| Managing Strategic Accounts Walker’s Strategic Account Managers share their thoughts and experiences managing accounts and relationships while leveraging the customer perspective. |
Sometimes managing a strategic account means sitting down with an unlikely group to talk about blowing up ‘what is’ and map a path to ‘what could be.’
This week I had the opportunity to spend a day with a client’s extended Voice of the Customer team. This included internal stakeholders from critical business units as well as representatives from five companies who support the initiative. Yes, we are competitors - but we also collaborate to support this client in driving optimal use of their customer feedback, and the objective of this session was to launch a complete rethinking of their customer listening system.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this client’s system – in fact, many consider it to be outstanding – but it has been running for several years, and over time their business and strategies have changed. In a situation like this, it makes good sense to step back and get a fresh perspective on things. Discussion was lively and covered strategic questions (What does the future look like?) and tactical considerations (What does and doesn’t work today?).
As a group, we left with a renewed vision and a commitment to taking this client’s program to the next level in terms of relevance, alignment, communication and actionability.
When was the last time you got fresh with your accounts?
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
This week I had the opportunity to spend a day with a client’s extended Voice of the Customer team. This included internal stakeholders from critical business units as well as representatives from five companies who support the initiative. Yes, we are competitors - but we also collaborate to support this client in driving optimal use of their customer feedback, and the objective of this session was to launch a complete rethinking of their customer listening system.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this client’s system – in fact, many consider it to be outstanding – but it has been running for several years, and over time their business and strategies have changed. In a situation like this, it makes good sense to step back and get a fresh perspective on things. Discussion was lively and covered strategic questions (What does the future look like?) and tactical considerations (What does and doesn’t work today?).
As a group, we left with a renewed vision and a commitment to taking this client’s program to the next level in terms of relevance, alignment, communication and actionability.
When was the last time you got fresh with your accounts?
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
A very smart, experienced businessman – a Senior Vice President in his company – told me last week that there is no customer loyalty in his industry. Can this be true? Are there certain industries where customers do not develop a certain affinity or alignment with their preferred providers and behave accordingly?
In this particular case, we had some evidence to refute his hypothesis. We were talking about the semiconductor industry which happened to be an industry where we conducted an assessment of the state of customer loyalty across the industry a few years ago. While customers are generally less loyal to their providers in this industry than what we see in others, there is proof that those companies within the semiconductor industry which excel at building customer loyalty are dramatically outperforming their peers on key financial measures. This chart depicts the difference in operating income - with the orange line showing the operating income performance for the most customer-focused semiconductor companies (growing at 82%) and the red line showing operating income performance for the least customer-focused companies (growing at only 15%). A pretty big difference, and we see the same results across many other financial measures.
Now, I get that customers who are buying semiconductor products are buying based on a lot of (primarily technical) factors. But, when your performance on these factors is in an acceptable range, then customer loyalty does come into play and makes a big difference in how a company performs.
We’ve conducted similar studies in many other industries, and we find the same pattern. We also work with companies in industries ranging from accounting firms to retailers and have yet to find an industry where there is no payoff in building customer loyalty. But, I’m intrigued by the idea – is there an industry out there where customer loyalty or the strength of customer relationships does not come into play?
Sonya McAllisterSVP/Principal
Communicating is critical in a customer listening program, strategic account management, and frankly in each relationship in our lives. Our company’s founder, Mrs. Tommie Walker Anderson, is often attributed with the saying “You’re 100% in control of your own actions, and 50% in control of all your relationships.” Today, I came across a story that is certainly humorous, but also emphasizes that different people have different relevancies and styles. This is all well and good in terming of variety being the spice of life and all – but it can create communication breakdowns and a lack of mutual success when one doesn’t consider what is relevant to the audience and individuals they are trying to engage.
The story comes from an actual class assignment given by an English professor from the University of Colorado. The creative writing professor told his class:“Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting next to his or her desk. One of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will email your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.”
