Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

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By Gary Peacock

Are you interested in improving your Strategic Account Management?

Yes, you are interested in Strategic Account Management. So, then you start to browse the internet and look at websites and potential companies to work with. Companies to improve your current processes or to implement a new process. Beware of companies who I would describe as wolves in sheep’s clothing.

"Well, wolves will pretty rarely hunt. You're vulnerable if you're on your own or injured."

Bear Grylls

 So, what does a wolf in sheep’s clothing look like? Well these are companies whose products and services are just to sell products and services.  In short, they are sales training companies who have changed the titles of their workshops and consulting, from sales to Strategic Account Management. Simply renaming their services to take advantage of an opportunity in the marketplace.

If someone from one of these companies was beside me as I write this blog, they would argue with me. Typically, they would say “Gary, the skills of selling are useful in Strategic Account Management.  That’s why we can offer services to help our customers with Strategic Account Management.”

There is a nugget of truth in this argument. Part of Strategic Account Management is selling your ideas to your strategic accounts and selling your ideas to your organisation to get resources for your strategic account. So, some selling techniques are useful, for example asking good questions and building credibility with the person you are trying to sell an idea to.

However their approach is simply using selling techniques under a new name. This flaw is serious but not fatal. However, there is one fatal flaw to buying from a wolf in sheep’s clothing. When you examine their approach carefully, you will see they frequently set sales targets for products.  Also, they frequently talk about products and pitching products. So, their approach is simply high level sales training to sell more products. In short, “this is how you get access to the CEO level to sell more products or a bigger bundle of products”. This is not Strategic Account Management. This will not create more strategic relationships. Typically, a competitor will come in with a bigger discount or bigger rebate at the end of the contract period. So, you can lock in a strategic customer for a while. But competitors can and will be able to wrestle the customer from you.

So, if this is not Strategic Account Management, what is? Well the answer is surprisingly simple. Strategic Account Management is a process not designed to sell more products but to improve the business results of your strategic customers. Just so we are clear, it is not about more sales of your products and it is about more results for your customer.

The most successful Strategic Account Programs are built on this foundation. To build a deep strategic relationship, you need to invest in improving your strategic customer’s results. If you do this for 12 to 18 months and do not gain an obvious benefit from the work you do, it transforms the relationship. Working on improving their business results creates a deep strategic relationship that competitors cannot easily break with bigger discounts or bigger rebates.  This transforms the relationship because the customers view changes:

• From “ I think this is just a new technique to sell me more products”
• To “I think this supplier is serious about helping me improve my business results in ways that are not just going to increase their sales. I wonder if they can help me with…”

Perhaps this can be summed up best by quoting part of a conversation between a customer and a strategic supplier at a dinner attended by executives from the two companies.

“We see you as a partner not just a preferred supplier.”

“What’s the difference?”

“With preferred suppliers we meet with them long enough to get the biggest discounts. With a partner like you, our executives share our business problems and opportunities with your executives. Then we listen to your market knowledge and work with you on your ideas for new businesses to create more revenue and profit for us.”   

If you want to be like this company and transform your relationships into strategic relationships, beware wolves in sheep’s clothing. To find out more about Strategic Account Management click this link: http://www.gordianbusiness.com.au/strategic-account-management/

"That strong mother doesn't tell her cub, Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you.
She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in."

Lauryn Hill

We would love to hear your views so please add your comments below and subscribe to our blog at the top right of the page. Or contact us to discuss how we can help on +61 (02) 9450 1140 or email gary@gordianbusiness.com.au

How can you add value for your customers?

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By Peter Browne

Post-Election 2013 – are you match-fit for the opportunities ahead?

 "The key here is to understand that a value proposition is not merely a product or service; it includes the entire customer experience."

Fred Reichheld

Heading into the election, the economy was by far the most important issue for voters.

In the New Year we described 2013 as a year for “Focus, Persistence and Discipline”. It has certainly lived up to those expectations. Even before the election was announced, Australian business leaders had expected weaker business conditions in 2013. Pre-election uncertainty feed a reluctance to commit to longer-term business plans and a lack of investment worsened an already stagnant environment.

The vote over the weekend to install the Liberal Party signals the end of an intense period of politicking that has been an unwelcome distraction. Much of the uncertainty has plagued decision making across industries. The election outcome should help remove much of this uncertainty and allow companies to focus on the year ahead with greater confidence.

The new government needs to urgently get on with business to lead Australia through a raft of challenges: structural change across industries, a weak domestic outlook, declining global competitiveness and a patchy global economy.

For business leaders, this lull has forced companies to re-focus: to review their business models, their markets, customers and costs.  Now is the time to re-position for growth. We have adjusted to do less with less, now we must prepare to do more with less until sustained growth is certain, and ask two questions:

“How can we sell more of our current products and services to our current customers, with the same resources?”

“How can I grow my customer base without adding resources?”

One proven way to achieve these outcomes is to offer more value. Offering more value is seen in the following short video from John Fahey, CEO of National Geographic. John discusses the changing face of value and the need to understand customers more deeply than ever before.

 http://bit.ly/15oNHRP

We would love to hear your views so please add your comments below and subscribe to our blog at the top right of the page.

If you are struggling to identify ways to offer greater value to current and prospective customers please contact us to discuss how we can help on +61 (0)2 9450 1040 or email peter@gordianbusiness.com.au

Are your Account Plans strategic? – take our 5 question test

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By Peter Browne

Are your account plans as strategic as you think?

