This book spans the full enterprise client lifecycle including opportunity identification, opportunity management, and service delivery. In addition to the tools below, it covers the high-value Sandler frameworks including up-front contracts, pain/budget/decision-making (dis-) qualification framework, and DISC assessments.
Why not 5 stars? (1) The book at times reads like a long Sandler Training commercial (2) Many of the “Tools” are simply proprietary labels put on conventional processes (3) Many of the tools have unnecessarily overlapping content (4) The book sacrificed depth for breadth in too many areas, especially customer success/account management.
Useful reminders and insights:
- Good territory and account plans are living tools
- AEs should build sales teams, including service, marketing, finance, etc.
- Value propositions should be specific to each opportunity
- Conduct post-deal win/loss analysis
- Work hard to develop relationships with multiple sponsors in the account
- Facilitating solution development with strategy review, ROI development, reference validation, scoping, and pricing.
- “Monkey’s paw” approach of developing an account by starting with a small piece of business
- Prompt, personalized follow up with each client meeting attendee
- Conduct periodic value reviews with clients
- Pursue alumni (contacts who moved to new firms)
Tools mentioned in the book:
- KARE Account Planning Tool
- Usefulness: Low
- Description: Simply a classification of accounts as Keep, Attain, Recapture, or Expand.
- Growth Account Booster Tool:
- Usefulness: Medium
- Description: This is simply an account plan with the following notable components: your sales team; account relationship snapshot; account map; revenue projection; top 6 opportunities (with related value propositions and next steps)
- LinkedIn® Levers Tool:
- Usefulness: Low
- Description: This is just an excerpt of LinkedIn contact & company pages.
- Relationship Builder Tool:
- Usefulness: Medium
- Description: This is simply a who’s who account map with notable components that should be in your CRM including contact name; title/role; contact objectives/KPIs; DISC style; relationship status (friend, neutral, enemy); actions to take to build the relationship
- Three Opportunity Planner Tool:
- Usefulness: Low
- Description: This is just a pipeline forecast snapshot (which should be in your CRM) with value, probability, and close date.
- Positioning Tool:
- Usefulness: Medium
- Description: This is simply an expanded view of an opportunity that also includes the benefit of the proposed product to the client’s business and how that benefit will be measured.
- Pre-call Planner Tool:
- Usefulness: High
- Description: This includes the “Relationship builder tool” components (contact, roles, impact on deal, DISC style, etc.) as well as: sales team alignment, materials to bring, goals for the call, key question to ask, key questions to expect to answer, and your planned up-front contract.
- Call Debrief Tool:
- Usefulness: Medium
- Description: Includes components that normally go into CRM call summary including information learned, next steps planned/assigned, and red flags identified
- Opportunity Tool: Provides up-to-date snapshots of three critical aspects of an emerging deal—the competitors, the client’s key pains, and the relevant applications; also provides action-oriented next steps.
- Usefulness: Medium
- Description: Like the positioning tool, this is further opportunity detail, adding: competitive landscape, the client’s key pains, and action steps
- Pursuit Navigator Tool:
- Usefulness: Low
- Description: An enumeration of deal risk factors and planned mitigation strategies.
- Client-centric Satisfaction Tool:
- Usefulness: Medium
- Description: Support periodic value reviews by having the client rank and weight their top 5 of the following: business model understanding; quality of deliverables; meeting deadlines; expense control; communication; responsiveness; foresight; knowledge transfer; behavior; team play; autonomy; productivity; compliance.
- Team Storm Tool:
- Usefulness: Low
- Description: A run-of-the-mill problem-solving tool.
- Client2 Tool:
- Usefulness: Low
- Description: An enumeration of common places to look for new business: organic growth, partnerships and alliances, family tree (of related entities), alumni (former clients who moved to new firms), and the customer’s customer.