IN THIS EPISODEThis is such an expansive topic, I really wanted to add some context and perspective to the subject here. So, I’m going to really open this discussion up for you with some background to get you in the right mindset to listen to this episode.
If you had to be truthful - what kind of salesperson would you say you are? What’s your natural selling style?
Do you deploy an intentional methodology to maximise the impact of your interactions? Or are you winging it along the way, relying on personality to build those relationships with key contacts?
The evolution of an account manager, over the decades, has taken us on a bit of a journey:
Let’s visit the 70s…Where the gift of the gab was enough to see you into a meeting with a key decision maker - armed with a bag full of good stories and friendly chat. Your products could be sold on the dazzling features of the solution, peppered with light-hearted humour to entertain your prospect into submission.
By the 1980s…The marketplace was seeing a new breed of sales representatives and sales executives who had polished up their presentation skills to become the informer, the educator, and the ambassadors for their wares.
Their projection skills were on-point and their ability to bring products to life whilst selling the features, the advantages, and the benefits were 2nd to none.
The real issue boiled down to listening though. They were so good at waiting to speak that they forgot to pause and listen! When a client had the audacity to ‘interrupt’ them – they would quickly be shot down by a range of techniques and gimmicks inspired by books like ‘how to develop a killer instinct’ or ‘101 different ways to overcome and objection’.
The 80s sales arena really was the home of manipulation, coercion, and persuasion, and ‘selling’, for many, started to become a very dirty word.
Introducing the shift in the 1990s and 2000s…In a bid to move away from the boiler room sales tactics of old and the greasy salespeople that were giving a legitimate profession a bad name, account managers began to focus on a primary ingredient of the relationship dynamic.
If all businesses existed to solve a problem, then account managers needed to become problem solvers.
This shift saw a development of a much softer, more skillful consultative selling approach with an emphasis on problem-solving and a full understanding of the customer needs, concerns and aspirations through well-crafted open questions active listening, and summarising skills.
Unlike their predecessors, problem solvers have shown a genuine interest in the customer’s business.
So, in essence, we can see that the gossiping entertainer (who liked talking about others) morphed into the boring informer (who liked talking about themself) and then evolved into the consultative problem solver who finally learned the value of talking to the customer about, well, the customer.
What role does today’s account manager play then?How do the problem solvers of the 90s and noughties transition from the consultative selling world of the efficient supplier, to the transformational space of the effective business partner?
A world where account managers are collaborative, not just competitive, and more importantly they:
understand the customer’s world
focus on the front-end of the sales process, not the backend (closing)
talk about return on investment, not products and services
say relatively little (as the customer is doing most of the talking)
position themselves as trusted advisors
work with customers interests in mind as well as their own
play it long – understanding that genuine relationships take time
understand what customers’ expectations are
follow-up and stay connected, even if they do not win the business
Today’s key account manager realises that they need to be in the customer's heart, not in their face. To truly win in today’s world of KAM…it requires an intentional approach to the relationship. And to understand...