As customer demands and dynamics shift, smart B2B companies are exploring account based engagement (ABE): an integrated approach to marketing, sales, and service that “shifts the [marketing] paradigm from just generating and closing leads to orchestrating opportunities in the complex ecosystem of larger accounts.”
This should sound familiar to key account managers, who have been finding opportunities with larger accounts for years. In fact, we’ve written before about how the early stages of ABE are essentially KAM, with an added layer of integration with the marketing team.
Companies attempting their first ABE implementation run into four major risks:
Treating ABE as a tactic, rather than a strategy.
Scaling too quickly.
Underestimating the organizational complexity of ABE.
Getting insufficient buy-in from the sales and services teams.
So how do you avoid these risks? The answer for companies with a strong KAM function is: Lean on your KAM function. Take advantage of the profound customer knowledge base within your KAM team and on your KAM platform. When you do, you’ll not only sidestep ABE implementation risks, but you’ll also find you’re 90% of the way to a successful pilot program.
Think strategy, not tools.
A common hazard in ABE deployment is treating ABE as a set of tools to amplify your status-quo marketing strategy, when in fact, ABE is an entirely different marketing strategy. One where marketing, sales, service, and every other customer-facing function in the organization sit down together to answer the questions: Who are our customers? What are their pain points and goals? How can we best serve them? And how do these insights translate to marketing strategy, creative content, and multichannel delivery? Your KAM team will be critical here, as they are the primary source of customer knowledge in most organizations.
ABE begins with a deep understanding of customer needs and becomes an integrated approach to marketing that reverberates through every level and facet of the organization. When ABE is done well, day-to-day teams leverage wide open channels straight to the heart of customer organizations to deliver messaging and brand experiences consistent with what the marketing team posts on non personal channels. This cohesion creates a clear message and a strong brand — the building blocks of great marketing.
But again, ABE won’t work unless you treat it like a strategy exercise, vs a series of tools, which means doing what you’d do for any new strategy: Get the right people in the room. Conduct a landscape analysis. Think carefully. And then act boldly.
Don’t scale too quickly.
As an innovative strategy, ABE must be scaled thoughtfully. That means piloting the approach with a handful of key accounts, rather than diving right into an enterprise-level rollout.
Why? Because at the heart of ABE is a personalized approach to customer needs. And while it’s possible, over time, to build out the right people, processes, and technology to scale a personalized approach, it’s nearly impossible to move in the other direction, i.e personalizing a broad-strokes approach on the back end.
Your KAM team will be able to quickly identify strategic accounts, helping you prioritize early opportunities to integrate your marketing and delivery functions. And once you do, they’ll provide a wealth of knowledge to help guide your early efforts.
Don’t underestimate the organizational task at hand.
Anyone who’s ever tried to break down an organizational silo knows: It’s not easy. People are entrenched in the way they’ve always operated, and it’s hard to introduce new skills and concepts.
But in order for ABE to work, every department in the organization has to rally around a customer-centric strategy. Messaging and brand experience has to be consistent in every instance; what you promise on your website has to be true in the lived experience of working with your people.
More than that, every piece of content you deliver — whether it’s straight to clients or on your social media platform or a piece of thought leadership — has to reflect the overall strategy of your organization. You must always be asking how publications and deliverables reflect your value proposition, differentiators, and brand. This means coordinating efforts among cross-functional teams, and at every level of the organization.
Coordination at this magnitude requires people, process, and technology. The right tech platform can unite cross-functional, multilevel teams around a shared process and action plan. KAM platforms are a seamless fit for ABE, as they are already designed to keep customer insights and strategic goals highly visible, while in turn giving leaders the insights they need to keep their teams focused on the customer.
Get buy-in from sales and service teams.
Finally, a mistake companies make with ABE is that they ultimately let it be a marketing-led endeavor, with insufficient participation and buy-in from customer-facing teams. The right emphasis is the opposite: Let customer-facing teams tell you who the customer is and what they need. Then, let the marketing and creative strategies follow.
In avoiding this risk, we come full circle: ABE is a shift in marketing focus. Rather than shouting into the void and hoping new leads hear the message, ABE unearths opportunities with the customers you already have, and by proxy, the networks they maintain. It’s highly personalized and highly coordinated. It takes participation and buy-in from marketing, sales, service, and delivery teams. And it starts with key account management.
Conclusion
ABE is a relatively new term. But KAM is not. Key account management is the core of ABE. It’s the function that understands customers and tailors action plans to meet their needs. When marketing teams lean on their KAM teams to get the ball rolling on ABE, they’ll find they’re already 90% of the way there. And even better, KAM technology platforms are a perfect jumping off point for a company-wide, customer-centric approach to growth.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Screen-Shot-2020-10-01-at-11.27.49-AM.png10661888Alex Raymondhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngAlex Raymond2020-12-21 12:22:172020-12-03 22:10:55Overcoming the 4 Major Risks of Account Based Engagement
Customers are demanding more and more personalization. This is just as true in B2B as it is in B2C. As we’ve said before, no matter how niche your industry, your client is still a consumer in the world. As such, they expect a personalized experience with every brand they touch—including yours.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a means by which many companies are hoping to deliver a more personalized experience. And while it’s a step in the right direction, ABM is not enough: What companies need is Account Based Engagement (ABE). This recent BCG report is a thorough and compelling analysis of ABE, and definitely worth a read.
So what difference does a letter make? Whereas ABM is a marketing effort, led by the marketing team, ABE is a cross-functional strategy that demands alignment between the marketing, sales, and service teams. Because after all, the structures that exist in your organization aren’t mirrored in your customers’ minds—they don’t think to themselves, “I need X from marketing, Y from sales, and Z from service;” rather, they’re looking for partners who can deliver seamless value from start to finish.
Companies who do so create opportunities for organic growth—the most profitable and most resilient form of growth. As BCG says, ABE “shifts the paradigm from just generating and closing leads to orchestrating opportunities in the complex ecosystem of larger accounts.” For anyone experienced in Key Account Management (KAM), this is going to start to sound very familiar—because generating opportunities with existing customers by responding to their specific needs is exactly what KAM is all about.
KAM is a critical component of Account Based Engagement—it’s the post-sale mechanism by which you deliver on the presale promise. And companies with a strong KAM function will find themselves many steps ahead of their competitors when it comes to implementing ABE.
We know it’s a lot of acronyms. Here’s one way to summarize them:
ABM is a marketing activity that delivers personalized messaging and content based on specific customer needs
KAM is how you meet those needs, time and time again, driving retention and creating new opportunities in the process
ABE is the sum of those parts, and more
The BCG article breaks ABE implementation into 2 phases: Strategic and Scaled ABE. In this post, we’ll focus on how KAM—and Kapta—are essentially strategic ABE waiting to happen, and how they can help you in your efforts to become an ABE powerhouse.
Strategic ABE (is Basically KAM)
Strategic Account Based Engagement is essentially the low-hanging fruit for ABE implementation. As BCG writes, “Strategic ABE focuses on the needs of a B2B seller’s largest and most strategic accounts.” This is also what KAM does. In fact, companies can use the same process they use to identify key accounts for KAM to identify strategic accounts for Account Based Engagement—because they are the same accounts.
