Why is it that when customers blame us for something going wrong, we are quick to blame others, especially in larger organizations?

“We passed the order to Department X weeks ago; I do not know what they have done with it.” (You know very well it is still in your in-tray!) Customers see through these feeble excuses and are not impressed.

Why do we do things like this? Here are a few justifications:

• Department X is always making mistakes; attributing one more to them won’t make any difference.
• There is a particular person in Department X you do not like.
• No one will find out whether Department X is to blame or not.
• They have blamed your department often enough.
• They always beat your staff at the annual bowling challenge.

Two-Way Process:

Lack of communication between departments is often cited as the reason for poor working relationships.

“They never tell us anything” is a frequent cry.

Communication is a two-way process. The most efficient of systems will not be effective if people don’t read their messages, look at the notice boards, log on to their computers, check their voice mail or pay attention at meetings.

Getting people to sign memos provides only proof of receipt, not evidence that they’ve actually read the information. They need to want to know what’s going on.

Low morale and a critical and suspicious environment will prompt employees to see customers as a nuisance and not the lifeblood of the business. Every employee needs to appreciate that they contribute to customer satisfaction, even if they are working behind the scenes, e.g., maintenance, cleaning, refuse collection, etc. They deserve to be kept informed!

Insecurity Creates Conflict:

Another cause of internal conflict is insecurity: downsizing, management restructuring, fast-talking business consultants, threat of job loss, short-term contracts — all might trigger a loss of pride in the job and a could-not-care-less attitude. Customers become anxious and take their business elsewhere.

Insecurity manifests itself in a number of behaviors:

• Gossip and back-stabbing
• Shifting blame
• Increase in absenteeism due to stress
• Constant moaning and whining
• Negative thinking

In this environment, it is likely that customer complaints will increase. It is essential to keep the customer at the center of everything you do, no matter what is going on behind the scenes. Without customers, you do not have a job.

Taking Action

Managers need to be very observant when employees are showing signs of dissatisfaction. Early identification of problems is the key to a successful solution.

Look out for:

• Deadlines not met
• Increase in illness
• Poor-quality work
• Bad atmospheres
• Arguments

How To Address Employee Dissatisfaction

• Ask questions in a confidential manner
• Reassure; calm fears
• Praise, encourage
• Don’t blame or challenge
• Involve people
• Motivate, reward

Multi-Skilling & Interdepartmental Working:

Conflict also arises through ignorance. Giving people the opportunity to learn about the work of others and equipping them with new skills helps dispel fears, boost confidence and motivate. It also takes people out of their enclosed worlds of Accounts or the Mail Room and gives them the bigger picture.

Many complaints arise because staff feel they are expected to do a job without any training. Allowing them to attend courses out of the workplace is very beneficial. It gives them the opportunity to network with others, revitalize their ideas, and acquire new skills. Hopefully they will come back and think, “This is not such a bad place after all.”

In any business, we are all customers of each other. Unless we get the internal customer service right, it will not extend naturally to external customers. Remember, we are all working for a common aim: customer satisfaction.

Many years ago, I realised that my organisation like most others, occasionally suffered what is commonly known as “The Peak And Trough Syndrome” or more usually, “Feast And Famine”.

However, me being me, rather than blithely just sit back and accept it as a fact of commercial life, I determined to challenge it and front it head-on – this is what I came up with:

The Sales Cabinet concept is a sophisticated process for analysing, planning, directing, and monitoring the activity of a sales team.

It is an essential tool for setting sales policies and the management, at whatever level, of a sales team, if not every sales call produces an order and there is a time lag between the first contact with a potential customer and that company placing an order. SC is also a valuable tool for marketing and business development personnel.

The Dimensions of Sales Cabinet:

Sales Cabinet is an imaginery four drawer filing cabinet and each drawer represents not only a stage in the buying cycle, but also the critical tasks a sales team should be performing if they are operating in a “balanced” mode. The aim is to elevate as many of the inhabitants of the bottom drawer up to the top drawer as possible, whilst continually finding replacements for them.

