Description

𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘

Picture the scene…

You have just asked one of your top account managers to meet you and walk you through their account plan for your most important customer.

You want to know what we know, what we don’t know, what we are planning to do and how we are going to achieve it.

Sounds like a simple ask right?

And now you stand back and watch as your account manager battles with half a dozen spreadsheets, a PowerPoint slide deck, an under utilised CRM System and overwhelmed email inbox.

Where is the information? What is the intelligence? Do we have the right SYSTEMS in place?

The role of technology is to SUPPORT the business, to make the life of an account manager more productive, more effective and ultimately more successful.

The benefit of all of that for business leaders is clear – more visibility, more accountability and more control for the trajectory of where your top accounts are heading.

My guest on this episode is Alex Raymond, CEO and founder of KAPTA, one of the world’s leading KAM Enablement tools. He’s joining us from Boulder, Colorado, across the pond in the States to discuss:

• What systems could we use, and should we have to support our teams in driving KAM success?
• Why the utilisation and adoption of new technology is woefully poor?
• And, ultimately ask ourself whether our systems support our success.

𝗛𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗦 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘: 

In a world where customers are easier to lose and harder to engage than ever before, it’s increasingly more important that we have the right systems in place to achieve consistency and visibility of our most important accounts.

In the future of account management, the winners will be able to answer 3 simple questions:

• Which of my customers are healthy and which are at risk?
• Do I have clear actionable plans to keep and grow my accounts?
• Are we doing a good job of measuring and communicating the value we provide to our customer?

With the use of technology, we can build an infrastructure to help get us there. Systems should be the support, the guide, the roadmap to success, to help us achieve trusted partner status, rather than ‘just another vendor’.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆?

Are your systems being used to full effect? - I strongly believe in the GIGO effect when it comes to sales enablement tools – garbage in, garbage out

Are your strategies supported by the systems or driven by them?

Alex shared with me his top 3 tips for being more effective at account management, all of which can achieved in a notepad or on a napkin, and can be even more effectively supported by the right systems:

1. Hone in on the customer’s goals when building an account plan – focus on building plans around what the CUSTOMER cares about.
2. Hold ‘Voice of customer’ interviews – where the mission is to understand THEIR WORLD not YOUR OPPORTUNITIES - packed with open-ended, future-looking, strategic questions. Get the customer talking about themselves.
3. Build a SWOT analysis – be thoughtful and objective and reflective. Remember to collaborate with team members to challenge perspective and understanding.

Fantastic value packed episode. Be sure to listen.

𝗞𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗥 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗦𝗘𝗚𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧:

In each episode we ask you, our listener, a killer question that is designed to get you reflecting on your business, your KAM Culture and where changes in thinking and behaviour could lead to increased customer success.

In this episode we asked Alex to give us his killer question which was:

“If we were looking out at a time in the future (say 2 or 3 years): do you know why your biggest customer stayed with you in that period of...