Key Account Management Program (KAM)

As you know, in enterprise market, 80 % of revenue comes from 20% of company’s customers.

So the company should allocate its resources according this percentage. (People-investment-marketing-) In some cases, like telecom or energy sector, one customer generate 90 % of the revenue. This means, an account manager or a team with managers should be very senior end experienced to manage this account.

What do you think? Do you need a key account program in your company? Do you need a key account manager in your company? If yes you should take this course.

In this video you will see the difference between traditional sales versus Key account sales.There is a shift from selling features and functions (transactional focus) to selling business value (strategic focus) From Account Selling to Key Account Management we need these 3 key success factors:

·OVERVIEW capability

Knowing why your customer is buying is more important than what you are selling, and creating a measurable improvement in your customer’s business with your solution.

·TEAMWORK management

Create an action plan with steps, resources, metrics, and milestones. This should be a program that is tough, thorough, and robust. It should follow directly from the previous analysis. The plan should have expected outcomes (volumes, likelihood) that can justify the investment of time and resources. Specify clearly what support or resources are needed from other departments in your company.

·INFLUENCE NETWORK establishment and development

To develop teamwork management:

·Leadership : Personal Behavior & Role

Identify their needs. Determine what each individual needs to make your product or service most buyable. Is it support? Resale amount and quickness? Lifetime value of a customer relationship? Price? Endorsements? Quick visits or lengthy talks? Often this will vary by individual.

·Project Management

Create an action plan with steps, resources, metrics, and milestones. This should be a program that is tough, thorough, and robust. The plan should have expected outcomes (volumes, likelihood) that can justify the investment of time and resources. Specify clearly what support or resources are needed from other departments in your company.

·Transverse View of Key Accounts

Looking from our side, and looking from customer side

Why to invest into this customer? Why to buy from us?

To develop an INFLUENCE Network

In this video we will Show you The Kam’s reference system and how it works.

First thing we should consider is:

Assessing and Monitoring Business Relationship

Building Relations ship matrix: we have to assign people from our organization to touch similar positions in our customer organization.

Understanding your customer’s financial and industry information is essential in aligning your solution with your customer’s business objectives. To do this you need:

·Highlighting company and industry trends that point to sales opportunities

·Identifying your customer’s measurement metrics and their financial requirements for making investments

·Defining your customer’s business objectives, challenges and competitive pressures

·Developing links between your company’s leaders and your customer’s business initiatives.

·Recognizing how opportunities and objectives may vary between different strategic business units.

In this video we will Show you how to design customer and our company’s organization relationship matrix.

To build mutual relations with the customer we need to specify related people with our solution within our customer:

Specifying top leaders at key levels
who will lead future projects

Who is spokesman, who is the decision maker, who is the approval authority, who is the technical user and requester, who will use this within the customer, who will influence buying decision within the customer.

In this video we will learn how and which data will be used for financial analysis of our customer.

Financial literacy is essential for any sales Professional who wants to successfully sell to executive-level buyers. This module is designed to help you understand a company’s financial statements and key business ratios. So at the end of this video you will have the ability to translate corporate financial data into business insight that identifies sales opportunities.

Income statement/statement of operations:

This data will Show what happened this year. Details revenue, expenses and resulting profit (loss) accumulated over a period of time, typically a fiscal year.

Balance sheet/statement of financial condition:

This data will Shows a snapshot of the company’s history. Details what the company owns (assets) and how they paid for them (liabilities and equity) as of a single point of time.

In this module we will analyze our customer’s business condition, its impact on the sales cycle and how to prioritize opportunities accordingly. We will analyze go to market strategy.

What is the customer’s mission?

A mission statement should
- contain the firm's objectives that enables progress to be measured
towards them
- differentiate the firm from other companies
- contain the business the company wants to be in
- be relevant to all stakeholders
- should be exciting and inspiring

How does the customer’s business evolve in the future?

What is the company’s positioning in the market place (competition, strategic alliances, mergers, ..)?

What are the real business priorities for the customer?

Strengths versus Weaknesses (internal)

Does we have the necessary competencies (internal resources) to succeed in business opportunities? What is our’s profile (strengths : weaknesses) in relation to competition ?

Opportunities versus Threats (external)
What environmental factors will affect our business ?
What is the competitive position of our company :
a) facing threats in the market and b) when discerning opportunities?

Your goal in an executive customer meeting is to demonstrate to the executive that you understand their business. Link your solutions to your customer’s business issues in a way that clearly shows its financial impact. Your solution must be positioned to positively change your customer’s business. Be sure to include an explanation of why you choose the metric you’re using and how you’re measuring the business impact.

So you have all information and questions ready, now select who will visit with whom and to who and will deliver which message. Good way to keep your manager informed about key accounts, and send as preparation for key account planning meeting.

Send as background information before your team resources call on your account. Step them through what this means and the specific kinds of questions you suggest they ask.

A good Key Account manager knows when and what amount of deal he/she will get. They use this formula for each key account, considering their proposal and the needs of their customer. They also rates the relations with their key customer’s executives. They can assess the customer whether they can pay for their solutions. Timing is also important for forecasting, will we get the deal this month or this quarter? Will they buy from us or our competitors,

The science of account management has four key elements: (1) profitability management; (2) account relationship selection; (3) product migration paths; and (4) account planning. With these four elements in place, plus aligned sales compensation, the sales process will produce great results.

Ask yourself life-long questions as: