Account Management | A Sales Guy

Account Governance — Strategy

This is part 6 of an 8 part series on Account Governance

What I like most about strategy and account management is, it’s like a window into how the goals are going to be accomplished. Earlier I talked about the account plan. In the account plan there is a goal section. The goals are the things to be accomplish with in the account. The strategies are the approach to making those goals a reality.

The best strategies take into consideration the unique elements of the account. This is where the analysis phase of the account plan becomes so important. By focusing on exactly what is going on in the account, where the account is going, who the key influencers are, what the market is doing, what is happening with the competition, etc. the strategy will be successful.

I’ve found, based on the account assessment, there is almost always more than one strategy. Most good account governance plans have multiple strategies for each of their goals. Another way to look at it is if you have 4 goals, you would probably have at least 8 strategies, 2 for each goal. In some cases you may have 3 strategies for each goal. This is the template I’ve used with my teams, again feel free to use it. This would be one strategy for one goal. You would use an additional one for a different strategy for the same goal.

Strategies are absolutely critical to success. To create good ones, a strong, robust, thorough assessment has to have been done. Strategies rely solely on information. Imagine trying to create a strategy to capture Osama Bin Ladin with out knowing what he looks like, where Pakistan and Afganistan are, who the leaders of those governments are, what the geography is, etc. Strategies are only as good as the information that made them. A good account strategy needs a good account assessment.

Account assessment is the greatest weakness in sales. Sales people aren’t known for assessing environments up front. They are excellent at reacting. Unfortunately, reacting is what creates pricing wars, and RFP responses. Reacting does little to allow sales to “manage” an account. This being said, the assessment section of the account plan is absolutely critical to creating good account strategies.

To be successful, strategies need execution. To execute on a strategy the initiatives and tactics that will be deployed need to be called out. For instance, if a goal is to increase revenue by 10%, a strategy may be to sell a new product to the account. To sell that product a set of initiatives must be determined. An initiative could be to demonstrate value of XYZ product to accelerate the customers stated strategy of increasing customer satisfaction. Notice this initiative gives life and purpose to the strategy of introducing a new product to increase revenue. Once all the initiatives have been identified, the details need to be ironed out. These details are the specific tactics required to ensure the initiatives happen. Using the example above, a tactic could be to work with product marketing to establish the specific impact XYZ product can have on the accounts customer satisfaction goals. It could be meet with account VP to determine how they measure customer satisfaction etc. The tactics are very specific steps that will be taken to drive the initiatives, that support the strategies, that get you to your goals.

Account strategies are more than a high-level approach that sits on a bookshelf somewhere. Good account strategies are born out of the account plan. They leverage the well researched account and organizational assessment. They have specific initiatives and tactics to ensure they are achieved.

Successful account governance wins or loses on the ability to execute against an account strategy. Keep them linked, be specific and attach them to the Approach section of the account plan and they will be achieved.

June 2, 2010 | Filed under: Sales Process,The Chase | View Comments |

Account Governance — Part 1

I’m going to do a series this week. It will be my first. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve chosen to do it on account governance, the underlying process to account management. I haven’t blogged much on account management. It’s a prominent part of the selling world, that I think doesn’t get enough airtime. So this week this blog will be dedicated to account management.

Not everyone has a territory with 100′s of potential customers. Not everyone makes cold calls. Some sales people have only 1, 2, or just 3 accounts in which they have to make their living. These sales people, traditionally known as farmers make their living off of the same account year after year. They need to understand the politics. They need to understand the personalities, the buyers and the detractors. They need to work with their customer, with joint goals, commitments and efforts. They need a comprehensive process to make it happen. Managing a single account is very different than prospecting a territory, and hunting for new business.

In my opinion, the only way to effectively manage an account is through a robust governance plan.

Each day this week I will address a specific component of the governance plan. I will also share some of the documents, and processes I use in my organizations to execute on our account governance.

In the simplest terms, account governance is the holistic approach to managing an account in order to maximize the relationship, revenue, and the customers business objectives.

Account governance consists of;

-The account vision, the long-term view outlying where you want to take the account and why
-The relationships and how you manage them
-The account plans, detailed steps and strategies outlining how you will execute on the account
-The cadence, the regularly structured meetings and events used to track efforts
-Account strategy, the angle and approach you are taking to drive success
-Reporting, creating the metrics necessary to track progress
-Selling tools, the underlying tools you use to more efficiently sell

The most critical component of account governance is the ability to integrate all of the components seamlessly.

