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26
May, 2023

By admin

8 reasons why account managers fail growing their accounts

Why do account managers sometimes fail growing their accounts?

Account managers play a key role in the success of any business. They are responsible for managing customer relationships, ensuring customer satisfaction, and driving sales. However, many account managers struggle to grow their accounts to their full potential. There are several reasons that may contribute to this challenge.

Reason 1-  Lack of understanding of customer needs

Account managers may not have a deep understanding of their customers’ businesses, goals, and challenges. It becomes difficult to identify sales opportunities for growth within the account and provide relevant solutions.

Companies often outsource their business intelligence to third-party providers, which can create a disconnection between the strategic and tactical sides of the business. When sales teams have a complete understanding of the company’s goals and challenges, they can identify opportunities for efficient selling and impactful growth strategies through deep insight into the customer’s business. They are able to close deals through tailored solutions that address the customers’ needs and that would otherwise be challenging to reach.

Reason 2- Insufficient communication

If account managers fail to maintain regular and proactive communication with their clients, they may miss out on important information, feedback, and opportunities.

Regular communication allows account managers to gather feedback and suggestions from clients. Without this feedback loop, they may miss valuable insights that could have driven product improvements and process enhancements, or identify areas where the client experience can be improved.

Reason 3- Inadequate relationship building

If account managers do not invest time and effort in building relationships, clients may not feel valued or understood, resulting in limited growth potential.

The first rule of business is, “You must establish relationships.” The second rule is, “Relationships must be nurtured.” And the third rule is, “Relationships must be maintained.”

Taking a proactive stance demonstrates a commitment to the clients’ success and shows that the account manager is invested in their business. This fosters trust and strengthens the relationship, making it more likely for the client to engage in future collaborations or refer the account manager to other potential clients.

Reason 4- Lack of product knowledge

Without adequate knowledge of the products or services they are offering, account managers may not be able to effectively articulate the value proposition or identify upselling or cross-selling opportunities.

Account managers need to understand the features, benefits, and unique selling points of their products or services. With this knowledge, they can effectively communicate how their offers meet the specific needs and challenges of customers. By articulating the value proposition clearly, they can enhance customer understanding and increase the likelihood of sales.

Reason 5- Limited strategic thinking

Account managers should think strategically and proactively seek out opportunities for account growth.

If they focus only on reactive tasks or immediate needs, they may miss out on long-term growth potential. Account managers can identify new opportunities to expand the scope of their accounts by proactively analysing client needs, market trends, and competitor activities. This could involve suggesting new products or services, cross-selling or upselling, or exploring untapped market segments.

Reason 6- Ineffective account planning 

Lack of structured and comprehensive account planning can hinder growth. Account managers should have a well-defined plan that outlines growth objectives, strategies, and tactics for each account.

Account planning plays a crucial role in driving growth and success for businesses. Without a structured and comprehensive account planning approach, account managers may struggle to effectively manage and nurture client relationships, resulting in missed growth opportunities. A well-defined account plan provides a roadmap for account managers to align their efforts with the goals of each account and maximize their potential.

Reason 7- Failure to adapt to evolving customer needs

Customer needs and preferences change over time, and account managers need to stay attuned to these changes. Failure to adapt to evolving customer needs can result in missed growth opportunities.

Tailor your approach to each customer based on their individual preferences and requirements. By offering personalized solutions and demonstrating that you understand their unique needs, you can build stronger relationships and increase customer loyalty.

Account managers should invest in ongoing learning and development to stay updated on their accounts industry trends, customer behavior, and evolving technologies.