The main difference between strategic Account Based Engagement and Key Account Management is that ABE integrates the marketing team in a more intentional way; whereas key account managers would otherwise be their own “marketers” within strategic accounts, they now have the full support of their marketing team, and vice versa.
In ABE, the marketing team works closely with the KAM team to craft personalized messages to strategic accounts, helping both teams work towards a unified goal, such as driving revenue or improving retention with existing customers. In turn, the KAM team can deeply inform the marketing team’s efforts with a keen understanding of the customer’s pain points and business strategy.
The marketing team can extrapolate what they learn in this process for scaled ABE—the second piece of the ABE implementation process. Whereas strategic ABE is sales-led and marketing supported; scaled ABE is marketing-led, sales supported. Scaled ABE benefits from the marketing team’s close collaboration with the KAM team—in a sense, it mitigates the all-too common risks inherent to a business model where the marketing team has lost touch with the customer, and the sales and marketing teams have lost touch with each other.
Kapta: Your ABE Platform
BCG notes that, “For most companies, ABE represents a major change in how they deal with their most important accounts.” While true for “most,” this will not be the case for companies with a strong Key Account Management function. In fact, for those companies, ABE is really just an extension of the KAM culture throughout other functions within the organization. Let’s take a look at some specific examples below, following the Know, Act, Measure sequence in our KAM Process.
The BCG paper calls out a specific challenge for companies looking to implement Account Based Engagement: They have to “navigate the complex ecosystems of decision makers and influencers that characterize buying behavior in large organizations.” This requires customer journey research and extensive organization knowledge.
Companies with a strong KAM function will find this an easy barrier to overcome; in fact, Kapta includes a dynamic org chart for every client, designed to help companies visualize the relationships they need to grow and maintain in order to build strong partnerships not only with individual contacts, but also with the organization as a whole. This is just one part of the Know piece of Our KAM Process—knowing your customer also drives marketing strategies and content.
Strategic ABE also leverages the Act piece of the KAM process. BCG points out that marketing, within the strategic ABE framework, must be “tied to account goals and plans.” Again, this is where companies already using Kapta will have a huge advantage. Kapta’s Account Planning framework is designed to identify account goals and create a strategic, sequential account plan; when the KAM team already has these top of mind, the joint planning with the marketing and service teams is off to a productive start.
And finally, ABE relies heavily on the Measure piece of the KAM Process. When the Key Account Management team can generate reports that demonstrate clear value, the marketing team’s work is just that much easier.
In short, if you’re already doing KAM, ABE will be a matter of expansion—integrating with the marketing and service teams more fully to respond to customer needs across the entire journey, including presale.
If you’re yet doing KAM, ABE is an excellent jumping off point, as it will normalize alignment between marketing, sales, and service from the outset. In other words, it will make you a more customer-centric organization—and that sets everyone up for success.
Why Now is the Time
There’s never been a better time to put marketing, sales, and service in a room together to align around existing strategic accounts. After all, existing revenue is more important than ever—and unprecedented times can be great opportunities for change. Leaders across functions can see why the stakes are high, and recognize the need to rally around existing customers. Also, to the extent things have slowed down, they may have also opened up time and space for the joint planning and accountability sessions that make ABE work. Ideally, once growth picks up again, those processes are already established, and your organization will be ready to scale the Account Based Engagement approach.
Conclusion
If you’ve already made the leap to Account Based Engagement, you’ve done something we know is hard to do: You’ve shifted your mindset and your operational approach to one that puts customers first. If you haven’t implemented ABE, but you already practice KAM, the good news is you’re well on your way.
KAM is an essential mechanism in and ABE plan, delivering on unique customer needs to drive retention and organic growth, while also providing actionable customer insights to the marketing and service teams.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-10-at-3.17.00-PM.png534957Alex Raymondhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngAlex Raymond2020-06-15 12:53:292020-06-10 21:22:44Key Account Management and Account Based Engagement: A Seamless Customer Journey
Key Account Management is the art of engaging with high-value customers to promote a long-term, strategic partnership that results in organic growth. Because high-value customers appear across multiple industries, KAM is be useful for many different types of organizations.
For some of our customers, high-value customers are a segment within a broader customer base. However, for some companies using Kapta, every account is high value. And we don’t mean that as a platitude—we mean these companies have a small roster of clients, all of whom are worth half a million dollars in revenue or more, annually.
For these organizations, all Account Management is Key Account Management, and KAM is not an afterthought or an offshoot of sales. Rather, it’s an established pillar of the organization.
One good example is a marketing agency. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the challenges that define KAM at marketing agencies, and how our customers in that industry use Kapta to manage client relationships. Even if you don’t work for a marketing agency, read on: It can be helpful to see KAM in action at an organization where Key Account Management is a thriving, important function at the organization.
Marketing agencies need Kapta because they are:
Service firms, actively working on client deliverables at all times
Cross-functional teams, coordinating large efforts across lots of people and skill sets
Desk-based vs field-based, which demands a proactive approach to client contact
Highly scrutinized, and constantly under pressure to demonstrate value
KAM at Service Firms
Marketing agencies don’t sell a tangible product, but rather, a collection of services. Whether they bill by the hour or in flat fees, they need to be actively working on client deliverables in order to be profitable. It’s the account manager’s job to keep work coming in the door—and that requires deep customer engagement. Account managers at marketing agencies need to:
Know their customer’s big picture goals—as individuals, teams, and as an entire organization
Act strategically and effectively to help them meet those goals
Measure impact periodically to demonstrate value and fine-tune the approach
In other words, they need to follow some version of Our KAM Process in their everyday work. Kapta is built to support this process. With Kapta, marketing agencies stay connected to their clients’ goals and challenges, so they can proactively suggest solutions. (These solutions become client deliverables, which become revenue.) Kapta helps marketing agencies develop complex Action Plans designed to drive big picture growth for clients—and everything in the action plan promotes revenue. Finally, Kapta helps measure the success of individual deliverables as well as the overall partnership, which helps demonstrate value to clients—and keep the work coming. (More on that later.)
Cross-Functional Teams
Another defining feature of marketing agencies is that they need cross-functional teams to work on each piece of business. There’s the account manager or client services lead, who’s in charge of managing the client relationship. Often, there’s a brand strategist who might review competitive threats, industry trends, and client goals, constantly cross-referencing to make sure the marketing strategy is sound. (This could also fall under the account manager’s job description if the agency isn’t big enough to support a brand strategist role.) There are creative teams—art, copy, UX designers, web developers—who translate the marketing strategy into branding, messaging, and other creative assets. There are quality control and production specialists. And there are project managers keeping everyone organized, on time, and on budget.
In a team like that, the Account Manager (and the strategist if that role is filled) is responsible for ensuring that every client deliverable is strategically sound, helping that client achieve their interim or long-term goals. As they’re reviewing deliverables, they are also meeting with clients regularly to capture feedback on existing deliverables while also keeping the pipeline of new work flowing.
