Part three in this series on account management is about knowing your customer, changing your sales process to suit them, and creating new sales opportunities virtually out of thin air…
When you are developing an account plan — it’s all about knowledge.
Knowing your customer’s mind comes from understanding it.
Before you even start planning, you need to know a lot of things about your customer.
These include: Goals, markets, industry trends, competitors, relative market position, financial performance, merger and acquisitions activity, and the hierarchical structure of the account.
Today, the role of the professional account manager — indeed that of the entire account team — is to create value, not just communicate it.
You need to understand what the customer values before you know how to position your value.
Organisations are usually comfortable articulating the value for their own products or services.
And this is where the homework comes in, because you can’t find the areas of mutual value until you know what is valuable to your customer.
‘Segment’ Your Account
Account segmentation is the process of identifying all the discrete divisions or units within a target account, where you might find a fit for one of the solutions you offer.
Again, this is about understanding your customer’s business as though it were your own.
A good place to start is Business Units and Service Units. Business Units manage the primary customer-facing activity of the company.
Service Units work internally to serve the Business, and they are typically areas like IT or purchasing, engineering, HR and so on.
There is a tendency for account managers to focus their attention on service units as the easy to spot budget holders, at the expense of bigger opportunities lurking in the business units.
When you’ve figured out the Units, it’s time to determine where your products and services can best work for them.
A professional approach to Account Management walks you through the steps of identifying the mutual priorities.
Remember, these are where the potential ‘long-tail’ (repeat business) opportunities are.
Figure 2: Segment your accounts for focus
This is a very important stage in account management because the decisions that you make here build the foundation of your account plan.
‘Create’ New Opportunities From Existing Clients
You should look to create new opportunities within your accounts.
By now you know how important it is to understand your customer in order for you to do this.
Account management is a partnership with your customer.
Think of it in three broad areas: First, the level of relationship you enjoy with them; second, their business drivers, business initiatives and how they measure success; third, the mutual value of potential opportunities.
The highest form of relationship is called the Trusted Advisor where you form a true partnership with your customers for very significant value.
That’s what account management is all about.
Operating as a trusted advisor can be expensive. If your customer is not willing to invest with you then you’re wasting resources.
You need to understand what the customer values and how or if, based on your resources, you can deliver that value profitably.
If you’ve ever been unable to answer the question ‘what business project of my customer’s does my product support?’, then you’ll know you haven’t figured out the elements that are central to understanding your customer’s business.
Figure 3: Create new opportunities and list current opportunities
After determining the kind of relationship, you should have, you also need to think about the client’s business drivers and associated critical success factors.
Then you’re able to categorise the kinds of opportunities you have, and develop new ones.
‘Select’ Your Strategy
Strategy selection is built on the work you will have done so far, and you need to regroup and look at all business; installed, current and potential.
By giving your installed base opportunities and current opportunities consideration, you can decide which ones are worth taking their place alongside the potential opportunities in your view of the account.
This picture will enable you to determine your entire account level objectives and devise your strategies to maximise the return from the Account.
You must consider the resource implications, the risks and the costs of your selected strategies — and equally look at the balance of your account plan.
Every business has its own perfect balance between existing account work and attracting fresh business. What works for your competition might not work for you.
Think about the correct combination of business and service units.
Think about whether there really is mutual value there.
And think about revenues in the short-term versus the long term.