You successfully sold one or more of your company's products or services to a business unit, department, or division of a large organization. Now your manager has tasked you with "account management."
1. What is "Account Management"?
2. What skills and talents are required to excel in Account Management?
3. What activities must be performed to maximize Account Management return on investment?
Providing answers to these questions is the focus of this article.
1. What is Account Management?
Account management is a synonym for ACCOUNT PENETRATION. Just because you have sold one product or service to one business entity within an organization doesn't mean your job is done. Think of all the additional opportunities that may exist in the account! For example:
Does your company offer additional products or services that might be a "fit" for this customer?
How many other business units, departments, divisions, and subsidiaries are potential prospects for your company's products and services?
2. Required Skills and Talents
A critical talent for successful account management is the ability to build RELATIONSHIPS, as relationship selling is a very effective way to increase account penetration. Another critical skill/talent is ORGANIZATION. If you are going to manage large accounts effectively, you need to be willing and able to keep meticulous records.
What kinds of records do you need to keep? Picture a three-dimensional spreadsheet in your mind. In the left-hand column is a list of every product and service that you could possibly sell to a customer. Across the top of the spreadsheet are all of the business units, departments, divisions, and other business entities that make up your account's entire organization. Behind each business entity is every contact you know within that business entity.
Armed with this mental picture, ask yourself the following questions:3. Required Activities
Hopefully your organization has some type of CRM (Client Relationship Management) software application to help you keep track of your answers to these questions. If you don't have access to a corporate CRM system, here are some other options:salesforce.comNext, plan your tactics for increasing account penetration by considering the following questions:Who can REFER you to new contacts in other business units, departments, or divisions in the account?Why is it necessary to repetitively expose your contacts to your company's entire portfolio of products and services? Because they forget! I can tell you from personal experience that there is nothing more frustrating than finding out a customer has placed a large order with another salesperson...and the only reason they didn’t give YOU the order was because they didn't know or remember that you could fill it!
Is There More to Account Management?
There can be, but activities focused on increasing account penetration make up the critical core. Account management does become more complex if a team of people is managing a regional, national, or global account, but most of the complexity pertains to coordinating the activities of the team members.
Don't make account management more complex than it needs to be! The basic goal is to maximize account penetration. Look for opportunities to sell every product and service in your portfolio to every business entity in the account. Make maximum use of referrals and testimonials to help you initiate new relationships. Regularly remind all of your contacts of the full breadth of your portfolio of products and services. Be organized and keep meticulous records. If you do these things, you should be amply rewarded for your efforts!
About the Author:
Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of "How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don't Perform and What to Do About It". His company, 80/20 Sales Performance, helps business owners, executives, and managers DOUBLE sales by implementing The Right Formula™ for building top-performing sales teams. For more information and more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020salesperformance.com.
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