Reason 8-  Internal challenges

Account managers may face internal challenges within their organization that limit their ability to drive account growth. These challenges could include

  1. Limited resources: account managers may face challenges due to limited resources, such as insufficient budget or manpower. This can hinder their ability to provide the necessary support and services to their clients, impacting their potential for account growth.
  2. Lack of support from other departments: collaboration and support from other departments, such as marketing, product development, or customer support, are crucial for account managers. However, if these departments do not prioritize or align their efforts with the account manager’s goals, it can hinder customer engagement and impede growth opportunities.
  3. Internal processes: cumbersome internal processes can slow down the account manager’s ability to respond to customer needs quickly. If there are multiple layers of bureaucracy or lengthy approval processes, it can hinder effective communication and timely decision-making, impacting the account manager’s effectiveness.
  4. Inadequate commission scheme: a poorly designed or inadequate commission structure can demotivate account managers. If the commission scheme does not align with their efforts to drive account growth or lacks proper incentives, it may limit their drive and enthusiasm to pursue new opportunities or invest time and resources in existing accounts.
  5. Lack of training and development opportunities: continuous training and development are essential for account managers to stay updated with industry trends, enhance their skills, and provide better value to their clients. If the organization does not prioritize training or fails to provide adequate learning opportunities, it can hinder the account manager’s ability to drive account growth effectively.

Overcoming these challenges requires proactive steps from both the account manager and the organization. This can include advocating for additional resources, building relationships with other departments, streamlining internal processes, advocating for a fair commission scheme, and seeking out external training and development opportunities. Collaboration and open communication within the organization are key to addressing these challenges and creating an environment conducive to account growth.

It’s important to note that these factors may vary depending on the specific industry, company, or account management context. Overcoming these challenges often requires a combination of skills, knowledge, proactive engagement, and a customer-centric approach.

 

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27
Jun, 2019

By admin

Do you work with salespeople or sales leaders?

Do you work with salespeople or sales leaders?

1- Sales pitch or value proposition

In the last 10 years the business world has changed considerably, and the working life of a sales professional has changed right along with it. Customers have become more cautious and consequently their buying decisions have become more complex.Customers don’t want to be sold anymore; they want to be advised to quantify the value of their purchase. Cold calling is likely not working anymore nor the sales pitch.  There is no point in trying to sell without understanding the customers wants first.  Customers need to receive specific compelling information that drives them towards an informed decision.  Our customer wants to hear information directed to the problem they want to solve.  Poor listening skills result in not understanding the problem at hand.  Mastering the sales process is important to shorten the sales cycle and listening carefully is essential to understand the impact of the pain on the organization’s front and back offices.
What does the sales leaders need to achieve before they even call the prospect?

2- Pre-approach preparation

Do your research and prepare a target list, segment your potential clients per size, personae… and build a list of 100 companies to start with.  Make sure the selection of companies is in line with your organization’s strategy and offering. Companies selections might be diverse; Small to midsize or only companies in the IT sector etc. It will be beneficial to look into companies’ figures; Are they growing? Have they had flat sales for the last 12 months? Identifying such information will increase sales leaders’ chances to hit hot leads.  Be strategic about your list, be passionate about your list.  Give yourself a sense of direction.
Prepare a script and frequent asked questions: what challenges are targeted companies having? Build a list of questions that will qualify your prospects and identify the pain. Make sure your can build your competitive edge and stand out from the competition. Selling to Business to Business will involve identifying your decisions making unit that will be involved in the decision of buying. Identify their personality and communicate accordingly to facilitate your selling process.
What does the customer hope to achieve by the time they finished their call with you?

3- Connecting and empathizing consistently

Social selling is now an integral part of sales leaders’ daily activities. Prospecting, checking companies and people’s social profile to take a good decision. Master the skill of connecting on social medias to network before any conversation.
Connecting with prospects or hot leads should always start with a humble, genuine, honest approach and a happy tonality. Simple rules to start a conversation and build the relationship even over the phone.

4- Answering questions and challenges

Ask relevant questions when you pick up the phone and connect with prospects. Ask tough, difficult questions like: what are the challenges your company is facing in today’s market? Why you are failing from hitting your numbers?
You need to love the process of developing relationships with clients and prospects. Create a daily schedule, business habits, build a network, follow your numbers to be sure that your target is achieved.

5- Take put offs positively

Keep the conversation going, stay on your client’s mind. This is the most important step, even if you get a ‘no’. It all comes down to how much the sales leader wants to close that account.
Nurturing prospects – even after a ‘no’ – is important. Sales leaders should keep reaching out on a monthly basis with an article, podcast, etc… Step out of the comfort zone and find different ways to connect with someone you want to do business with.  Keep the relationships alive and be always on the top of their mind.  When prospects are ready, they will contact you.  Don’t go and try hit and then split.

