Strategic Account Management and Client Development

How do you defend against competitors and keep profitable customers?

Avoid being dropped as a supplier as your customer contact changes or they re-engineer their buying processes. Senior managers and key account management professionals face all of these issues every day and they threaten your profitability. Learn how to protect and grow your key accounts.

Key account management concepts are outlined in a pre-seminar package and refined in the classroom.

Key Takeaways

• How to create solid account relationships that maximize annual revenue and account retention
• Develop joint business growth strategies with your key accounts and strong strategic alliances
• Systematically review your account progress and account strategies
• Study advanced account development principles that can be applied to any industry
• How to defend a key account against competitors
• How to select major growth customers
• Differentiate yourself by making your customers more profitable
• Establish the bottom line reasons why your customers buy products and services
• View your product business as a service-driven business
• Strategies to target potentially lucrative markets
• Concentrate your limited resources for the best returns
• Add real value to your customer’s bottom line

Key Account Strategies

The following topics will receive special attention:

• Targeting customers for key account management
• Looking at the big picture to leverage joint strengths
• Defining the competitive situation
• Setting strategic goals
• Selling customers on bottom line profit improvement
• Developing joint profit targets
• Focusing investment on the best returns
• Monitoring progress and revising your key account action plans

A Complete Learning Approach

In addition to classroom sessions:

• Real business situations are used
• The key account management process is practised
• New skills are perfected through group discussion
• Participants interact with senior managers using these techniques

Content

Strategic Account Management and Client Development

Pre-work

• Sales Profile Assessment
• Reading: Toolbox for Performance Driven Leaders
• Video: How to complete a SWOT analysis

Strategic Account Management and Client Development - Part 1 Two days of classes running from 9am-1pm

Day 1

• Team building exercise; defining your LinkedIn profile
• Defining the role of an account manager; sales vs. marketing
• Trends in sales strategy; applying design thinking to enablement solutions

Day 2

• Sales Profile Assessment review – your results and where you should be
• Escaping the pain of commercial complexity
• Profiles of winning account managers
• Guest speaker

Strategic Account Management and Client Development - Part 2

Two days of classes running from 9am-1pm

Day 3

• Which sales approach wins in today’s information era; selling with confidence
• Steps for developing a key account plan; opportunity analysis
• Performance goals, historical and future state
• Sales strategies – how to differentiate
• Sales plan management issues and control
• Utilizing resources within budget

Day 4

• Plan implementation – winning your customer
• Account Plan presentation with constructive feedback
• Key learnings and action plan for execution

Follow Up Webinar

Final review of completed key account plans