The 7 Essentials of Keeping your Key Accounts
Posted on 25 October 2010
In a tough market your current key accounts are like gold dust…
and never forget that your key accounts are your competitor's key
prospects! So what's important in looking after them?
1. Work like you were on their payroll not
yours
If you are doing your job 100% then your customers should feel like
you are representing their interests more than your own company's
(in reality you are representing both equally).
2. Know about your customers' customers
How can you be a real business partner if you don't know
about the business they are in? Learn about their competitors
and other suppliers. Read the press… Go to the websites...
Study the blogs… Look at the annual accounts and directors'
reports... Become an expert in your customers' business and you
will often find you know more than most of their employees!
3. Innovate and be seen to contribute to competitive
advantage
It is important to be seen as a business which moves ahead and
makes progress - even if those innovations are not directly
relevant to each customer. If their strategy is low
price/high volume then help them to save cost. If they are a
premium price supplier help them to justify that position by better
quality. If they are niche strategists help them to seem
different.
4. The more business they give you the more you give
them in return
The worst crime is to take them and their business for
granted. Give them more service, more value added and maybe
even better prices - before they ask for them all. Even loyal
clients can be very fickle and emotionally swayed. Make sure
they not only feel good but also can justify continuing to give you
their business - they may be challenged by procurement, top
management or even by your competitors.
5. Maximum friends - minimum enemies!
Of course it's a lot better if everyone likes you as well
as knows you - and that means everyone you come in contact with
regardless of their level or apparent importance. Not
everyone can love everyone else in any walk of life but always try
to adapt your behaviour to the style of the person that you are
dealing with - if they are fast paced and outgoing, reflect this -
if they are steady paced and quieter, then reflect this. It's
up to you to adapt! Never allow any disagreement or conflict
to remain open. Do you know why you need everyone to feel
positive about you? Because you and your company are only
human and therefore will make mistakes from time to time.
Friends help you solve problems. Enemies love to spread the
bad news around!
6. Keep in touch with organisational
changes
People come and go and get reorganised. Strategies and
priorities change. Change is a threat to you if you are a
current supplier - so stay close to all your client contacts so
that you learn about it fast. Change is an opportunity for a
new supplier - so make sure that you behave like a new supplier
even if you are the old one!
7. Build your contact base
Your success will usually depend on a wide range of people - users,
authorisers, influencers, budget holders, procurement agents,
consultants etc. How many of them do you know
personally? How many do you keep in regular touch with?
Every gap in your contact base is a threat to you and an
opportunity for someone else.
Keep developing…
Key account management should really be called "key account development". You're not aiming just to manage the business you're aiming to build it. The best way to be a top key account developer is to develop your business by helping your customers' to develop theirs!
Article written by David Steel
Ology Business and
Executive Coach David Steel (Newcastle upon Tyne)
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