We find that while project managers have several purpose-built tools to help cross-functional teams stay organized, account managers do not have the same luxury. Kapta is designed to support the client service function, helping account managers stay deeply engaged with clients so they can act as effective “quarterbacks” of a cross-functional team, ensuring every deliverable is what the client needs, and that clients stay satisfied throughout the process. Kapta also supports project managers and the rest of the team by integrating with the tools agencies use to get work done (such as Slack) and helping track contracts and timing as projects progress.
One thing many Account Managers at marketing agencies will run into is the team losing sight of big picture goals as they get caught up in the daily ins and outs of client deliverables. Maybe there’s a big leadership summit at the beginning of the year, where the team conducts a SWOT analysis, identifies key strategic objectives for the year, and starts to brainstorm an action plan to accomplish those goals. The output of that meeting is presented to the team and stored in a beautiful PowerPoint deck on the server…then promptly forgotten. Kapta helps keep strategy visible, so anyone who picks up a client project can easily see the broader picture for what they’re doing.
Desk-Based vs Field-Based
Managing client relationships is different when you do it from a desk, rather than from the field. Companies that sell a product, such as a large piece of equipment, have built-in opportunities for client face time: Installation, operation, regular maintenance, auxiliary equipment sales, etc.
However, marketing agencies do not have the same excuse to regularly show up at their customer’s door. That means they need to be intentional about keeping in touch—checking in regularly, providing consistent opportunities for feedback, and ensuring they get the face time they need with day-to-day clients as well as executive leadership.
The more remote work becomes the norm, the more difficult it can be to maintain a strong relationship. Kapta helps marketing agencies by tracking client touchpoints, and raising a flag when it’s been too long since the team reached out. Kapta also provides multiple opportunities to demonstrate value, which makes it enticing for account managers to set up periodic reviews. That leads us to the last reason marketing agencies love Kapta: They constantly need to show value to clients.
Constant Need to Show Value
There’s an old saying: “You start losing a client the minute you win the business.” There are a few reasons for this:
Expensive services: Marketing and ad agencies are a big investment for their clients—and the more reputable your agency, the bigger the price tag
Competitive agencies: There is always another marketing agency out there, eyeing your client, and a dissatisfied client will always be receptive to competitive threats
Digital/SaaS solutions: The more digital marketing becomes, the more tempting it can be for organizations to automate or digitize their marketing efforts entirely, forgoing the consulting aspect of an agency to save money
Internal teams: Larger organizations will be tempted to bring their marketing function fully in-house to save costs
Marketing agencies need to demonstrate value to their clients at every turn—and they need to ensure deep client engagement so they become extremely difficult to replace. Kapta helps marketing agencies demonstrate value by tracking metrics that matter, including:
Specific KPIs: There’s no better way to show you’re worth the money than to be able to demonstrate real results to your clients. Kapta not only tracks KPIs, but also makes them easy to report and share, both with client and with your C-suite.
Account health: Strong account management is as much about client satisfaction as it is hard numbers. Kapta helps track overall account health, including leading indicators such as how often and how meaningfully your team has reached out to a client, and how much your work is measuring up to your client’s expectations.
Conclusion
Diving into the specific challenges that shape key account management at marketing agencies, it’s easy to see how service-based firms in competitive industries would benefit from diligent, consistent KAM practices. For these firms, we at Kapta don’t worry about coaching teams from a purely sales mindset to an account management mindset—they’re already there. Instead, our focus is providing a purpose-built tool to support a well-established account management team. Because again, project management teams have their tools. Web developers and other creatives have their tools. But we often find account managers—the people responsible for keeping work coming through the door—are still relying on a collection of emails, Powerpoint decks, Excel spreadsheets, Slack, and their own notes to run the account.
To see how Kapta supports client service leads at marketing agencies and other service-based firms, schedule a personal demo today.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/KAM-for-Marketing-Agencies-blog-1-scaled.jpeg13272560Alex Raymondhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngAlex Raymond2020-01-13 13:27:122020-02-03 17:44:12Why Marketing Agencies Are Investing in Key Account Management
Change is constant. But there’s no time like the New Year to pause and take stock of the personal and professional changes you intend to make in the coming year. While we can’t weigh in on your fitness plan, we do have some tried-and-true best practices for making organizational change successful.
At Kapta, we think about change all the time. That’s because many of our clients come to us actively seeking change: They want to establish, grow, or evolve their Key Account Management function. They want to build customer engagement. They want to drive organic growth. And they want to use our purpose-built technology to get there.
We coach our customers through the change management required to implement and improve their KAM process, along with implementation of the Kapta platform. As a result, we’ve identified some key factors for success. There’s a great deal of information out there about change management, and we’re not trying to replicate all of it here—we’re just going to share the things we’ve seen that really make a difference. We’ve grouped these factors into 2 major categories: Tangibles and intangibles.
Tangible Factors: Skill Set and Process
Let’s start with skill set. In almost every scenario where organizational change is the goal, there’s some number of people who need to learn a new skill. Rather than assuming they’ll pick it up as they go, take the time to actively assess your team’s current capabilities against those they’ll need to be successful in a new process, and develop targeted strategies for filling the gaps. The more you can meet people where they are, and tailor educational opportunities to their needs, the better.
In some cases, you may find you need to make a new strategic hire to fill in some gaps in skill set, or you may need to outsource training and onboarding to be more successful. Look outside your company as needed to make sure your team has the support they need as they grow into new capabilities.
In addition to new skills, you’ll also need to implement new processes. For a process like Key Account Management, there are no cookie-cutter solutions—even if there are established best practices to guide you. You’ll have to adjust your approach to fit your team and your customers, and it’s important to get feedback every step of the way to make sure things are working well for your stakeholders. If you run into issues, work together to develop solutions.
One helpful tactic for creating solutions is to organize a good old-fashioned brainstorm. If you have a small group, work in one room; if you have a larger group, break into teams of 3-5 to make sure everyone has a chance to contribute. Present ideas, then group similar ideas together, letting everyone “vote” on priorities. (Multicolored sticker dots work well here.) The more actively your team participates in this process, the more ownership they’ll feel, and the more motivated they’ll be.
Ultimately, both skill set development and creative problem solving around process are designed to make your team feel successful in the new way of doing things. It’s never enough to simply hand down a mandate, then leave your team to figure out how to make it happen. This can lead to frustration, and ultimately reduce adoption of the new process. The more you can prepare team members with the skillset needed, the more capable they will feel, which will increase engagement levels, and that, in turn, contributes to higher adoption and greater long-term success.
Intangible Factors: Belief and Energy
It’s critical your team feel energized around the change, and that means driving belief in its potential for success—not only on an organizational level, but also on a personal level. The number one predictor of success in change management is how strongly your team believes in its potential to succeed. (Think about it: If you don’t think going to the gym is going to do anything for you anyway, why would you even try? Much less persevere when it gets hard.)
