The 3 Criteria of Successful Key Account Managers
Even should they be building the right relationships, you will still find other criteria to achieve success in Key Account Management. These are:
* Cultivating several relationships as you possibly can within a Key Account, but many importantly with all the entrenched influencers AND keep in mind their entrenched interests and practices;
* By your relationships during the account, comprehend the long-term AND short-term business objectives, and find out ways ways to enable them to in achieving some objectives;
* Since you don't have infinite amount of time and resources, prioritise your activities that gives you optimal results
One key objective of Key Account Management is to grow your business with the account. Many so-called Key Account Managers are merely glorified versions of Guest Relations Officers, and so they do nothing which will either grow the organization, or protect it from competitors.
To cultivate your online business with the Key Accounts, you will have to first understand their business, and after that find strategies to add or create value on your customers. And you want to do so keeping in mind which you have other Accounts to take care of, and you have very limited time, budget together with other resources.
Who are Your Key Accounts?
Since you will see quite substantial amount of effort and resources utilized in managing Key Accounts, you really should define which of your own customers qualify as Key Accounts. In most cases, many sellers define Key Accounts as simply those whom bought the best from them. However, there can be some customers who bought the most, BUT squeezed you for prices below costs AND took forever to shell out you. You don't want those customers to become your Key Accounts do you?
Griffin and Highbury article
Here's a directory of criteria that you can reference:
* Buys a minimum of some sales from yourself each and every year or each quarter;
* Maintains a margin of x% along on average;
* Consistently increases their purchase volume on your part in the last several years or quarters;
* High potential proportions of their business (which is often measured by exactly how much business your competitor has been doing using them, or by an estimated figure if they bought an optimal amount of your stuff);
* Creditworthy and pays promptly;
* Gives you access on his or her current and future business objectives;
* Accessible to new ideas, suggestions and discussions on which else you can try for them; etc.
There are actually no fixed method of defining which of these criteria are compatible with you, but your selection of Key Accounts could be created using a combination of a couple of criteria. It is unlikely to be determined by any one single criteria like volume, margin or growth potential.
Managing Entrenched Relationships, Interests and Practices
In accordance with Miller Heiman, successful sales people in complex sales situations will need to contact around 3-5 contacts inside the customer's organisation just before getting the sale. In managing Key Accounts this is more critical.
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