General:
- Strive for mutual value creation by becoming a trusted advisor
- Develop relationships between your executives and theirs
- Share best-practices and industry knowledge with your prospect
- Personalize every conversation (including emails and voicemails)
- “Discovery is perpetual” since business conditions and objective are ever-changing
- Take notes during all meetings
- Know that no single value proposition applies to every customer
- Work with intensity and urgency on the things that matter most to the customer
- “value, alignment, relationships, and growth—represent the four most important words in contemporary strategic account management”
- “it can take 5 to 8 years to develop a mature SAM (strategic account management) program”
Before the sale
- Become a student of your customer by asking good questions and avoiding positioning your solutions too early. Give before you get.
- Research key information, including:
- specific objectives/goals / key initiatives and what success looks like; this includes overcoming major internal & external challenges and realizing opportunities
- industry dynamics (Porter’s forces: competitors, suppliers/partners, government, …)
- their history with your organization
- business structure and organizational structure (BUs and key people including influencers and blockers)
- their value proposition to their customers (including who their most valuable customers are)
- significant internal and external news & events
- Decision-making process including their team and evaluation criteria
- your competition for the account
- “The best source for information about your customer is your customer”
- During the sale
- Approach business strategically and ‘consultatively’ rather than ‘transactionally’
- Conduct discovery at all levels to build a deep and wide network of sponsors and supporters throughout your customer’s organization”; senior execs focus on the company, middle managers on their BU, and individual contributors on their project
- Trust then verify during discovery
- Identify “the obstacles and risks associated with proceeding (or not proceeding)” with your solution
- Ensure there is an executive sponsor on their decision-making team
- Position on the following elements: product/service; resources; expertise; customer experience; brand reputation
- Provide references to reduce their perceived risk
- Help “your customer understand your company’s training and knowledge transfer capabilities””
After the sale
- You have not won the business until agreements are signed
- Ask “why” once you are selected (or not selected)
- Engage customers immediately following the sale since that is when they are most nervous
- “Help (them) assess your performance with mutually acceptable (success) metrics”
- Provide a single point of contact to serve as an internal advocate to focus on the client’s needs and save them the frustration of navigating your organization
- Periodically review “Past proven value… by tallying up and summarizing the external drivers, business objectives, and internal challenges that you and your organization helped your customer address in the past, as well as the solutions you have provided and the unique value that you’ve created and co-created together” and identify “any new and different drivers and pressures impacting their business”
- Promptly resolve problems and conflicts as they arise
- Run best practice sharing forums for customers
Source: Beyond the Sales Process: 12 Proven Strategies for a Customer-Driven World by Dave Stein, Steve Andersen