In order to drive belief in your future success, it helps to create some amount of fanfare around the change you’re implementing. A series of internal emails or posters can help build excitement and interest while setting the stage for a change on the horizon.
You can also consider a fun kickoff event. If you’re introducing a new process and technology, why not introduce it over a lunch your company has served, or a sponsored happy hour? This creates an atmosphere of celebration, rather than obligation.
In your launch, make sure to include clear rationale for the change. Frame it as:
Premise: A challenge or opportunity your organization faces
Promise: Why leadership believes this is the way to address that challenge or achieve that goal
Proof: Data and case studies to support your belief
Plan: What to expect for rollout in terms of timing, training, and implementation. Make it clear what you expect your team to contribute, and what you will provide in terms of support.
Make sure to leave plenty of time for questions and concerns. Sometimes people just need to air their anxieties; don’t be discouraged, but rather, validate their feelings (change is hard) and be forthcoming about what to expect. Selling the idea doesn’t mean whitewashing the difficulties of change management—it means highlighting the benefits while being transparent about the effort it will take to get there.
After you’ve shared the news and started the rollout, check in periodically to gauge energy and interest in the change. Again, it’s not enough to announce a change and move on; it takes diligence, awareness, and active leadership to bring about meaningful organizational change.
Your KAM Coach
At Kapta, we’ve coached our customers to success as they use change management best practices to establish, expand, or evolve their Key Account Management process. We’ve watched them build customer engagement, reduce risk, and drive organic growth as a result. So we are strong believers in the potential for success with good KAM practices, and we are always grateful for the opportunity to work directly with our customers to help them get the most out of their investment in Kapta.
Assessment: Understanding your current processes and skill set so we can create a custom rollout plan
Training: Working with various groups to teach specific skills in the Kapta platform and Our KAM ProcessTM
Implementation: We’ll configure your specific instance of Kapta to ensure a smooth rollout, tailored to your team’s process
Integration: We’ll make sure Kapta is integrated with the tech platforms you already use to support your business
Change is hard. But it’s possible. And with the right approach and support, it can even be fun.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/What-Makes-Change-Management-Work-scaled.jpeg17072560Lesley Poladskyhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngLesley Poladsky2019-12-30 13:06:262019-12-09 18:13:46Your New Year’s Resolutions: What Makes Change Management Work?
Do you know what goes into a strong account plan? If you already have account plans for each of your key accounts and spent more than five idle minutes creating them, congratulations – you’re already one step ahead of most account managers in your industry.
Account plans are crucial components of the KAM process and serve a variety of purposes all with the end goal of growing, nourishing, and maintaining your key relationships. The thing is, many people don’t give them any second thought and the ones that do know the true value of an account plan are using the wrong tools to create them.
At Kapta, we take our account planning very seriously, so much so that we dedicated an entire webinar to account planning recently. However, if you are more of a visual learner or are short on time, this article will go over everything covered.
So, to start it off, what are the four pillars to creating a strong account plan?
We count them as the following:
Co-Creation Conversation
Designing a Win-Win Relationship
Cornerstones of Building an Effective Plan
Managing and Utilizing AP’s
Individually, these four pillars function both as features of an account plan and also as steps in the process of building a full-fledged, detailed account plan that you can use for each of your clients.
Why All This Matters
So, why does all of this matter? Why did Kapta spend so much time to create an account planning feature in our platform? It all comes down to what most organizations can’t afford to lose: their key accounts.
Your key accounts (also called strategic accounts) are the top 20% of your customers that do more for your company than any other clients. These are the people that have purchased extensively from your organization and make up 70% of your revenue. Can you afford to give up 70% of your revenue? If you’re in the profit business, absolutely not.
Typically, most organizations have five to ten accounts that they can’t afford to lose. It might seem like a small number, but in actuality, bad interactions or mistakes with just five clients could send the organization into a tailspin. For this reason, it’s crucial that you not only focus on your relationships with these customers but also that you have a plan of action in place through strong account plans so you can protect these relationships at all costs.
What a Great Customer Relationships Look Like
Whether you call it Global Account Management, Strategic Account Management or Key Account Management, all of these positions serve the same purpose: to build relationships and keep the top 20% of clients happy. KAMs are not your ordinary sales reps.
They go above and beyond and are the Trusted Advisors their clients can depend on. Rather than going for the quick sale, they care more about the value they can bring to the relationship that will ultimately lead to revenue growth for not on their organization but for their clients too.
If you’re wondering where you stand and how strong your KAM program is, here are a few qualities to consider in a great account manager:
1) Creates Long Term Relationships
Building relationships takes work, but it’s worth it in the end. Organizations more concerned with making quick sales without attention to the relationship fail to grow in the long run. Consider how frustrating it is to put in so much time to working with a client only for them to leave when their contract is up; a great KAM can change that.
2) Builds and Increases Trust
Are you a vendor or a Trusted Advisor? Vendors rely on offering the best price or convenience, but selling based on product alone won’t help your accounts grow in the long run. The relationship is everything, and when you can become your client’s Trusted Advisor, they’ll wonder how they ever operated without you. With a “seat at the table” with your clients, you’ll have a leg up on competitors and can uncover new growth opportunities.
3) Meets Growth and Retention Goals
Great KAMs are continually striving towards improvement which means they are consistently hitting their individual goals that ultimately benefit the company. Typically, this means hitting growth and retention goals with existing accounts. When those individual goals are met, KAMs will make an impact on organization-wide goals such as reducing churn rates and landing larger deals.
4) Develops Consistent and Repeatable Process
In many organizations, we find that there is a lack of consistency in the KAM process. Everyone is essentially doing their own thing. While one person uses PowerPoint for their accounts, another might use a spreadsheet. When everyone is doing something different, it’s hard for leadership to manage and determine where the team could improve. In addition, a fragmented process also stunts individual KAM growth since you won’t know what’s working for the team and what isn’t. Consistency is a key attribute of a great KAM.
What’s In It for Me?
So, the big question that many new KAMs might ask is “What’s in it for me?” It’s an understandable question because when you put in so much effort to nourish and grow a relationship with strategic accounts, it can be easy to lose sight of the end goal.
When you focus on your relationships starting with a strong account plan, many different areas within your position and organization are enhanced. With a more formal and dynamic account planning process, you can expect benefits across the board.
Here’s some research from Miller Heiman detailing the various performance levels companies are at and how KAM affects the organization:
When you look at the left-hand column, you can see some important areas that affect the individual and the organization as a whole. According to this research study from Miller Heiman, they found that as organizations developed more formal account planning processes, a lot of areas began to change. Click here for our take on this research.
For one, as companies move up the performance levels, quote attainment goes up along with win rates of forecast deals. An important decline is in loss rates of forecast deals.
Perhaps the two most important trends from this chart are voluntary turnover and involuntary turnover. When a company has a formal account planning process in place, and KAMs can grow and enhance their skills, then they have the ability to stick it out at their job for longer and really get to know their companies over the years. On the flip side, when a KAM knows how to do their job well from a formal process, they won’t have any trouble finding a new position if they want to leave.