Two students, Rebecca and Bill, were paired and the following is an actual excerpt of what they turned in:
(first paragraph by Rebecca) At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now at all costs keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
(second paragraph by Bill) Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. “A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,” he said into his transgalactic communicator. “Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…” But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca) He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. “Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,” Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. “why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?” she pondered wistfully.
(Bill) Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized even poor, stupid Laurie.
So you get the point, right? The story begins to deteriorate into email bickering between Rebecca and Bill (making you believe they might actually be Laurie and Carl) that’s pretty funny, but from which I will spare you. Upon reflection, I thought this humorous exchange nicely demonstrated that if either student had made the first step in understanding what was relevant to the other party, their collaboration (business parallel = teamwork toward a mutually beneficial outcome like increased customer loyalty and profitable growth) would have been much more successful.
Got an example of how you tailored your message to the style and needs of your audience which led to a positive outcome? Please post a comment and share.
Brad Linville
Principal, Sr. VP, Strategic Accounts
Walker Information
Growing up, every child learns about Stranger Danger and the risks associated with an unknown person. “Don’t talk to strangers” becomes ingrained in our psyches and stays with us forever. The problem is that as we enter adult life, we can face a different kind of stranger danger.
For SAMs, the risk reverses such that now the danger lies in NOT talking to strangers. What I mean by this is that as a strategic account manager, if you don’t have relationships with some critical players in your customers’ organizations, then you face danger in the form of risks to your current business and/or missed opportunities for growing your business with that customer. The more decision-making power these ‘strangers’ have, the greater the danger they pose to your relationship.
Fortunately, you can address this problem in two simple steps:
1-identify the strangers, and 2-talk to them.
OK, so maybe step 2 isn’t exactly simple, but the more successful you can be at it, the more opportunities you will have to get new insights into your customers’ business and uncover opportunities to drive growth.
Who’s the next stranger you’ll be introducing yourself to?
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
Originally posted July 21, 2010 on SAM Source
For SAMs, the risk reverses such that now the danger lies in NOT talking to strangers. What I mean by this is that as a strategic account manager, if you don’t have relationships with some critical players in your customers’ organizations, then you face danger in the form of risks to your current business and/or missed opportunities for growing your business with that customer. The more decision-making power these ‘strangers’ have, the greater the danger they pose to your relationship.
Fortunately, you can address this problem in two simple steps:
1-identify the strangers, and 2-talk to them.
OK, so maybe step 2 isn’t exactly simple, but the more successful you can be at it, the more opportunities you will have to get new insights into your customers’ business and uncover opportunities to drive growth.
Who’s the next stranger you’ll be introducing yourself to?
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
Originally posted July 21, 2010 on SAM Source
Nobody wants to be a loser, but being a happy loser… that may not be so bad.
According to G. Clotaire Rapaille, a psychoanalyst and ethnographer whose research on salespeople led him to characterize that group with a Happy Loser archetype, being a happy loser is what drives their success. That is to say that the successful salesperson is somebody who sees rejection as a challenge – a happy loser comes back to try again and again for the win. They look for new ways to get the outcome they desire. The rejection stimulates them instead of beating them down, and in the end, they win more often. And winning more often, well, that’s definitely a good thing!
A Strategic Account Manger’s role often includes advising your clients to adopt solutions that will drive profitable growth for their organizations. Even when you are not explicitly selling a product or service, you are still in the role of a salesperson: selling your clients on the value of your insights, expertise and perspective, and convincing them to step outside their comfort zone and take a risk to earn big rewards. And like more traditional salespeople, it is likely that you hear no a lot more than you hear yes. How you treat each no will make the difference. Each no should be a chance to learn from mistakes, to refine your approach. Each no should spur you to behave like a happy loser, and come back with another recommendation on how to help your customers grow. Each no increases your odds of winning the next time.
Interested in how the Happy Loser archetype may be the secret to success? Read more at this link to INC. Magazine’s April 2010 issue.