The Buying Drawers:

We have two buying drawers, the top two. In the very top one, we keep our long term stable partners. We might well have preferred supplier agreements with them or a clearly defined and established purchasing history.

In the second drawer, we place the less well established clients, the occasional buyers or the one off buyers. A great deal of purposeful, strategic, objective-based selling can and should be done within these two drawers.

In the precarious second drawer of the cabinet, every piece of business has to be fought for and often secured through sacrificing margin. Whereas in the secure environment of the top drawer, the inhabitants respect the added value we bring to the relationship and seek stability and value for money, rather than lowest price. However, developing and promoting Drawer Two occupants has obvious benefits to the growth and profitability prospects of the Company.

The Working Drawer:

In Drawer Three, we keep our prospects, potential customers who we have visited and qualified, but have yet to win the first order. Though this is a crucial part of the development of an ideal customer base, sales work in the Working Drawer is, in general terms, the least cost effective unless rigorous qualification processes are followed.

Its importance and its costs make it, therefore, yet another important focus for the Sales Manager. What can we do to heighten our success with a major sales opportunity? When are we best to back off? How can we capture big opportunities more quickly? Etc.

The Marketing Drawer:

Drawer Four, is where we keep our suspects, those potential opportunities identified but not yet visited or qualified. As with most things in life, the more work that is put into the preparation phase of the sales process, the less effort will be wasted in the long-term. The selection of the right opportunities from the market place can ensure better sales, better profits and can reduce the cost of the sales work.

Selection criteria have to be established and graduated by experienced sales personnel. Once in operation and proven, their continued use can be maintained by other members of the organisation who will develop, to a much higher level, the specific skills needed. Banks of qualified prospects can be built up if appropriate – ready for a concerted attack on a targeted part of the market place.

Summary:

When I first designed Sales Cabinet, I realised just how important it is that balance be maintained between the four drawers (where market conditions permit). Excessive top drawer activity will constrain the growth of the business into those areas that are identified as the opportunities of the future. It is also a symptom that the organisation has got itself into a rut or a ‘comfort zone’, that the communication of policy is poor, that management is not controlling the work, or that people lack the confidence to tackle new areas (or a combination of all of them).

 Too much emphasis on the bottom two drawers is inefficient and will dramatically reduce the potential for growth, will increase the cost of sales unnecessarily and could well lower the reputation of the Company.

Sales Cabinet has since been successfully implemented by thousands of companies around the world – it works!

The JF Guest Author Spot

Dave Stein

Over and over I’ve read and heard sales experts say that, “It doesn’t matter which sales approach or methodology you use, as long as every salesperson in the company uses it.”  This myth has been around for decades.  Don’t believe it.  It just isn’t true.

When ESR does postmortems on failed sales training initiatives, we often find a significant mismatch between the client’s sales performance improvement requirements and the vendor’s capabilities.  That’s not the only reason that these initiatives fail, but it’s a common one.  If you have a whole sales team following the same process, but that process doesn’t match customer buying patterns and preferences, for example, you’re not going to get very far at all.

Here are some of the reasons companies wind up with the wrong training company for their needs:

They hire a training company based on brand recognition only, without doing a deep dive into the vendor’s capabilities.  Although millions swear by Coca-Cola, it isn’t the right drink for everyone, is it?  Neither is Pepsi.

They engage with a training provider with whom they have worked in the past, even though their present company’s situation is very different.  I used to get my car serviced at the Jeep dealership.  I no longer have a Jeep.  Should I bring my Prius there?  Do they understand the design and functions of a hybrid car?

They get a referral from colleague (or a suggestion in a comment to a LinkedIn group query).  The friend’s company is in a different market, selling different products to different customers, but they hire the trainer anyway.

They hire a company that has the hottest new approach, or a trainer who wrote a book with what is purported to be a brand-new solution to what the company believes its problem is.  Wasn’t it Los Del Rio that gave us the Macarena in 1996?  Hmmm.

