Welcome to SMART Tips for October 2004, the Bristol Strategy Group newsletter. This month we concentrate on Strategic Account Management. Strategic Account Management is our core philosophy. We believe that a strategic relationship with the customer produces better business. It means better business relationships, regardless of the kind of business you run, or its size. Strategic Account Management has powerful implications for the non-profit world as well.
From Selling to Strategic Account Managemento:p>
Whether your business is big or small, selling products, services or both, it’s a given that the largest portion of your income comes from the smallest portion of your customers. So holding on to those accounts, expanding your relationship with them, and finding others like them ought to be at the top of your sales agenda. The strategic approach requires effort, but it pays off in greater profitability, long-term customer retention, greater share of wallet, and higher barriers to the competition. Results like that are just as important to small and service-oriented businesses as they are to the Global 100.
Who Will Benefit?
Strategic Account Management is valuable for any business that serves clients with strategic importance to the sales organization. For major corporations, a Strategic Account Management program may include hundreds of sales professionals, service technicians, and other executives, all dedicated to securing and managing major, national or global accounts. They systematically develop high-level partnerships, manage pricing and service levels across borders, and so forth. It is no different for a small business. In fact, because smaller businesses have fewer resources to invest in selling, it is even more important for them to adopt a Strategic Account Management philosophy. Whenever a small group of accounts produces significant annual revenue and commands a significant share of sales and service resources, then you manage strategic accounts, even if your clients are other small businesses.
Here are four simple tips about managing your sales from a strategic perspective.
Tip #1: Relationship Before Sale. Strategic Account Management is about creating a mutually beneficial relationship. It's not about the next purchase order. Manage the relationship and revenue and profit will follow.
Tip #2: Buyer’s Needs Before Seller’s. Strategic Account Management is about creating value for the customer, not winning the incentive trip or pushing the “product du jour.” Broaden your understanding of the customer’s business, market, and competitive issues. Learn what problems your customers needs to solve, and solve them.
Tip #3: Long-Term Not Short-Term. Strategic Account Management has an impact on the long-term future of the account relationship and therefore of both companies. It’s not a quick fix, and it won’t rescue you before the end of the quarter. What it will do is give both parties more reasons to stay in the game with each other, longer.
Tip #4: Results Not Activity. Tactical selling is based on activity levels, the higher the better. Strategic Account Management prizes results. Define the results desired by both buyer and seller, and then you have a set of powerful performance metrics that will guide the process and give excellent feedback to the relationship-management team.
Strategic Account Management is a business philosophy. It elevates the sales function, integrates it tightly into the heart of the business, and has long-term impact on profitability, competitive advantage, and employee satisfaction. Our flagship sales methodology, Selling the SMART Way®, can help you transform your sales department into a strategic account management function that produces consistent, predictable growth.
For Your Next Sales Meeting…
Can you define the characteristics of your strategic accounts? Visit the Sales Resources section of our website and download the template called Major Account Criteria. Use this template as a topic of discussion at your next sales meeting. The first step in transforming Sales into Strategic Account Management is to define the characteristics of the major or strategic account.
Selling the SMART Way® Winter Seminar Schedule
Put the power of Strategic Account Management to work. Our powerful Sales Strategy Clinic is a two-day workshop for serious, committed professionals who are ready to define critical performance benchmarks and metrics, and develop reporting tools to manage performance for continuous improvement. The next clinic will take place on January 21-22, 2005 in the greater Miami area (hotel location to be announced soon). This is a great way for individual sales professionals and executives to evaluate the program, and for small-business principals to experience the power of the SMART Way model at an affordable price. Register before December 15, and receive two complementary coaching sessions following the workshop, to assist you in implementing the SMART Way at your company.
Other Sales Resources
The Myth-Busters Power Pack:
Make your selling more strategic, more efficient, more productive and more powerful. Get your copy of our Five Myths program, including:
§ Selling Made Simple: Five Myths that Slow Down Sales and How to Avoid Them. 40-minute audio CD.
§ The Myth-Busters Handbook: How to Identify and Eliminate the Five Myths that Slow Down Sales. 22-page e-book.
The Myth-Busters Power Pack is available on our website for a special package price of only $22.95, half off the regular price ($45) if you bought the items separately.
Sales Training for Nonprofits
Bristol Strategy Group now provides services to the nonprofit sector. Fundraising, the nonprofit equivalent of the sales effort, is an ongoing challenge for all nonprofit organizations. And just like for-profit selling, the nonprofit fundraising team benefits from an orderly, systematic, and strategic approach to raising revenues. Visit our website for information on our newest SMART Way program "Selling the SMART Way for Nonprofits" and to learn more about our other nonprofit consulting services.
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