A Sales Guy Consulting Blog

The feedback has been fantastic on our recent 8 Part Series on Account Governance or account management. 

Therefore, to make it easy to get to all 8 posts, I figured I put them all on one page. This way if you're like me, you won't have to click so much. 

I had fun doing the series and hope it helps you get more out of your existing customers. Also, be sure to download all the helpful templates. They make all the difference in execution. 

Enjoy!

Account Governance — Part 1

Introduction to account governance and why it matters

Account Governance — Vision

The importance of establishing and account vision and how to create one that works.

Account Governance — Account Plans

How to build the perfect account plan

Account Governance — Relationships

Learn how to build account relationships that actualy turn into new business, not just more lunches. 

Account Governance — Cadence

How to build a pro-active account cadence that keeps you ahead of the competition and connected to the account. 

Account Governance — Strategy

Learn to build an account strategy that increases revenue, creates more opportunity and grows the account.

Account Governance — Reporting

Learn how to use reporting to know if the account is healthy, how to increase revenue and manage resources. 

Account Governance — Tools 

Identify what tools are at your disposal and which you should use to better manage your accounts. 

What I like most about strategy in 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.

One of the best selling skills a sales person can have is the ability to develop a sales strategy. 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. 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 goal 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.

This is part 5 of an 8 part series on account governance

Cadence is a powerful tool for managing an account. Unfortunately, when I ask sales people about their cadence strategy or approach a get a lot of weird looks.

Cadence is how you drive an account. Cadence has the greatest impact in influencing the customer. It allows you to manage relationships, track progress, drive accountability, and engage all the stakeholders on a regular basis.

A good cadence consists of a few critical elements:

1) weekly progress meetings
2) quarterly business reviews
3) specific, regularly scheduled stakeholder meetings
4) clearly defined agendas and objectives
5) stakeholder commitment to participate

Cadence structure is not complex. I use this template your welcome to use it as well.

(I’ve filled in the table for info purposes only, you will need to determine the appropriate cadence structure for your accounts)

The complexity and value of cadence comes in the execution. To build a highly effective cadence think in terms of your account vision, your account plan and the account relationships. Notice in the one above, a regular cadence has been established between the customer CEO and the Company CEO, the IT department and the company CTO, both account teams, Marketing and more. The cadence is specifically designed to connect many different functional groups at multiple levels in an organization. Its purposely not intended to be horizontal. Its meant to be both horizontal AND vertical.

Ask, who should be regularly communicated with? Who influences the success or failure within the account? How can they influence the account plan and the ability to be successful? Once this is determined cadence brings it all together.

To make the cadence fly and get the most out of it, be proactive. Gain support from your relationships to engage on a regularly scheduled basis. Build weekly, monthly, quarterly and semi-annually events to monitor progress, set strategic direction, provide insight, address problems, deliver updates, identify challenges and reset direction. Set specific agendas and actionable objectives for all the meetings. The meetings need to have value. They need to be seen as worth the investment for both parties. If this part isn’t set up correctly, they entire process falls apart.

When a cadence is firing on all cylinders the account is being managed holistically. The right relationships are not only in place but engaged, from the executives on both sides, to the those accountable on a day to day basis, everyone is engaged. Issues are ferreted out early and addresses quickly. New products, services, and offers are introduced early and feedback can be provided by the customer strengthening the probability of adoption. Hiccups in the account business are identified earlier minimizing unforeseen drops in revenue or orders. This improves forecasting accuracy. Issues and challenges rarely blow-up as they are identified and addressed before they can get out of hand. And, one of my favorite benefits is the ability to ask for favors. If you’ve been in sales for awhile you understand the importance of being able to go to your customer and ask for help, to take a shipment early, to accelerate an order etc. When a strong cadence is in place, those important favors are much easier to ask for.

Cadence is about being proactive. It’s about managing an account from top to bottom on a regular basis. It’s about avoiding the reactionary approach most account manager find themselves in. Cadence gives the customer and you a platform to manage everything and anything associated with the account in a effective, proactive, way.

A good cadence brings to life the vision, the plan and the relationships.

Previous Posts in Series: 

Part 1: Account Governance - [The Ultimate Sales Process]

Part 2: Account Governance - [Vision]   

Part 3: Account Governance - [Account Plans] 

Part 4: Account Governance - [Relationships]

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 client 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.

I get a lot of questions about building sales processes. It’s one of the things I most help companies develop. Sales process is often misunderstood. Most sales people and companies describe sales processes something like this:

Prospect>Qualifiy>Opportunity>Propose>Evaluation>Negotiate>Commitment>Closed/Won

The words can vary, but almost all sales processes or pipelines are linear and offer very little in the way of actually selling value.

Most sales processes are simple and clean phrases designed to tell management where a deal is in relation to closing.  What they should be is an outline of the specific steps, decisions, requirements and processes that are part of your customers buying process.  Every company, product and service is naturally bound to a buying process or a set of steps that are almost always present during the selling process.  A good example of this is the test drive.  If you are a car salesperson, what do you think the chances are you will sell a car without a test drive?  I suspect the probability is rather low.  Therefore, the test drive is a critical step in car selling, sales process.   Not understanding the importance of the test drive in evaluating the probability of selling a car is a huge handicap.   In the example above, where is the “test drive”  What stage should it be in?  Why?  Without the test drive specifically called out in the sales process the pipeline model above does very little to give context to the actual selling elements.

If you want to build a really good sales process, you have to understand how your customers buy.  You have to know what’s most important to them, how they evaluate new products and services, how and when they allocate budget, who needs to be involved, how decision are made, how terms and deals are negotiated, etc.  Knowing how the customer buys gives you the ability to map your sales process with the buying process of the prospects.

If you know that 80% of the time you sold your widget, you gave a demo, it was put in the customers lab, marketing had to sign off, and you had to get procurement to buy off, you have the beginning of your sales process.  These real world, buying triggers can now be put into a stage like above, taking a linear process and making it vertical as well.   Demo could be under “Qualify,” preventing any unqualified customer from moving to an opportunity that didn’t get a demo.  Lab implementation could be part of the evaluation phase. Marketing sign off could be in the propose phase.  Each phase consists of real world buying actions or triggers that outline HOW the actual buying steps prospects and customers take occur.

A well crafted sales process provides more insight about the customer than it does about your sales organization. It measures how well your sales organization is aligned with the buying habits of your customers. It prevents sales from selling the “wrong way” to the right people.

We’ve spent years with a narrow, introspective view of a sales processes.  They’ve been designed to help sales organizations get a handle on close rates, probabilities of close, forecasting etc.  The problem is, they rarely map to how the customer buys.  They haven’t aligned with the customers buying process. Customers buy the way they want. They have evaluation and decision processes. They have authority hierarchies. Therefore, to have a sales process that truly provides the accuracy and data to run an efficient sales organization, requires a sales process that looks exactly how your customers buy.

Know how you customer buys. It makes all the difference.