They attend a promotional event (webinar, sales leaders’ conference, or public training event) and are impressed with the passion, quality and unbelievably deep insights of the trainer, so they hire him or her.  Ron Popeil was brilliant, but I wouldn’t have hired him to train my sales team. (You’ve got to read the essay on him in Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw.)

They search the Internet to find a trainer whose offerings are appealing based upon what is represented on the trainer’s website.  Maybe it’s all true.  Maybe it isn’t.  Maybe it’s what the company needs.  Maybe it isn’t.  Rolling the dice on a career doesn’t make sense to me.

Dave Stein is the founder and CEO of ES Research, an organization that provides on-line, membership-based analyses of, and recommendations about, the sales training and sales performance and consulting marketplace and the companies that serve it.

He also writes a very popular and relevant blog

The JF Guest Author Spot

Dave Brock

 Last week, I wrote about inspirational customer service.  This weekend, the pendulum swung to the other extreme.  I went out looking for new cars.  No blog is long enough to contain my rant on how disfunctional the process of buying a car is, so I won’t go through the whole thing, but focus on a few low points-and not the lowest, I have to keep this reasonably civil.

On Saturday, I went to look for a new car, I had settled on 4 different models, done my research, knew what I wanted in each and what a fair price might be.

The first dealer, things started out great, he asked me what I wanted, showed me the car, answered all my questions expertly, then we start talking about the deal.  Some manager, I hadn’t met, comes in to take over.  He starts with “Are you committed to buying this car?”  I was a little surprised, responded, “I’m interested enough to ask you to give me a serious proposal on what it would cost to get this car.”  I had hoped he would read that signal and present me a price.  His response, instead, was, “It doesn’t make sense for us to present a price until we know you are serious.”  At this point, I’m starting to get a little angry (Why should buying a $100K car make me angry?).  As calmly as I could, I responded, “I’ve come into your dealership and invested my time tying to buy a car.   The lease on my current car is ending, I need a new car.  I’ve told you exactly what I want, you have a car I like, now isn’t it reasonable for you to tell me how much it will cost?”  I went on, “My time is valuable as is yours, I don’t want to waste it, so let’s try to get to your best offer as quickly as possible.”  Well, he read my signals and said, “OK, I respect this, let me give you the best deal, we want you as a customer.  Here’s what we can do….”  I said, “Clearly, you must understand I’ve done a lot of research on the internet.  This price is far above what the a good price is.  If this is your best deal, I’m not sure it makes sense.”  His response was, “Well we can do better on it, but we need to know that you are serious about buying the car.”  I said, “How could I be any more serious than sitting here right now trying to understand what you are going to sell the car to me for?  Thank you for your time, I take it this is your best offer, I am considering some other models, I will get back to you later.”  “But Mr. Brock, please give me a chance…..”  “I thought I was giving you a chance, I’m interested in buying this car, but I don’t know what the price is, I keep asking you, but you seem reluctant to answer my question, what am I missing?”

It couldn’t get worse than that.  I went to the second dealership, after the test drive and the initial stuff, we went to the sales person’s office.  I sat down, without a word, he walked out….OK I thought, he needs to get something….15 minutes later…I’d finished my obligatory bottle of water, I went to another sales person, “I seem to have lost my sales person, could you find him, I’d like to talk about buying a car.”  5 minutes later, he returns, I’ve found the perfect car for you.  It’s got $10K more in features than I had asked for, I asked him what the features were, he refused to tell me, instead he said, “The features aren’t important, let’s talk about the deal.”  “But, but…I’d really like to know about those features, I’m not sure I want them, I don’t know why I should buy a car with features I don’t want.”  “Don’t worry about that Dave, here’s the deal……”  At that point I apologize, “I’m sorry, clearly you don’t want to sell me what I want, thank you for your time.”  I stood up and walked out.  All of a sudden the sales manager comes up to me asking if he can help.  “I responded, I have another appointment I have to be at, I sat 20 minutes waiting, your sales person won’t present me the car I want, I’m not sure you can.  You have my email, if you want, you can email me an offer on the car I want to buy, that you have in stock.”