This goes to show that account planning is more than just a document and it is really a pillar to success for everyone from the individual KAM to the organization and the customer also.
Score Your Processes
Think about the relationships that you have in your life – how strong are your bonds with mismanaged people? You know the ones. The people that are always late, can’t be counted on to show up when you need them, and can disappear off the face of the earth for a time. Whether you want to admit it or not, if your processes aren’t on point, your key accounts might be suffering because of it.
It’s hard to develop a strong relationship with someone if they are never there and aren’t dependable. Even with the best intentions, if your management processes aren’t aligned with your clients’ goals, then you’re missing a huge opportunity to scale and grow the accounts. We recommend that you audit your processes and give yourself an honest score based on how you interact with clients.
Are you doing things in a random fashion, putting out one fire after the next? How often are you talking with your key clients? Is it only every quarter during the QBR or is it monthly? These, along with other factors, can greatly affect your KAM performance and as you start to develop a formal process for account management, the results will soon follow.
Where Many Organizations Stand
A lot of companies live in level two and aren’t making great headway. Many of those are likely you but also your competitors. If you can step it up, you have an advantage.
With your own processes into perspective, it’s important to consider where you stand in comparison to your competitors and other players in the field. If you take a look at the graphic below from Miller Heiman, they chart where organizations stand in the sales-relationship matrix.
Along the x-axis, the researchers list the different sales process types beginning with Random Process and ending with Dynamic Process. On the y-axis, you’ll find different relationship levels. As organizations begin to advance their sales process, the stronger their relationships are with clients.
As you can see, a little over 50% of organizations are at level two; somewhere between Informal and Formal processes, achieving Strategic Contributor at best. What would it take to become a Trusted Partner? Well, it all starts by improving your process into a dynamic one. This means that if you could become a Trusted Partner through a dynamic sales process, you’d be in the top 28.9% of organizations. How could that affect your revenue?
What Does a Dynamic Relationship Look Like?
So, what does this Dynamic Process look like? Let’s first understand the stages along the way that lead to it.
It starts with the Random Process. This is where you’re using the bare minimum, basic applications to keep track of your accounts but it’s incredibly difficult. You might be using the contacts app, writing down notes in a separate program, and then using email primarily to talk to clients unless you’re absolutely forced to pick up the phone.
Then you move onto the Informal Process. At this stage, you are still using ad-hoc technology that isn’t nearly efficient as it should be, you’re identifying new opportunities, landing some contracts, but you’re still not much more to your clients than a Preferred Supplier.
In a Formal Process, you’re doing more research and strategy based around the client’s organization. You’re conducting a SWOT analysis, creating an Action Plan (although not entirely consistent) and through your work and attention, you’re a Strategic Contributor and well on your way to becoming a Trusted Advisor with a few tweaks to your processes.
Finally, in a Dynamic Process, you’re using Custom Action Plans and executing on strategies that you create based on frequent Voice of Customer interviews. You’re also closely monitoring metrics that demonstrate real value to the client. When you provide this value, you’re pushed over the top and become the Trusted Partner.
The Four Pillars of Building a Strong Account Plan
So, with all of this information in mind, let’s discuss the four pillars of a great account plan.
I) Co-Creation Conversation
Establishing and building upon your connection with your clients is the goal of co-creation. You want to drive and grow customer engagement but to do this, you need to have the correct approach and creating an account plan through real interactions and engagement with the customer rather than guessing at it and filling in the blanks with what you assume is their goal.
For starters, just “checking in” won’t get you very far and the best account managers will schedule meetings and calls with their customers on a regular basis complete with an agenda so the conversation can go deeper. Next, you can’t think of yourself in this conversation – that comes later. Instead, you want to focus 100% on the customer and address POWNS (Problems, Opportunities, Wants, Needs) for the customer individually and the organization.
Finally, if you research their industry beforehand or have a constant approach, you can share little tidbits of information with the customer either in the meeting or in an email to reach out saying, “Hey, I saw X was happening in the markets today – how do you think this will affect Y?”
II) Designing a Win-Win Relationship
As a primary goal of key account management, establishing a win-win relationship with your customer will enable you to scale and grow the account much faster, and they’ll stick with your company for the long run as well. You want to serve your customers to the best of your ability which will help them serve their customers too.
To establish this, focus first on listening with the intent to serve rather than sell. If they want to buy something, they’ll order it from a sales rep – they’re talking to you because you tell it like it is and provide useful insights.
You need to continue being a resource of information for your clients, so they are comfortable and excited to come to you when they have a question or need to solve a problem. This means going above and beyond, but the extra effort is worth it in the end.
Finally, you need to establish and build trust through honesty and transparent communication. You must be proactive in your approach and pick up the phone rather than waiting for an emergency. When you can get all of these down, you’ll start to spot new opportunities to provide value to the customer which can lead to a sale.
III) Cornerstones of Building an Effective Plan
Some KAMs make the mistake of looking at an Account Plan like a boring document they have to do. Once they complete it for the first time and show it to the customer, they shove it in a digital drawer, and it never sees the light of day again.
In actuality, an account plan is a living, breathing document that you should check on regularly to update it with your customer’s ever-changing goals. It tells the story of your customers and their journey using your products and should be forward thinking.
You also want to get the account plan endorsed by the key players. This means the contacts at your client’s organization along with anyone applicable at your own too. The more people in the know, the better so you can put your heads together and solve problems down the road if needed.
IV) Managing and Utilizing Action Plans
The fourth pillar is perhaps one of the biggest missteps that account management teams make, especially those with a formal process in place. Managing and utilizing account plans can feel tricky at first, especially when everyone is too tactical. Your account plans should be long-term, and thus meetings shouldn’t be focused on old data like the history of the company and rather values and actions that have real impact on the customer’s account.
Creating impact should be your focus and with everything you do, consider how it impacts the account. Is it a positive or a negative? Is there something more that you could do? Even something as small as sharing some industry insight with them can make a real impact on the account.
You also want to consider how internal meetings with the team are scheduled. Typically, companies will have two main areas of focus: strategy and account reviews. One of these, strategy, is very left-brained, while the other is more right-brain focused.
If you try to cram both of these meetings into one, it can become a mess and more times than not, strategy doesn’t get the attention or time that it deserves. Schedule these meetings separate with the team and your clients so you can get more done and really get the most out of your account plan.
What to Ask to Drive Engagement
Now that we’ve covered the four pillars of strong account plans, let’s take a look at a few probing question examples that you can use to help drive engagement and get to the root of your customers’ problems, wants, and needs.
1) Discuss Impact Rather Than Features
“Can you help me understand the impact A and B had on C?” is a better question than a general “How is everything?” because it is more specific and focuses on the impact of your work and industry factors rather than a vague question that could quite simply be answered with a “Good.”
2) Discuss Individual and Organizational Goals
“What are your goals for the next X months?” and “How can I help get you there?” are direct, specific questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no.” These questions also show your commitment to their success and that you’ll do everything in your power to find them new solutions to reach both their organizational and individual goals.