Sales leaders, should ask themselves daily what were the failures in the last 2 weeks?  What were the successes?

Discover a 12 weeks program to build your sales team capabilities and make sure they hit their numbers.

 

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19
Sep, 2017

By admin

Do you get lots of “maybe” or “I will think about it” after your first call with prospects?

Do you get lots of “maybe” or “I will think about it” after your first call with prospects?

So far, I have posted a lot of content which tells you about general mistakes in a sales call. Today we are going to talk about the situation when you do everything right but still get a “MAYBE” as an answer.

Most people subconsciously avoid decision making after the first conversation. Every sales guru knows and advises that one needs to adjust their conversation to guide the prospect to come to a decision. This can be tricky as salespeople can become very pushy. So the big question is: how do we guide the conversation while still making the prospect feel like they’re in control?

There is a very simple solution for this: set up an agenda before the meeting. It will align you and your prospect on a plan for the meeting and make sure you’re both on the same page and moving forward together toward one of three outcomes:

  1. Yes
  2. No
  3. Figuring out the next steps – Future meeting date & agenda

By following the above process, you are avoiding a limbo stage. The main advantage of this process is that you are saving valuable time on the lead follow-ups. This can feel awkward at first but if you practice it in your next meeting and make it your own, you will start seeing positive results that you’ll want to use again and again. If you have any specific questions or suggestions about the implementation of this process, we are here to help!

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30
Aug, 2017

By admin

What happens to a prospect when they go dark and getting to the real objection

When I first started selling, I often experienced the following scenario.

I’d have a meeting thinking I totally nailed it, only for the prospect to go dark after my attempts to follow up.

What the heck was I doing wrong? Well there were a few things, I’d made a classic error: I’d fail to uncover the secret objection my prospect still had at the end of our conversation.

Unless you directly ask, it’s easy for a prospect not to reveal their actual objections to buying. Not only is it too hard for a prospect to pin down the objection on their own, but there’s a stigma associated with rejection, and they don’t want to feel like a bad person by doing it to you.

Also, although the prospect realised both a pain and solution, they were still stuck with an existing process and habit which is hard to break.

On my side, there was still a lot of work to do if I wanted to consistently move these deals forward. The way you can motivate someone to make a change is to continue to play investigator. A few questions I like to use are:

  • Do you want to change this? (sounds simple, but no one asks this)
  • Where would making a change like this sit on your priority list? (get specific, are you in their top three or bottom three? you can learn a lot here. maybe you can solve other priorities and they don’t know it yet)
  • How committed are you to changing this in the next ______? (this gives you a sense of timeline to close/implement assuming you’re on their priority list)

These questions sound basic, but surprisingly very few have a habit of explicitly asking them.

What is your strategy to face this situation? Leave your thoughts and comments below!

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16
Aug, 2017

By admin

Have you faced this situation in a sales call?

 

Have you faced this situation in a sales call? 

(Source: Flickr)

Here I am with another live experience and a valuable lesson and situation that sales people face on daily basis. I experience this scenario every other day.

Sometimes a prospect will try to push you into giving a demo early in a conversation – we’ll talk about how to avoid this later in subsequent posts in details, but if it happens, here’s a quick fix.

Let’s say you’re selling an amazing product to a prospect over the phone:

PROSPECT: “We need a new system and are evaluating options. Can you show me a demo?”

YOU: “Happy to do a demo. I want to make sure I show you the right parts of our system so do you mind if I ask you a few questions first so we can make the best use of our time?”

PROSPECT: “Sure.” (Most of the time)

Instead of getting straight into the demo, frame your first questions in a way that shows you’re trying to help them get the most for their time (which you will be) and they’ll appreciate it. Also make sure to note down every response and write down corresponding product solution points with your prospect’s responses.

I call this process “earning the right to pitch.” Next, I’ll walk you through a verbal tactic you can pair this with to close deals faster and more consistently.

Have you or someone on your team started selling the solution before you’ve ‘earned the right to pitch’? 

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What happens to a prospect when they go dark and getting to the real objection