The other two dealers weren’t any better, fortunately they weren’t worse.  I’d spent an entire day, talking to people who were selling me what they wanted to sell, not what I wanted to buy.  I spent the entire day telling people I needed to make a decision on a car within a few days, the lease on my current car was ending.  I tried to explaing that I had done my homework, I wasn’t necessarily looking for the “best deal” just a fair deal for both of us.

Sunday was month end.  Early in the morning, the calls started coming in, “Mr. Brock, thank you for visiting us, we’re now prepared to have a serious discussion with you, can you come in?”  My response was, “I thought we were having a serious discussion yesterday, why were you wasting my time?”  Silence…….  Each dealer seemed to be thinking the same thing, some tried to argue they could be serious now, none could explain why they couldn’t be serious when I was in the showroom.

It’s no wonder the automotive industry is in such trouble.  The entire process is broken. It’s built on an old model of manipulating the consumer.  It doesn’t recognize the impact of social media in helping make sure customers are informed.  It’s not just a dealer problem, it’s also a result of the manufacturers, their policies, and how they train the dealers.

I’m a salesperson, I don’t begrudge a salesperson getting a commission or the dealer getting a profit, they have to.  However, I resent having my time wasted, I resent being manipulated, I resent not being able to buy what I want to buy, but being pressured into buying what they want to buy.

There is a happy ending, yesterday a salesperson from another dealership called.  I told him I was sick and tired of dealing with the manipulation.  I told him what I was looking for, I told him I had shopped several dealers, I told him how frustrated and angry I was.  I told him I wanted a fair deal for both of us and that he had one chance to present me a fair deal.  He asked me if he could call me back in an hour to tell me what he could do.  He presented me a good deal, yes I probably could have argued another $500-750 from him, but I felt good about the deal.  We did the deal in about 20 minutes, all over the phone.

Dave Brock works with organizations to help them achieve the highest levels of performance excellence. He helps them identify and execute new business, sales, marketing and customer service strategies. His goal is to have a profound difference on the lives and results produced by his clients.

Dave is the founder and CEO of Partners in EXCELLENCE, a leading business consulting company. He has held executive roles in IBM, Tektronix, and other large technology companies. He is an investor, advisor, and director of several high technology start-up companies.

Today’s News:

Meet Doug Jensen – he is February’s AllBusiness Sales Star. Want to know what it takes to become a globally recognised sales professional? Listen in on Doug’s interview here

Everyone has a different make-up that influences how they take decisions. Ned Herrmann’s extensive research in this field led to the Herrmann Brain Theory.

These are four parts of the brain. As well as the familiar parts (the cerebral brain) – Left (realistic) and Right (idealistic) – there are also the less familiar (Limbic) parts – Top (thinking) and Bottom (doing) [based on the work of Sperry and McLean]. 

Components Of The Brain:

A (upper left) Logical, analytical part

B (lower left) Form, process, organisational part

C (lower right) Emotional, feeling part

D (upper right) Abstract, visioning part

The Herrmann Brain Theory

The best performing groups have a balance between the four components of the brain, as is the case with the Star Trek officer team:

• Captain Kirk is the visionary leader ‘D’ and provides the spatial thinking

• Mr Spock is logical ‘A’ and puts the ideas into logical order and context

• ‘Bones’ McCoy expresses feelings ‘C’ and provides the emotions

• ‘Scotty’ is the pragmatic engineer ‘B’ and effects the decisions (‘I canna break the laws of physics!’)
The balance between the characters enables viewers, depending on their own character type, to empathise with one of the officers. This part accounts for the TV programme’s success.

