Competition in the B2B world has never been fiercer. With more companies fighting over every contract, the sales teams are now laser-focused on the next sale and holding on to each customer, whatever it takes. How organisations measure their employees, and what behaviours they reward add to the laser-focus on short-term gains.
Read MoreWith the MTAA Value Summit quickly approaching and World Book Day next week, I thought I would share an extract from my successful book with Gary Peacock: Managing B2B customers you can’t afford to lose. This extract concentrates on creating value through joint partnerships.
Read MoreWith fewer customers generating more of our revenue, we need to get better at managing our strategic relationships. Whether we call this Strategic Account Management or Key Account Management, we must get better at managing the customers we can’t afford to lose.
There is good news and bad news about managing these strategic relationships.
Read MoreAs more companies move from sales management to account management, we regularly get asked "how can we measure improved strategic relationships?" In sales management, we are focused on the short term so typically we measure sales results and sales prospects in dollars. Yet if we are serious about developing strategic relationships, then the results will typically being to appear between 18 and 24 months after we start behaving strategically.
Read MoreThis week, a manager asked me: “what should my account managers be doing today?” My answer was, I don’t know exactly what they should do today. But at the end of the month, I call tell you exactly how you know if they are doing their job.
Read MoreOften in conversations about sales and customers, people talk about hunters and farmers. For those of you not familiar with the idea, the idea is that sales people can be classified as either Hunters or farmers. Hunters are sales people who go out and make the kill: get the new order or get the new customer; farmers are those sales people who manage existing customers to gain more orders from them.
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