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
(This blog was originally published on SAM Source on June 18, 2010.)
According to G. Clotaire Rapaille, a psychoanalyst and ethnographer whose research on salespeople led him to characterize that group with a Happy Loser archetype, being a happy loser is what drives their success. That is to say that the successful salesperson is somebody who sees rejection as a challenge – a happy loser comes back to try again and again for the win. They look for new ways to get the outcome they desire. The rejection stimulates them instead of beating them down, and in the end, they win more often. And winning more often, well, that’s definitely a good thing!
A Strategic Account Manger’s role often includes advising your clients to adopt solutions that will drive profitable growth for their organizations. Even when you are not explicitly selling a product or service, you are still in the role of a salesperson: selling your clients on the value of your insights, expertise and perspective, and convincing them to step outside their comfort zone and take a risk to earn big rewards. And like more traditional salespeople, it is likely that you hear no a lot more than you hear yes. How you treat each no will make the difference. Each no should be a chance to learn from mistakes, to refine your approach. Each no should spur you to behave like a happy loser, and come back with another recommendation on how to help your customers grow. Each no increases your odds of winning the next time.
Interested in how the Happy Loser archetype may be the secret to success? Read more at this link to INC. Magazine’s April 2010 issue.
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
(This blog was originally published on SAM Source on June 18, 2010.)
A VP of Marketing who has launched a strategic account management initiative in his company in the past year made the comment to me this week that his account teams were skeptical of the impact executive sponsors could have in their accounts.
Even though I know we strategic account managers like to be in control of everything going on in our accounts, this surprised me a bit. All evidence I’ve seen shows the positive impact gained by having top-to-top relationships between your company and your account.
Some examples of the evidence:
-The Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA, a great resource in this topic area) says right on their web site: “Executive sponsorship is considered a critical success factor for any organized strategic accounts effort.” (http://www.strategicaccounts.org/public/knowledge/glossary.asp)
-Grover Smith of Cisco presented his company’s executive sponsorship program at the recent SAMA annual conference. He shared that they expanded their program from 15 executives covering 30 customers in 2006, to 125 executives covering 194 customers today – and they did so because they see a positive impact on revenue, customer satisfaction (which we all know leads to growth), and keeping Cisco focused on the customer’s top priorities.
-In some best practice gathering interviews recently completed with the highest performing strategic account managers at a Fortune 500 company, each one of the 6 high performers interviewed cited (without prompting) the influence of their executive sponsor on their overall success (high customer loyalty and high revenue growth) with the customer.
So, it seems like a good idea, right? If you’re starting to think so, try these tips to ensure your executive sponsor is a growth contributor:
-While your executive sponsor is your primary executive involved with your account, don’t hesitate to tap others (particularly subject matter experts) as needed. Many of the high performers we interviewed mentioned using their executive sponsor to help them secure these additional resources when necessary.-Be sure to find the right executive that fits with your customer. Grover Smith of Cisco shared that their sponsors are selected via a six-step process with the last step being an expectation setting/match analysis meeting between the account team and the proposed sponsor.
-Keep your executive (and you and your entire team) focused on your customer’s priorities rather than your own. 
Remember, you all want the same thing – success for your customer (okay, so that will lead to your success too…nothing wrong with that).
Sonya McAllister,
SVP/Principal
While a lot of the thinking around growth focuses on acquiring new business, there is much to be gained from seeking out operational efficiencies that can drive profit and growth through more positive customer experiences and reallocated resources. In short, one of the best strategies to increase your odds of profitable growth is to ensure you are operating optimally. This applies as much to account management as it does to process and functional management: at Walker’s recent Client Forum in Aptos, CA, I shared two ways to ensure account-level operations are enabling the pursuit of profitable growth.
At the core, it’s about managing the cost to serve accounts: allocating our account management resources appropriately, and then turning newly available resources over to the systematic pursuit of profitable growth.