It is important, therefore, to understand the type of person you are asking to make a decision. You have to play to his or her style. With groups you have to play to the members. People with similar profiles working together are a dysfunctional group. You will never get the best decisions as members will compete. If, for example, all were ‘Ds’, they would spend their time generating ideas but take no decisions

Finally – Group Dynamics

Rarely are important or critical decisions taken by one person. Usually several people are involved, whether through a hierarchical process (e.g. Japanese companies) or in a group, team or committee.

Group dynamics are different from individual dynamics. Members of a group will have group objectives but also their own agenda – their own goals and characteristics.

Each individual’s personal goals …

• Rational

• Political

• Emotional

… must be understood and addressed.

Emotional

What will I get out of this?

What will the impact be on my life?

Rational

What does it cost and what is the benefit?

Will it work and how long will it take? 

Political

Will I look good in the organisation if I support this?

Will it advance my career?

So there you have it ……interesting stuff for a Friday!!

Today’s News: Here is your early chance to register for good chum Kevin Eikenberry’s latest major event …….

“Coach & Be Coached” – you will enjoy pearls of wisdom from a whole host of leadership experts, including Jack Canfield ……. oh, and me. Just click on the banner below.

I have read extensively on the lives, characteristics and leadership styles of all the great leaders including: Alexander the Great, Montgomery, Elizabeth 1st, Churchill, Ghandi, Mandella, Luther-King et al (the list is pretty extensive) because leadership is one of my passions.

However, the one that earns my greatest respect and the one with whom I feel the greatest affinity is Shackleton, because I have learned so much from his style of leadership – characteristics that I have endeavoured to incorporate within my own management style.

Sir Ernest Shackleton has been called “the greatest leader that ever came on God’s earth bar none” for saving the lives of twenty-seven men stranded with him on an Antarctic ice floe for almost two years.

From 1914 to 1916 Shackleton and his men survived the wreck of their ship Endurance, in the crushing Antarctic ice, stranded twelve hundred miles from civilisation with no means of communication and no hope of rescue.

The temperatures were so low the men could hear the ice freeze. They subsisted on a diet of penguins, seals and ultimately dogs.

When the ice began to break up, Shackleton set out to save them all on a heroic eight-hundred mile trip across the frigid South Atlantic – in little more than a rowboat.

Unlike most of the polar expeditions, every man survived – not only in good health, but also in good spirits – all due to the leadership skills of Shackleton.

So What Are The Leadership Lessons We Can Learn?

Here are just a few that I have adopted:

- Cultivate a sense of compassion and responsibility for others. As a leader you have a bigger impact on the lives of those under you than you can imagine.

- Once a career decision has been made, commit to stick it out through the tough learning period.

- Play your part in creating an upbeat environment: A positive and vibrant workplace is important to productivity.

- Broaden your cultural and social horizon beyond your normal experiences. Learning to see life from different perspectives will give you greater flexibility when it comes to problem solving at work

- We live in a rapidly changing world so be willing to venture in new directions to seize new opportunities and learn new skills

- Find ways in which to turn setbacks and failures to your advantage. This represents a good time to step forward on your own

- Be bold in vision and careful in planning. Dare to try something new, but be meticulous with your proposal so that your ideas have a good chance of succeeding

- Learn from your mistakes – yours and those made by others. Sometimes the best teachers are the worst bosses.

- Never insist on achieving a goal or objective at any cost. It must be achieved at a reasonable expense, without undue hardship on your staff

- Don’t be drawn into public disputes with rivals. Better to engage in respectful competition. Remember you may need their co-operation someday.

There are of course many others, but as space here is at a premium, these are the values that I hold most true.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922)

Today’s News: Over at Salesopedia, Clayton Shold, another hero of the “frozen north” is interviewing Colleen Stanley.

“Colleen Stanley specializes in sales and sales management training. We dropped in on her to hear some best practices that sales leaders can use to improve their performance and the performance of their sales team. The tips she shares may not be revolutionary but put together then can make a difference in this new economy. Hear what she says about balancing the fun quota with the sales quota.”