3) Focus on Leading Indicators
You should know where your clients stand using your product and how it’s helped them. Related to Impact, you should look for leading indicators that have numerical values to them so you can adjust your strategy or continue going in the same direction if it’s delivering their desired outcomes.
Share Information
As a part of your role as Trusted Advisor, you need to be your customer’s reliable source of industry news. You can’t wait for them to ask about this, and instead, it’s on you to research on your own time, whether in the morning while you’re reading the headlines or in between meetings. Ask them “We have noticed that A, B, and C are happening in the market – how has that affected your business?”
Final Thoughts
Building a strong account plan is just one part of the KAM matrix, but it’s a crucial component to every KAM’s success. If you fail to modernize your processes, use fragmented technology, or don’t focus on outcomes over sales, you’ll struggle to have real impact and become a Trusted Advisor for your clients.
Remember: people buy from people that they like. The relationships that you have with clients comes above anything else. If you can put these principles into practice and start enhancing your account plans, you can start making an immediate impact for your clients.
Kapta makes account planning easy with built-in templates and relationship-scoring features so you can tell at a glance where your account stands and what you can do to improve the relationship. Rather than getting bogged down in ad-hoc technology or mismanaged processes, Kapta brings everything that an account manager needs into one platform. If you’re ready to improve your processes and build your relationships with key accounts, request your free demo today.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Building-a-Strong-Account-Plan.jpeg40556950Lesley Poladskyhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngLesley Poladsky2019-04-29 13:12:382019-08-18 17:19:22The Four Pillars of Building a Strong Account Plan
Revenue and profit growth is an important part of your prolonged success (and viability) as a company. If your business were to stay stagnant and not experience any new growth or build more revenue, it would be difficult to succeed in the long run and stay competitive. There are many strategies that a B2B company can adopt to promote growth, but let’s focus on customer-oriented strategies.
Growth and Revenue Building Strategies
Is it better to invest in building a larger sales team or growing existing customer accounts? The larger your sales team, the more they can seek out and sell to new customers. By growing your customer base, even with one-off customers, you will increase your revenues over time.
But, focusing on growing existing customer accounts can be a more effective and economical option for your business. The Pareto principle states that 80% of value comes from 20% of inputs. This statistic applies to your customer accounts in most cases, with a few top customers earning the large majority of your revenues. Using a Key Account Management (KAM) strategy that focuses on the most important customers allows you to pull as much value as possible from current accounts instead of looking for new ones.
The difference between sales and KAM can be illustrated by hunting and farming. Selling, like hunting, can be exciting and challenging. Sometimes, there may be long gaps between significant sales, while others may slip away after you think you’ve settled the deal already. KAM, like farming, helps you reap the benefits of seeds you sow into your current top accounts. It takes longer to make profits from this strategy, but the benefits usually far exceed those of extra sales efforts.
Why Key Account Management Is More Profitable Than New Sales
Here are a few reasons why KAM may prove to be a better investment for your bottom line than investing in building new sales teams:
Existing Customers Are More Likely to Buy Again
Sales is difficult because of how reluctant many new customer can be when faced with making a purchase. They may compare all other options and go back and forth a few times. All the efforts of selling may end up not leading to new profits. Key accounts are already existing customers who are likely to continue buying from you. By investing in these accounts, you’ll have a better chance of continuing to sell current and new products that fit the needs of those customers.
Existing Customers Spend More Than New Customers
It’s also been shown through research that existing clients are likely to spend more than new clients. The reason is simple: they trust you already. Since they have already tried your product or service and know that it’s good, they will feel more confident spending more with your business in the future.
This is called the future potential of an account, and it should be considered when you’re segmenting your key accounts from other accounts. Key accounts should be those that have a lot of future potential for expanding their account with your company.
KAM is a long-term strategy. You shouldn’t expect to see a lot of benefits until after the first year of working with your key accounts. With the right amount of buy-in from both sides, KAM allows you to develop a long-term revenue stream by steadily increasing the revenues you’re making from every key account. Once the strategic partnership is well established, your profits from each key account should begin increasing.
Retain Your Best Customers
Creating loyalty in your key accounts keeps your main revenue sources from abandoning your company for one of your competitors. KAM creates a strong personal connection with each of your key accounts, ensuring that they won’t look elsewhere for the same services. This is the ultimate key customer retention strategy, and it generally proves to be mutually beneficial.
Sales teams do not focus enough on retaining customers. Even if your sales department does have a customer retention plan, it’s likely a one-size-fits-all model that’s not ideal for highly dynamic, complex companies that may demand more service from you.
Better Understanding of Target Customers
As you gather more data from key accounts and understand how your business and theirs work together, you can pass that understanding on to the sales and marketing departments. This helps them to create a better profile for the ideal target customer so they can focus on finding the best customers to focus efforts on in the future. With the right new customers, you may be able to gain new key accounts and dramatically increase your revenues.
Effective Word-of-Mouth Marketing
The more your key accounts like your services, the more likely they are to recommend you to other business connections that may need your services. This shouldn’t be your only way of marketing for new customers, but it’s one of the ways that KAM can prove the be a better investment in the long-run than new sales teams.
Get the Most Out of Important Customers
After you’ve segmented your customers and identified your key accounts, KAM is the strategy that’s going to help you get the most out of those customers. By focusing on understanding your key account customer’s challenges and helping them meet strategic goals, your company stands to gain as your customers do.
The key is promoting mutual growth. Each key account requires a unique strategy that will assist that specific company to grow and increase their own revenues. As their revenues increase, your ROI will increase through larger margins and potential upselling.
Key Account Management is certainly an investment, but the ROI for your company makes it a better investment than increasing your sales team. While a larger number of sales may also raise your revenues, it’s a short-term strategy that won’t get the biggest returns from your clients. You may end up sacrificing the future potential of key accounts by focusing only on potential new sales.
Curious to see how you can take your Key Account Management skills to the next level? Download this helpful ebook on how to create powerful engagement plans for your key accounts or sign up for a demo of Kapta.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/invest-in-account-management.jpeg28674300Christine Smithhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngChristine Smith2017-09-20 08:09:182019-08-18 19:30:09Investing in Key Account Management Is More Profitable Than Investing in New Sales
While many companies may show interesting in Key Account Management (KAM) or acknowledge a need for it, there’s still some debate over the results this practice brings to the table. What makes KAM a better approach than traditional sales strategies? Is the potential revenue growth enough to compensate for the extra resources needed to do effective KAM?
How Key Account Management Affects Revenue
It’s easy to assume that the more clients you have, the more money your business will make. This is why business growth, marketing, and competitive sales strategies are critical to the success of many B2B companies today. But, adding additional clients is not the only way to improve your revenue stream, nor is it the most effective way in most cases.
Research has shown that retaining customers is not just cheaper than creating new ones, it’s also more profitable. KAM is the next step up from customer retention. Instead of simply keeping your key accounts connected to your company, you’ll be actively helping them to grow in their field. As their company grows, so will your revenues. This is because the strategic partnership created between you and that key account will expand as they have need for more of your services at a higher level.
