Strategic Account Management & Planning

"Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan." - Tom Landry, NFL football coach.

Strategic Account Management and Planning is a concept large corporations use to zero in on decision makers at high-profile companies with whom the organization is interested in doing business. This process of planning and managing key accounts enables companies to build strong, productive ties to their most valuable targets/clients.

Strategic Account Managers: This approach requires a sales team to transform into strategic account managers. Salespeople typically need additional training to acquire the skills they need to successfully manage accounts. Strategic account managers must be visible, have senior level leadership abilities, and be able to direct the company's response to selling or service delivery opportunities. These situations require Strategic Account Managers to sell both internally to these cross-functional teams and externally to senior-level clients.

Senior-level buyers have a different perspective to the buying process than lower level contacts. Your Strategic Account Managers must build credibility and understand executive issues and values to be able to sell to senior-level contacts.

Strategic Account Planning: Questions to consider when determining if an account should be considered a strategic account:

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  What are the keys to getting in the game?


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  What is the potential for doing busienss with this buyer?


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  Are we equipped to handle this level of selling?


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  What will it take to get us there?

Strategic accounts are targeted as follows:

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  Size of company


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  Demand for your type of product across multiple lines of business


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  Large global footprint


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  Financially healthy


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  Executive sponsorship

Each Strategic Account Manager must evaluate each account's long-term revenue potential, as well as strategic importance. This way, you can invest the right level of resources to serve them profitably.

Each account plan requires a significant amount of homework including:

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  Research background and overall strategy


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  Identify key business issues


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  Research overall company direction


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  Build and know the org chart


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  Determine opportunities to make executive-level contacts and touch points at every decision-making level with each department within the buyer's organization for which your products or services are a fit


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  Understand how your value proposition provides a perfect fit for their business


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  Determine high level tasks and activities


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  Track progress – how many opportunities in the pipeline


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  Measure progress against plan goals - how many real sales and in what timeframe

Account Plans contain the overall objectives such as revenue targets, account goals, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis. Strategic Account Managers must define how they plan to achieve their revenue targets and allocate them appropriately by division/department for each account. Account plans should:

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  Define goals and qualitative objectives for each account


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  Align account goals and compensation with corporate objectives


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  Identify critical success factors for reaching goals


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  Outline the value proposition required to meet the customers’ needs

Strategic Account Management and Planning is not just for the big guys. Even the smallest company will benefit from strategies for finding and servicing key accounts. Take the time to plan for the big game, and you will see your efforts pay off on the bottom line.

Are You Ready to Win?

Identifying Prospects - Knowing Where to Win

“The harder I practice, the luckier I get.” Gary Player, South African Champion Golfer

One of the first and most important keys to successful selling is identifying and qualifying prospects. It’s well worth your time to search out and pursue prospects who have a high likelihood of buying your product. The more calls you make to people who have a need for what you’re selling, the more often you will convert those calls to paying customers.

Assess your product – Know what you’re selling, what it costs, and how it can help your prospects. Start thinking about who is in a position to buy that product. If it costs $10,000, don’t pursue clients who have a $5,000 budget.

Ask questions. Determine what your client needs and wants. If they want pizzas, don’t try to sell them caviar. If you sell caviar, look for places where there are likely to be people to buy caviar. If you have a broad range of products or services, take time to zero in on what your prospect feels will fill their needs. If you sell pizza and caviar and your prospect wants pizza, sell them pizza. Maybe you can interest them in extra toppings, but don’t waste your time asking them to buy caviar if that isn’t what they want.

Go where the good prospects are. Join networking groups where there will be people who need your product. Professional associations, leads clubs, chambers of commerce, all of these are excellent resources for meeting new people and potential clients. The more specific the association is to your ideal client type, the more likely you will make contacts that are useful.

Check the competition. Who are your competitor’s clients? Are they buying what you’re selling, but not from you? Maybe you can offer a better deal or a more customized product. Study what’s selling at other companies and consider how you can distinguish your product in the marketplace.

Research other available data. The internet is an amazing resource that can provide you with lists of companies that are in your industry, are of the size range you market to, are in your geographic area, or match up to some other indicator of being an ideal prospect. Spend time daily reading blogs or annual reports to learn more about your target market.

Referrals, referrals, referrals. The best way, hands down, to identify a prospect is for someone to refer you. If you have good relationships with your clients, ask them for referrals and ask them often. You will be surprised at how many times your clients know people who can use your product or service. With a referral, your client has laid the groundwork that gives you an automatic edge. Your client has, in essence, prequalified the prospect for you.

By taking a little time to research and focus your efforts on reaching out to the right people, your sales efforts will be more productive and profitable. And you will be winning the game of sales.

Are you ready to win?

Stamp Out Cold Calling & Make Sales Fun

“Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries.” The theory was first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called "Chains."

Use this theory to turn any cold call into a hot one. Create a relationship map and odds are that you know someone who knows someone who works at the company you are targeting. Look at your contact list of co-workers, friends, neighbors, your kids friends parents, it’s amazing how once you start a conversation with someone, there always seems to be a connection to another person you both know.