“Colleen Stanley is president of SalesLeadership, Inc., a business development consulting firm specializing in sales and sales management training. The company provides programs in prospecting, referral strategies, consultative sales training, sales management training, and hiring/selection.  Colleen is a monthly columnist for Business Journals across the country, author of ‘Growing Great Sales Teams: Lessons from the Cornfield’ and co-author of ‘Motivational Selling.’ ” - just click on this banner …..

“Experience informs us that the first offence of weak minds is to recriminate” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 
Negative people typically suffer from what I call the three “C’s” and are usually found to be: criticising, condemning or complaining.
 
Here are some tips to help you overcome negativity and to recognise it in others.
 
Develop and build your own understanding of what is really negative. Do remember that constructive criticism is not negative.
 
Check your conversation with others, are you being negative? – Check your thoughts and thinking process – remember that if you are thinking negatively the only person you will harm is yourself. Remove those thoughts as you would a faulty slide from a projector, discard them, you have the capacity to do that and your mind will respond if you are strong enough and willing enough to discard a negative thought.
 
Build a bullet proof screen around you, so that negative comments or behaviour from other people cannot penetrate. You can do this by instantly recognising negative criticism or conversation.

From time to time, check the company you are keeping. If you have been mixing in the wrong environment, talk to people who are positive. Go out and mix with people you know have positive, constructive ideas. Mix with people who are doing better than you.
 
If another person’s negativity does get through to you, say to yourself “Why did he or she say that”? You must remember that no positive person becomes so unfeeling that they can’t see life from another person’s point of view. It could happen that someone very close to you says something that can be construed as negative; it may be because they are worried, they are concerned or they have fear. By asking yourself “Why did he or she say that?” You will more than likely be able to understand and by reassurance, conversation and looking at the worry from a different point of view, turn the negative into a positive process.
 
Have your own negative repellent whenever anyone says anything really negative to you just say “fantastic” – no truly negative person enjoys hearing that word; they really run for cover!
 
 In Summary:
 
• Remember, the negative is always stronger than the positive.
 
• Never allow anyone to pollute your thinking
 
• As a professional you must take care of your attitude

 “The most evil, dangerous and cancerous complaint that humanity inflicts upon itself is to be negative” Anon

You have no idea how hard I work to surround myself with like-minded positive people – and avoid negative thinkers!

Today’s News: I should really update you on the progress of all my current projects: Well you will know that The jf Corporation site is now live, and by the end of March, the elves, working with our web-designers, Obi, will have completed a complete makeover for the JF Consultancy and this blog.

The target date for rolling out Top Sales World – the “sales hypermarket” - is the end of April – it’s massive!! Then they will begin work on the re-vamped Sales Leadership Zone, and also create an autonomous site for ASP Profile.

After that, we begin work on the Global Training Resource. So, I am guessing a few days off in 2011

Do please remember that you can also catch my Sales Leadership blog over at AllBusiness, and my weekly “Ask The Expert” podcast, also over on AB

People who are successful negotiators, always have a well thought out strategy before entering into the negotiation; are well prepared; self confident and structure the negotiation, so that they remain in control of the negotiating process.

My personal recommended structure for negotiations is:

• Establish the issues being negotiated
• Gather information
• Build a solution

Stage 1. Establish The Issues

Begin by agreeing an agenda for the negotiation i.e.

• What needs to be discussed and agreed?
• Who will be involved and what will be their role?
• What timescales are we working towards?
• What are the major issues that need to be agreed?

Many negotiators make the mistake of negotiating too quickly whereas skilled negotiators spend 20% more of their time asking questions and looking for alternatives.

Do be aware that professional buyers will want to gain your commitment on issues, such as price, early on in the negotiation but you should never commit yourself to anything until you have established everything that is being negotiated.

Seasoned negotiators will often bring up an issue at the end of the negotiation, when you are vulnerable and likely to agree to a one sided (Lose-Win) concession, in order to conclude the deal. You can legislate for this ploy by asking the other side for their . “shopping list” before beginning the negotiation and refuse to accept any last minute additions to the list.

