth, deeper partnerships, and overall account success.
Lead value discovery sessions internally for the purpose of
value creation, connection, and co-creation.
View needs from the customer’s perspective to strengthen
and deepen your ability to create value for accounts.
Assess SAM success and determine whether they need to
stay the course, pivot, or otherwise adjust the strategy.
STRATEGY RESEARCH ACTION PLAN EXECUTION REVIEW
OUTPUTS
Strategic accounts
selection
Account goal
possibilities
Opportunity targets
Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs)
Account Plan (start)
Account core team
Account Plan
Account extended
team
Relationships
deepened
Opportunities
- Created
- Expanded
- Captured
Competitors
neutralized
Account Scorecard
Action plan
adjustments
ACTIONS
Charter team
Facilitate Value
Discovery Session -
Internal
Establish success
metrics (KPIs)
Begin Account Plan
Form core account
team
Gather data to inform
strategy
Complete Account
Plan
Tighten plan with “VC
Test”
Launch plan into
action
Value discovery and
co-creation meetings
Alignment activities
and organization
adapting
Core S.A.M. Selling
activities
Results tracking
Short-term action
adjustment
Shift back to strategy
CONCEPTS
Maximizing account
growth
Business strategy
Value proposition
R|D|S
Team building
Process and meeting
facilitation
Systems thinking
Conceptual thinking
Account plan
component specifics
Account research
principles
Internal research
principles
Aggregating &
synthesizing data into
big picture
Action plan creation
process
Resource allocation
Project management
Internal influence
Plan presentation “VC
Test”
Core S.A.M. Selling
concepts
Influence Principles
Conceptual Thinking
Systems Thinking
Facilitation
Success analysis
Action adjustment
Strategy pivots and
reallocations
Communication
RISING
TO THE
OCCASION
Pro-activity
Vision
Urgency
Value
“A” players
Not accepting “I don’t
know”
Research with
accounts
Excitement creation
Influence
Resource
maximization
Value co-creation and
partnership execution
Company change for
accounts
Internal trust
Building enterprise
relationships
Relationship
embedding
Core S.A.M. principles
Not skipping review
Driving continuous
improvement
Driving strategy with
review
Based on validated research from Mike Schultz, John Doerr, and Mary Flaherty,
Benchmark Report on High Performance in Strategic Account Management
(Framingham: RAIN Group, 2012).
6. HEADQUARTERS - 1025 10 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 3E1
Phone: +1.403.228.7949 Email: info@cult.ca