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

 Sun Tzu

Senior executives must juggle many balls. They must strike the right balance between focusing on long-term and short-term objectives. Fail on the short-term and you are out of a job; fail on the long-term and you might not have a business. Because key accounts drive both short and long-term revenue and profit, one litmus test of how well senior executives are directing the business to achieve the right balance is to see what is included in strategic account plans.

Including the word “strategic” implies a longer timeframe and matters of significance. To test if you are working at the strategic level with your key accounts take this quick 5 question test:

1. Does your account plan include actions to increase your understanding of your account’s strategic priorities?
2. Does your account plan include initiatives that go beyond this financial year?
3. Does your account plan include actions that will broaden and deepen relationships with your account?
4. Does your account plan include initiatives that are beyond your products and services?
5. Does your account plan identify your account’s strategic problems, and initiatives to help solve them?

If you are serious about creating strategic relationships with your key accounts; increasing barriers to entry against competitors; and barriers to exit for your key accounts, you should score 5 out of 5 for these questions. If you did not score 5 out of 5, then you need to identify the problem. Are you too focused on the short-term? Does the account team still require development to think and act strategically?

In our experience most “strategic” account plans are operational and short-term. Businesses too often focus on winning sales at the expense of building truly strategic relationships. Account teams find it hard to manage the internal pressure for short-term results.

So make sure the accounts plans for strategic accounts include short and long-term activities; and activities that create value for both you and your strategic account.

We would love to hear your views so please add your comments below and subscribe to our blog at the top right of the page.

If you are struggling to make the shift from traditional account management to strategic account management please contact us to discuss how we can help on +61 (02) 9450 1140 or email peter@gordianbusiness.com.au

Is your sales development investment targeting the right problem?

Google

By Peter Browne

Are you serious about creating an account team that can think and act strategically? Or are you doing the same things as your competitors each year, and making no meaningful progress?

Based on a recent survey by Executive Conversation it seems the latter is the case for most companies.

The June 2103 survey found “understanding customers’ business needs” was the most important issue for companies. It also found that training on financial acumen and selling to customer executives were also of high importance.

Yet when you look where companies are investing their development dollar, there is little reason to be confident much progress will be made in any of these areas.

Currently almost 90% of companies include training on products and services in their sales development programs. And despite the fact that respondents rated their team’s product and service knowledge as excellent or above average, they plan to continue to dedicate the highest percentage of their sales development investment to more product training.

This illogical situation does not surprise us.

In our work across many companies and industries time and time again we see the same problems. The account team are so focused on selling products and hitting their targets that they spend no time trying to understand the customer’s business needs; they have poor financial acumen so lack confidence when conversing with senior executives. So, it is blatantly obvious why account managers struggle to sell to customers executives.

Today’s fast paced and resource constrained business environment has changed the game for account managers. Senior executives expect key suppliers to understand their business and they expect you to do your own homework. So when you are given the chance to meet with or present to them, they expect you to understand their business, your business and engage in language they understand – financial language. If you fail on any of these points good luck getting in to meet with them again.

Companies that are serious about changing the way they work with their key customers, and build more strategic relationships must get off the “product training drug”. They must equip their account team with the skills and processes to understand their accounts more deeply, and understand and convey value in business language.

So if you want to stop banging your head against the wall, do something different this year with your team to change the way you work with your key accounts. Based on the evidence you will be one of the few.

For help in changing the way you work with your key accounts call us on +61 2 9450 1040. Please share any thoughts you have on this below and subscribe to our blog using the RSS feed at the top right of the page.

Getting Past No

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By Gary Peacock

Are you facing some of your toughest negotiations? Are you constantly being asked to drop your prices? Are you finding it ever more difficult to get past “No”?

As business conditions remain tough, some of our negotiations get tougher. Our competitors are hungry for business and will aggressively drop their prices. So, more often we will face customers saying NO.

Some businesses will immediately drop their prices. This reminds me of a story told in Gavin Kennedy’s amusing and excellent introductory book ‘Everything is Negotiable’, originally published in 1982 and still in print. Explorers on a sled in the arctic are being chased by wolves and they decide to throw the wolves an Elk steak to stop them chasing the sled.  When they throw the elk steak, the wolves stop to eat it. The explorers think that has solved their problem. However, 30 minutes later the wolves are back chasing the sled even more enthusiastically.

In business, if at the first no from a customer we drop our price then we simply teach them to say no more often. Just like the wolves, they will be chasing our sled again looking for more Elk steaks, more drops in price.

We will talk in another post about the importance in presenting our value in ways to prevent price objections, in this post we will suggest a question that can broaden the range of negotiating variables beyond simply price.

A very powerful question to ask is; under what circumstances could you accept our offer? Typically, the first response of a customer is to say “only if you lower your price”. So, be ready with the amended question; Apart from price, under what circumstances could you accept our offer?

What else could you include in the package that would be of value to them to accept your price?  Expect the customer to go quiet, that’s the sign of a good question; they are thinking.

Be prepared to challenge them; is there nothing else we could do or add into the package? Sometimes they will say, you probably could not do this but if you could include X then we might be able to accept your price.

This question can transform the negotiation: from haggling on price to finding other sources of value for your customer; from fighting to finding joint value. For help in showing your customers the value of your proposition then call us on +61 2 9450 1040. Please share any thoughts you have on this below and subscribe to our blog using the RSS feed at the top right of the page.