Issues will include things like price, delivery schedule, payment terms, packaging, quality of product, length of contract etc. At this stage issues are kept general and no concessions are made or agreements reached

Stage 2. Gather Information

This is a vital part of the negotiation and you need to remember that there are four kinds of information

• Information you have that you are willing to give to the other side
• Information you have that you are unwilling to give to the other side
• Information the other side has that they are willing to give you
• Information the other side has that they are unwilling to give you

You need to decide, before the negotiation, how much you are willing to share information and what your own information requirements are. This will set the climate for the negotiation and will determine the amount of trust that exists between both parties. Skilled negotiators are able to ask a range of open, closed and follow up questions and are able to listen effectively. They also wait until they have all their information requirements, before making concessions.

Stage 3. Build A Solution

Having gathered information the next stage is to begin to put together a solution. Usually this will take the form of the selling side putting forward a proposal, or opening bid. The opening bid should be ambitious, but defensible. You should always challenge an opening bid and refuse to let an unacceptable bid stay on the table.

Typically, there will then be a process of bargaining, concessions will be traded and movement take place, until, hopefully, agreement is reached. Concessions should not be given away for free and you should be wary about conceding on issues for which you are not prepared.

A final tip: The very best negotiators always enter into negotiation with a “three position plan”

That is: Best Price, Realistic Price and Fallback Price – they never, ever. accept less than their “Fallback Price”

Today’s News: If you do not manage to attend another Top Sales Experts Masterclass this year – and of course, you will attend many, because you are that discerning - try to catch this one tomorrow. The “Great Waldo 2″ with Tibor Shanto, promises to be superb. Best of all? It will cost you nothing, if you follow this link, or click on Bill the Graphic’s great banner below …..

Many organisations do not know who their major accounts are. Certainly many of the people who manage the relationships do not know and even if they know, very few people understand why this customer is a major account but that one is not.

A quick way to test this is to ask ten people in your organisation who your ten most important accounts are. You can be sure that you will receive more than ten answers.

In one company we worked with, we received 56 different answers from 10 senior managers!

The clarification of major accounts has been a critically important part of our work with a number of the organisations with whom we have worked.

Understand:

We need to understand our major accounts better than our ordinary customers. We need to understand the world they work in, the challenge of their markets, the competition they face etc. We need to understand the individual projects (be it fighting to win new business or managing an existing project for maximum profitability).

Major Account management involves understanding who takes decisions and how, who are our competitors, how does our offering impact on the customer’s business? Those who manage, need to keep developing their skills of questioning and listening, of networking and analysing.

Plan:

If a customer is worth being called a major account, then they are worth a plan.

 It is of course possible to sell successfully in an unplanned way, there are always opportunities to be seized by chance. But if we are serious about developing a long term relationship and if this customer is really important to our success as a business, then we need to plan. 

 One of the most encouraging spin-offs in our work with clients is when we see the emergence of succinct, professional business plans for major accounts that cascade down into satellite plans for other parts of the business.

Influence:

There are many people to influence. We need to influence technical people and commercial people; we need to influence our customers, their clients and our colleagues. The major account manager often has little authority to tell people what to do. Instead he or she needs to influence and persuade.

Deliver:

It is good to plan and understand and influence, but our business will depend on our ability to deliver what we promise. This is often seen as the responsibility of customer service but in fact the whole organisation needs to be committed to delivering what the customer needs, the right quality, at the right time and to do it in such a way that the customer feels good about it.

Manage:

Any major account needs managing because success does not just happen. By manage, I mean doing all those things which make things go smoothly. It may be arranging a regular review meeting with the customer, or training the account team to understand the customer better or handling problems or managing complex projects.

If we work hard on all areas of account management and if we gain the trust of our customers, then we will greatly increase our chances of long term, sustainable success.

Today’s News: Congratulations to very good chum Paul McCord, who wrote this month’s “Top Sales Article Of The Month”, over at Top 10 Sales Articles – you can read it here