By showing your key accounts that you are invested in their success, you will create a high level of trust within your relationship. This will lead to a more consistent and profitable customer relationship that allows you to sell more comfortably to each company. If you understand the needs of your key account fully, you will be able to tailor your products and services to fit those needs well.
According to Paul Farris’ book Marketing Metrics, businesses have a 60 – 70% chance of selling to existing customers versus a 5 – 20% chance of selling to new customers. While this is directed more at B2C companies, the concept is true also for B2B companies. The other relevant fact to know is that statistically, existing customers are likely to spend 67% more than new customers.
Your key accounts already know you offer a good product or service, which is why they’re such important customers. What KAM does is strengthens the trust even more by turning a normal customer retention relationship into a strategic partnership. By building this trust and showing your key accounts that you’re invested in helping them grow their business, they will be more inclined to turn to you for solutions to their problems, which will expand their existing contract with you and create more revenue.
Key Account Management Is Not Just a Sales Strategy
While the numbers are compelling, it’s important that you don’t treat KAM like an upgraded sales plan. To build a strategic partnership with your key accounts, you’ll need a lot more time and effort from every level of your business, not just the sales department. Buy-in must come from all these departments as well, depending on your type of business:
Operations
Marketing
Customer Service
Your Executives
Their Executives
KAM goes above and beyond regular Customer Success processes. With KAM, your company will create an in depth, unique engagement plan for every key account separately. You should implement good sales and Customer Success practices to improve your short-term revenue, but plan to do KAM as a long-term strategy.
Long-Term Versus Short-Term Revenue Strategies
Every business needs to have long-term growth and revenue goals. Keeping a long-term focus makes it easier to be prepared for future success or challenges. With a long-term KAM strategy, your company will be more prepared to handle growth and expansion since you will see it coming ahead of time. If you focus on expanding your customer base with new customers, you may not be prepared to handle the rapid growth, leading to a poor long-term outlook for your company.
But, if you can’t survive in the short-term then long-term doesn’t matter. So, while KAM is a great way to grow your company’s revenues and plan for a stronger future, you need to combine it with an effective marketing and sales department to bring new clients into the mix for sustained revenues. New clients may also become new key accounts, giving your company an even stronger long-term KAM focus.
Key Account Management can be costly in the short-term, as you will use a lot more resources to create and maintain the strategic partnership. But, the benefits of retaining, growing, and expanding key accounts should outweigh these short-term costs by a substantial amount. If a key account partnership is not turning profitable after more than a year or two or has no potential to do so, you may need to re-evaluate your process for separating key accounts from regular customers.
Other Ways KAM Affects Revenues
To unlock the future potential of your most important existing clients, you need a great KAM strategy. In addition to the potential long-term benefits, an effective KAM strategy may help your company by:
Providing New Clients
It may sound counter-intuitive, but by focusing strongly on key accounts you may actually create new customers as well. Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the most effective forms of marketing, but it’s difficult to do unless you have clients that are highly satisfied with your service and keep returning to your company, such as your key accounts.
Creating a More Accurate Target Market
Part of KAM is learning everything you can about your key account customers. You can compile all your data on your key accounts and find out what they have in common. This may help your marketing department to make an accurate target customer profile so they can focus on finding and acquiring the type of customers your business really wants.
Keeping You Informed on Industry Trends
To be successful at KAM, you’ll need to thoroughly understand what’s going on in your customers’ industries as well as your own. This will also assist you in forecasting for the future and help protect you from unexpected catastrophes.
Conclusion
Key Account Management isn’t an overly expensive Customer Success strategy. It’s a long-term revenue growth strategy that could end up more than doubling key account spending, increasing your revenue exponentially without you ever having to marketing to new customers. Instead of focusing all your efforts on finding new short-term customers, grow your key accounts into strong long-term partnerships that benefit you both. When your key accounts grow, so will your bottom line.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Account-Management-Is-Your-Secret-Weapon-for-Revenue-Growth.jpeg28674300Alex Raymondhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngAlex Raymond2017-09-18 04:50:052019-08-18 19:30:44Why Key Account Management Is Your Secret Weapon for Revenue Growth
Being a Key Account Manager (KAM) involves a lot of proactive planning. You can’t rely on key accounts to ‘work themselves out’ or assume that only reactive responses are sufficient for your clients. As a KAM, it is your job to increase the value of your company services for each key client by going above and beyond friendly customer service. While you may think if a client wants something they will ask, the reality is most clients don’t know what the ideal service configuration or joint effort looks like. And really, it’s not their job to find out– it’s yours. To become a truly superb key account manager, you must go out of your way to do something special for clients that will drastically improve their appreciation of your services, and improve their relationship with your company. While every key client is unique, here are a few ideas to get you started on active account planning:
1. Package Customization
What exactly does your business offer to key accounts that could be enhanced? Depending on your company, this could be anything from manufacturing supplies to SaaS. However, the exact details don’t matter as much as the benefit a new package might provide to a client. Ask yourself how each key client gains value from your services, and how you can boost that value by designing a more customized package deal that encompasses a win-win trade of values for services. When ready to present the package, be prepared to negotiate. There is a good chance that your innovation will inspire the client to think more proactively for themselves and make new requests. This is a sign that you’re on the right track, and a good opportunity to learn what matters most to your clients.
2. Paired Marketing Campaigns
Every company has a marketing budget used to raise awareness and encourage sales by constantly launching campaigns through physical, digital, and social media. One great way to build a strong relationship between companies is to share resources in a way that saves money for both parties. If you truly consider a key account as a business partner, then you both have a lot to gain from shared marketing campaigns. Splitting a marketing budget on clever collaborative efforts is a great way to build trust. Don’t be shy about asking for advice from the marketing department regarding campaign ideas, or taking a particularly talented marketer with you to the proposal meeting.
3. Thank You Events
If your client is already happy with their personalized service and current involvement level, maintaining the status-quo doesn’t equate to passive account management. You can still show your key accounts how much they matter to you with periodic gestures of appreciation. Thank you events can vary between one-on-one private soirees for each client, or a big annual ‘we love our clients’ bash during an otherwise quiet part of the year. Celebratory appreciation is a great way to show your clients you care without the pressure of any service changes. These gatherings also provide a great opportunity to ask “How are we doing?” in a casual setting to a wide range of representatives from partner companies. This plan can build relationships with your clients, provide insights into what to try next, and create a fun and positive atmosphere for everyone involved.
When making plans for key accounts, remember that there are hundreds of ways to increase client satisfaction, boost the benefits offered, and build a stronger relationship with every key account you manage. In each situation, a mutually beneficial plan can be formed that delights the customer and ensures that both your company and theirs are better off than when you started. Use your creativity, industry knowledge, and understanding of your clients to develop the perfect proactive account planning tactics for everyone.
