Course information

Sales and customer service. Make happy customers.

In this one-day key account management course you’ll learn how to generate reoccurring and new business from your existing customers – boosting your company’s revenue.

Many salespeople follow their company’s sales process: prospect, diagnose, present, close the business and move on to the next opportunity. ‘Closing the deal’ isn’t really the last step of the process, but the beginning of the journey and the relationship. You may have discovered an opportunity to do business with this customer and sold them a product or service, but there are probably more opportunities that you’re not even aware of.

So how do you manage the account once you’ve done all the hard work to bring them on board? What are the techniques and skills to capitalise on the ‘life-time value’ of a customer?

You will learn how to grow the account that you have worked so hard to get, how to delve deeper into what the customer needs and provide value and service to more departments, teams and people. You will learn how to ‘future proof’ the account so that if your initial contact leaves, the relationship with the account doesn’t suffer.

Once you attend this course, you will be able to return to work, categorise your accounts and immediately start to apply your new skills. Whether you are a beginner or experienced salesperson, this course will provide the skills to take your account relationships to the next level.

Aims

The aim of this course is to increase your chances of obtaining more sales and greater revenue success from your existing customers.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• accurately categorise and prioritise your accounts by assessing overall spend (historical and future potential) and the effort required to manage the account
• proactively initiate sales conversations with your existing accounts (rather than just react)
• ask the right questions and identify each account's short and long-term business plans and goals
• plan with your accounts by working with their short and long-term business goals and aligning this to what you can deliver
• create and maintain long-term partnerships by effectively communicating your value proposition and scheduling recurring one-on-one meetings with your customers (so that you’re aware of any challenges and are well-placed to help)
• apply the 80/20 principle to your accounts. 80% of your business comes from 20% of your accounts. You should be able to identify the 20% so you can manage the account accordingly
• ask for referrals to new clients from your existing accounts. Your existing accounts can make the introductions, or let you know of opportunities in the market for potential business.

Content

Categorise your accounts

Key Account Managers need to be able to prioritise customers and respond to their demands accordingly. While some customers are crucially important to the survival of your business, others are not. Some can drain your time and energy and never purchase, while others require very little attention and regularly return to purchase. Time spent with one customer is time not spent with another.

In this course, you will learn what criteria to use to prioritise and categorise your accounts and how to allocate your time accordingly. You will learn to assess overall spend (historical and future potential) and the effort required to manage the account.

You will also learn the 80/20 rule – 80% of your business comes from 20% of your accounts. You should be able to identify the 20% so you can manage your accounts accordingly.

Initiate conversations with customers

Key Account Managers do not wait for the phone to ring or the email to arrive. They are proactive rather than reactive.

This course will teach you how to initiate a conversation, who to talk to, what to talk about and how. You will learn the importance of knowing the individual decision makers within your accounts, what they are motivated by and what control and influence they have over their company’s spending. You will learn how to interact with the ‘gate-keepers’, ‘end-users’ and ‘decision-makers’ and understand what each is motivated by.

Align to your customers' needs and time frames

The successful Key Account Manager can align to their customers' plans and goals.

You will also learn to identify your customers' short, medium and long-term goals, what their needs are and how they can support them on this journey.

This course will provide meeting templates and questions to ask to help with this process. You will learn the questions to ask and the statements to make to ascertain your client’s business plans and how you can help.

Asking for referrals

The best testimonial is a satisfied and impressed customer who can vouch for our products and service. The Key Account Manager should leverage their on-going relationships into new relationships and businesses. This course will show you how and who to ask for referrals, how to approach the person who is recommended and how to handle the early stages of the process.

Intended audience

Anyone in sales looking to boost their key account management techniques.

Prerequisites

A minimum of 3 to 6 months sales experience.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught workshop
• Online workshop via the platform Zoom

Materials

Course materials are distributed electronically using Dropbox.