Creating a relationship with your customers that truly differentiates, enabling mutual success:

Retaining a customer, building a relationship with that customer and creating an environment where you understand the customer’s product and marketing strategy, enough to align what you are offering / developing / creating to enable Their success. That’s real account management. That’s selling for the long term. That’s a repeat customer aligned with you as a supplier. That’s a more accurate forecast Month to month and year to year.

AND It’s the best chance possible to maximize what you sell to your customer.

Knowing More about your customer than any other Sales person / channel / 3rd party, and translating that knowledge into tangible data and information that your product development teams can work with, that your pricing specialists can align to, that your management respects, and your suppliers fully appreciate, Well… That’s your differentiator… That’s your IP…

Offering products, and support, and pricing, and delivery terms, and timing… that aligns with your customers aspirations, enabling them to be best in class or to honor their promises to their customers will gain you respect, create an early advantage data exchange and allow for meaningful discussion where Both companies are aligned and invested in each other’s mutual success.

Key ingredients in this Account management recipe to consider might look like the following:

• Research and learn about your customer

  • What is their product?

  • How are they trying to differentiate from their suppliers

  • Who are their customers and what are their buying habits

  • Apart from pricing, what else is important to them?

    • Is First to market a key success factor?

    • Is technology advantage a key attribute?

• Use the information to present solutions that enable that success

  • Work with your product / engineering teams to create innovative solutions, whether custom design products / bundled pricing to enable a larger share at competitive pricing

  • Work with your suppliers to show them you have more data and intelligence than any other channel, making you the De Facto sales lead

    • The more credible and detailed the information, the more support you get.

    • More support and trust leads to better pricing / margin / delivery support and so on.

• Create multi-level relationships with your customer and your company.

  • Align senior management, demonstrating the importance of your customer to your company

  • If Export compliance is a concern, align the appropriate people early to ensure constructive dialogue at the right time

  • Create a relationship between engineering teams to ensure what you are able to offer, solves their problem.

• Provide detailed information from every opportunity to your company to ensure best possible answer.

  • Don’t cut corners in the interest of a speedy response, if that speedy response is half the story and doesn’t answer the requirement

  • The better information you provide, the better the answer that’s coming back to you.

  • The better answer to the customer, the more respect you gain, and of course, the better chance of success

Do you want to sell for the long term? Do you want a repeat / ongoing customer relationship where both companies are aligned for mutual gain?

Focus on really managing that account, really understanding the customers needs and wants. Be that visible support mechanism. Create a bond so tight, that the customer considers you a partner, your company KNOWS you are their best chance of success, and your suppliers are dedicated to supporting your goals.

Create that environment with your key target accounts, and you will enable the very best chance of long term and continued success.