Curious to see how you can take your Key Account Management skills to the next level? Download this helpful ebook on how to create powerful engagement plans for your key accounts or sign up for a demo of Kapta.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/3-Ways-to-Use-Active-Key-Account-Planning.jpg14142120Alex Raymondhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngAlex Raymond2017-08-25 12:00:032019-08-18 19:34:493 Ways to Use Active Key Account Planning
The responsibilities of key account management (KAM) do not begin and end with your sales team. Companies with successful key account management programs incorporate the responsibilities to be included throughout their operations. In fact, the term “holistic” has become a popular way to describe good key account management practices—and for good reason.
In a comprehensive report on key account management in the European healthcare industry, Tefen, a global management consulting firm, stressed the importance of a holistic approach to key account management:
“The complete re-focusing of the commercial organization required to achieve excellence in KAM is a challenging undertaking. It encompasses a diverse range of components that impact all areas of sales and marketing. Where KAM is approached on a piecemeal basis, companies are unlikely to derive the results needed.”
Why is a holistic approach so imperative to success? When a company brings in members of different departments into key account management programs, complementary talents are augmented and new insights into current and future customer care strategies are created.
While your typical key account managers are handling much of the person-to-person dealings with strategic clients, sales and marketing departments should be analyzing customer metrics, fine-tuning your company’s collateral for attracting the right key accounts, and delivering on-point messages to those already in the fold.
Consultants with a deeper knowledge of a specialized industry of a specific key account can provide information about pending regulations and market shifts. The diverse political, regulatory, and professional networks among your company’s upper management should be considered another asset to the holistic key account management approach.
The operations division should be aware of key account delivery deadlines and should be in communication with the key account management department so that information is exchanged smoothly.
Many companies are recruiting executive-level sponsors for key accounts, ensuring that key account management personnel can relay their clients’ needs up the chain of command, expediting results that benefit the supplier-customer relationship.
“The best companies…have high-level sponsors for each of their key accounts. Members of the main board of Siemens, including the CEO, each sponsor a number of key accounts and visit them regularly.”
As companies learn the value of successful key account management, leaders in key account management are showing increasingly diverse resumes and backgrounds. Many new key account managers are specialists in the technical aspects of a target client market. With no sales experience at all, they are leading teams of specialists to focus on the needs of a specific strategic customer.
In fact, in her article, Ryals warns against limiting key account management candidates to members of your sales force:
“There are technical people and project managers who can make great KAMs. You need to think about what the role requires (a broad range of skills, including financial, consultative, planning, interpersonal and influencing skills) and then pick the right person for the role.”
The point person for each of your strategic customers should have an intuitive sense of how the target industry works, have the ability to rally members within the organization, the ability to delegate tasks efficiently, and the ability to anticipate and meet a client’s needs.
Your company, in turn, may experience a sea change in how it perceives key account management and how it integrates with day-to-day operations.
Whether yours is a leading chemical company with a diverse set of clients across the globe or a small equipment manufacturer and supplier catering to a specific industry in your region, successful key account management is a holistic endeavor. How do you plan to better integrate key account management best practices within your organization?
Want to see how you can take your Key Account Management skills to the next level? Download this helpful ebook on how to create powerful Account Plans or sign up for a demo of Kapta.
Most businesses today depend on growth to thrive. For some, it’s essential for survival – period. It’s what allows companies to upgrade programs, hire additional personnel, and beef up marketing efforts. If you have investors then there’s the added pressure to perform better quarter after quarter, year after year. How does a company do this? Strategic planning for their key account managers. These aren’t just fancy business words. Client retention and long-term satisfaction directly depend on well-positioned key accounts, and it’s what every enterprise should consistently focus on and improve upon.
Some businesses don’t differentiate between KAM and regular account management. As such, these organizations assign individual salespeople and account managers different parts of their customers’ needs. The problem with this approach, especially if your clients are key accounts, is the lack of consistency in ideas and execution of important tasks. The results sometimes lead to the loss of clients–and revenue–which significantly affects your growth.
KAMs need to develop a strategic plan for how they will handle individual accounts and also how they will manage an overall workflow that keeps them on target. Strengthening your relationships with well-thought planning for your key accounts is what will keep your company healthy and your executive team out of your hair. Not sure what types of strategies you should implement? Try these.
The Shared Account Strategy
Valuable key account management does not focus on a single party in any business transaction. As is the case with negotiations, successful key account management depends on the ability to engage both clients and your own executive team to ensure that each party gains from the relationship.
For that reason, the shared account approach begins with showing real interest in what clients want to achieve for their own clients. After establishing what a client wants to achieve, the next step is to devise a strategy that will help them attain their goals. In other words, their goals need to be your goals. Don’t view key accounts from one angle, or eventually the relationship with either your own company or your client will fizzle out.
Prioritizing Key Accounts
This seems almost silly to mention, but one surefire way to lose clients is to forget they exist. Be sure your organization genuinely values your role as a KAM and the revenue you’re bringing in with your skills. It’s easy to become bogged down with special projects for your boss or even for an upcoming marketing campaign. Don’t let these extra tasks become your primary ones. Your role is a KAM should occupy the majority of your working hours and attention. With the exception of catastrophic events in your office, key accounts need to be your No. 1 priority.
Developing Internal Relationships
Growing a business depends on multiple factors – one being the ability to seize new revenue opportunities. While much of your daily interaction is with your external clients, don’t underestimate the value of relationship building with your own office. Developing better relationships with your colleagues can actually help your company capture new markets. How so? Think about the concepts of mutual respect and gratitude in a group setting. When you display respect for those around you, these same people are more inclined to help you, especially when you’re in a bind and need help fast.
Even if you don’t have fires to put out, keeping a strong working relationship with those around you allows you to devote more time for clients and provide you with more mental space and energy to take on new ones.
Don’t be that KAM who thinks your job is the only important one in the company and that everyone else is there to serve your needs. It might be true in some cases, but your job would not exist if others’ jobs didn’t also exist. Everybody in your office has a role–some bigger than others–and you should be thankful to every person who makes your job easier.
Assessing Your Current State
A self-assessment of how you are performing is vital towards establishing how to better manage your accounts going forward. Therefore, you need to check your performance in particular areas to discover how successful your strategies have been–or if they haven’t–and what you need to adjust. These areas of performance can be interpersonal, physical, mental, or technical. Do you communicate well with others around you? Are you taking care of yourself outside of work? Do you have the most up-to-date skills and comprehension of current programs to do your job?
You also need to verify the problems you are helping your clients solve and ensure these also have a start-to-finish strategy for each one.
Takeaway
It’s not enough to just throw together a plan and call it a strategy. Understanding how everyone fits in the picture, and how to effectively and honestly measure your own performance is necessary for truly successful key account management. Step back from time to time and assess what is working, what’s not and then figure out ways to improve upon the former and eliminate the latter.
Curious to see how you can take your Key Account Management skills to the next level? Download this helpful ebook on how to create powerful engagement plans for your key accounts or sign up for a demo of Kapta.
https://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Key-Account-Manager-4.jpeg32684901Alex Raymondhttps://kapta.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/logo340x156-300x138.pngAlex Raymond2017-05-22 05:38:472019-08-18 19:45:14What Key Account Managers Should Always Consider For Their Strategic Planning