Tomorrow, I will start with the Account Vision. Everything comes out of that. Like anything else. If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll never get there.

I hope you enjoy. If you have anything to add or have thoughts you’d like to share, jump in on the comments. My hope is this series sparks some good conversation and we all learn a little more about account management.

It should be fun.

May 24, 2010 | Filed under: Sales Process,The Chase | View Comments |

Are You Out of Wack?

Traditionally, sales people struggle with accurately understanding where they are in a sales cycle. How many times have we heard, the deal is closing in X days or weeks and it doesn’t? There are tons of reasons why this happens, everything from overly optimistic sales folks, poor account management skills or customers who never had an intention to buy, but just strung the account team along. However, one of the main reasons for this is the actual sales cycle itself is NOT in alignment with the actual selling effort.

The traditional sale cycle is not linear, yet most organizations use a linear sale process to track sales. Using a sales process consisting of gates, they assume a linear progression of effort and time from left to right or “prospect” to “close”, using gates to mark progress.

Linear Sales Cycle

The problem with a linear approach is it does not account for effort and the involvement of the customer. A real life sales cycle or process requires customer involvement and “yes’s.” All sales cycles entail a serious of “yes’s” from the prospect or clients. These yes’s represent agreement of the customer to participate in the sales cycle with you and that you have met their needs to date. It’s like a myriad of sales within in the sale. Every phase, from contact to close, in the sales cycle entails yes’s. In the prospect phase, it may be a yes to meet or to share critical information. In the opportunity phase it may be a yes to a proof of concept or access to the decision criteria and decision makers. No matter what stage one is in the sales cycle and how much effort the sales person puts in, with out the yes, a sale can not progress.

Sales cycles therefore need to measure the level of effort with the ability to gain client yes’s, as each yes moves the sale closer to close.

As illustrated above, the effort of a sales person does little to get them closer to the sale, without the yes of the prospect. Understanding this, it is critical for sales people to manage their effort to be in alignment with the return of a customers yes. A sale person or sales team can spend a lot of effort “climbing the pole” but are doing little to get closer to the sales. Sales teams need to balance effort with the return on the yes they are looking for. A week long, all hands on deck effort to gain a yes that only moves you slightly closer to the deal closing is not a good investment. Break down the efforts, be clear in how the efforts will drive you closer to the sale and deliver an appropriate return on sales effort (ROSE).

The Customer or prospect plays a huge role in this analysis. Not only are they the keepers of the yes, a sale can not be made if they are not working with you as well. Yes, our prospects and customers are part of the sales cycle and have to put some skin in the game. Unfortunately, many good sales people don’t recognize this and thus create an imbalanced sales cycle. Unbalanced sales cycles are destined to failure; the prospect has no commitment or skin in the game.

Far too often sales people and their teams, “cater” to their prospects or customers, seeing their job as caretakers responding to the needs of their clients. This is a death trap. You can’t confuse customer service with selling. The customer/prospect has the vision, the information, and knowledge that is critical to the sale being successful. Imagine being a car salesman and having a customer who won’t take a test drive. Or a retail clerk, who has someone who won’t try on the clothes. Probability of sale is a lot lower and therefore the clerk and car salesman need to be very careful how much time they invest in these customers. The amount of effort customers/prospects put into your sales cycle is a critical indicator of their commitment to buy. There is a certain level of work both the sales person and the prospect must perform together for any sales cycle to be efficient and successful. I call it “The Dance”. The Dance is an intimate collaboration of effort, and commitment targeted toward maximizing value. Learning how to execute a Balanced Sale Cycle will drastically increase the ability of the deal to close. Why? The customer is as committed and bought in as you.

Requests of your prospects or customers are critical to creating a balanced sales cycle. Asking your prospect or customer for things you need to be successful will help you assess their commitment to buying. Asking your prospect or customer to give you critical information, or access to important people, or to escalate an issue etc. is not only OK, but a must. Getting prospects and customers to work and put in the effort is the key to a good balanced sales cycle.

What do you expect from your customers? Do you make requests from them? Do you expect them to work as hard as you? Do you see their involvement in the process as important if not more than yours? If you do you will find making your numbers a lot easier.

Don’t be out of wack!

March 18, 2009 | Filed under: The Chase | View Comments |