When we eliminate cold calling from the selling process, the process becomes very enjoyable. The difference between a “cold” call and a “hot” call, is that with a “hot” call, you’ve done your homework, you are well prepared, you have a connection and a great attitude about having a conversation that will thrill the person you are calling. They are thrilled because you are offering them a product, service or solution that provides a tremendous amount of help and value. They feel you see the world through their eyes and that you really understand them. Once you make that connection, selling is fun.

Successful selling is a series of conversations you initiate in which you help shape how a situation occurs to the buyer. You carefully select the language that will help steer the conversation in a way that keeps the focus on the other persons needs, desires and intentions. The more you can relate to the person through your research and getting a good referral, the better you can help build a solution that improves their lives.

Once you follow up and follow through on your promises, create a healthy urgency for your product offering and provide a solution that thrills them, they will buy from you. Once they’ve received the solutions you’ve co-developed, they will continue to buy from you and refer their friends as well. The connection, and the ongoing referrals will keep you from ever having to cold call again and make the selling process fun!

Are you ready to win?

Cold Calling 2 Win

“My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging." - Hank Aaron - American Baseball Player

Successful cold calling is dependent on your getting-started attitude. The law of large numbers says, the more "no's" you get out of the way, the closer you are to getting to "yes!" The best way to succeed is to be prepared and to keep swinging.

There are four basic elements to an effective cold calling campaign:

1. Qualify your prospects: Begin with a list and qualify your prospects; make sure this list includes businesses that need your products or services and can afford to buy them. Attain key contacts who can make buying decisions.


2. Be prepared: Do your homework on the company and the industry. Know their key competitors and research some best practices that can add value to their business. Then create a script with which you feel comfortable and include a brief introduction and an interesting third party story about a company similar to theirs who is already using your products or services.


3. Turn cold calls into warm calls: Do a relationship map and find someone in your company or at another client’s organization who may know the prospect. Get a referral and find commonality. When you have common ground, you know the same people, or you can talk about something you know interests them, people are more warmed up to the call. Approach them on neutral turf by attending networking events or trade shows where they may be present. Find out if your prospect plans to attend and make it a point to run into them. Provide some value: give them a free assessment or a promotional item that would be of great interest to the buyer, something that will catch their attention.


4. Follow up: Timing is very important, don’t let too much time pass between that first meeting and your next phone call. Follow up when you said you would, but don't flood their machine with messages. Keep calling until they answer the phone. When you want to schedule an appointment, offer a specific time; don’t leave it open-ended. Ask for only 10 minutes of time to make your pitch. People are very busy, and your call was likely an unplanned interruption. Make it short and sweet and show them you respect their time. During the conversation, find their “hot buttons.” Continue to schedule future brief conversations so they feel they know you, find value in your product and are ready to buy.

Once you’ve got them on the phone and they are intrigued, remember the 80/20 rule. Listen 80% of the time and speak only 20% of the time. People want to buy from people who they feel understand them, their issues and can provide value. They love to speak about themselves, so give them plenty of opportunity. Ask key questions that will reveal how they like to buy and show them how your product fits those specific needs. Keep swinging, and before you know it, you'll have a growing list of paying customers, and that is a recipe for winning.

Are you ready to win?

Sales & Marketing, The Heartbeat of Business

“You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.” Joe Paterno, Head Football Coach, Penn State University.

Never stop selling. Selling is the heartbeat of your business. If you stop selling your company will flat line.

There are four basic elements, or consistent action steps, of marketing and sales:

1. Create A Marketing Network: Create opportunities to meet new people. You have to have a system in place to create enough opportunities for making sales. Anyone can make lots of sales if they have lots of opportunities for sales. Your system might include monthly chamber of commerce meetings or leads clubs. You should also be asking for referrals all the time.

2. Create A Sales Plan: The sales plan is really a schedule for sales activities. Schedule time for phone calling each week. Schedule time for networking groups, for getting referrals. Put these activities in your calendar and stick to it! Create measurements of performance for your sales efforts - how many calls, how many new leads, how many new clients, and how many actual sales you need on a weekly basis. Have a system for reporting these results to a sales manager or business coach.

3. Selling: You must spend time engaged in the act of selling. You have scheduled the time to sell and you must follow through. You have to be having conversations with current and potential clients every week if you want to sell anything. Most importantly, you want to be having conversations with people who have the potential of buying your product.

4. Your Unique Sales Approach : What is your commitment to your customer? What makes you different from your competition? How are you going to deliver your service? All these things need to be part of your marketing and sales plan. You must distinguish yourself to the customer in order to develop a relationship that will lead to sales.

If you want to learn more about how to craft a sales and marketing plan, listen to Consulting2Win Radio where we discuss this and other important business techniques every Wednesday from 11:00 am to 12:00 noon PST.

Are you ready to win?