Resource Allocation
Quite simply, we need to match the right level of resources to the right customers. I think we would all agree that there are some accounts who are more or less deserving of our resources, but I’m not sure we’d all agree on which accounts are the "mores" and which are the "lesses." Applying an established set of rules to categorize accounts based on elements beyond just their current value (ie, think about the future!) will allow SAM teams to strategically reallocate resources to improve profitability and capitalize on growth opportunities.
Pursuit of Growth
With our resources now allocated appropriately, SAMs are in a position to do two things. First, those assigned to accounts with growth potential can begin actively pursuing any up-sell or cross-sell opportunities. And second, newly freed up resources can be redeployed to pursue new customer acquisition.
So what about your organization? Take a look at your SAM allocation – and if it’s out of balance, make the adjustments that will lead to greater growth.
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
At the core, it’s about managing the cost to serve accounts: allocating our account management resources appropriately, and then turning newly available resources over to the systematic pursuit of profitable growth.
Resource Allocation
Quite simply, we need to match the right level of resources to the right customers. I think we would all agree that there are some accounts who are more or less deserving of our resources, but I’m not sure we’d all agree on which accounts are the "mores" and which are the "lesses." Applying an established set of rules to categorize accounts based on elements beyond just their current value (ie, think about the future!) will allow SAM teams to strategically reallocate resources to improve profitability and capitalize on growth opportunities.
Pursuit of Growth
With our resources now allocated appropriately, SAMs are in a position to do two things. First, those assigned to accounts with growth potential can begin actively pursuing any up-sell or cross-sell opportunities. And second, newly freed up resources can be redeployed to pursue new customer acquisition.
So what about your organization? Take a look at your SAM allocation – and if it’s out of balance, make the adjustments that will lead to greater growth.
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
At our recent Walker Forum, I had the pleasure of leading a panel discussion among some of our attendees who are senior leaders in their companies. The theme of the panel discussion was "Leading a Customer-Focused Organization." We asked these leaders why their companies are particularly customer-focused and how they maintain that, and here’s some of what we learned:
- Customer listening initiatives are an integral part of their companies’ strategies and are regularly discussed at the CEO-staff level.
- Achieving their current level of customer focus has been a journey – one that was often started by a crisis. One of these executives told a story about having to swap out his own company’s equipment and replace it with a competitive offering in order to address some persistent customer problems. This experience really showed their executive team they needed to better understand their customers’ businesses and the integral role their products and services played.
- Constant communication is needed to keep their companies on the journey. That communication is targeted to all levels in the organization, from the CEO-staff to the product and service delivery teams.
- In many cases, monetary incentives are used to keep employees’ priorities in the right order.
The results of these efforts are tangible. Increased profitability, improved customer experiences, and fewer critical customer incidents were all cited as bottom-line outcomes. We see these kinds of benefits time and time again. It’s what led us to put together the Walker Index (below right) to demonstrate how customer-focused companies perform over time. 
The Walker Index is a stock index comprised of current Walker clients. Companies are included in the index only during their tenure as Walker clients. Companies that are attracted to Walker are committed to using the stakeholder perspective as an impactful management tool. The Walker Index indicates that these companies outperform the broad markets – by about a 5:1 margin!
Unless your company is achieving these kinds of results today, you may want to challenge whether you’re sufficiently customer-focused.
Sonya McAllister
Principal/SVP
I’m guessing many of you are familiar with the “The More You Know” public service announcements (PSAs) that run on NBC, and maybe even with their forerunners, the “One to Grow On” PSAs. These spots enlist celebrities from Jimmy Fallon to Michelle Obama to inform the public about issues that are, or at least should be, important to us. Many of these issues tie to health care, and the PSAs promote lifestyle choices that will result in healthy growth.
Healthy growth… something each of us should strive for not only personally, but also for our business relationships. And wouldn’t you know: the concept of The More You Know applies just as well in the world of strategic account management because the more we know about our customers, the more we are able to help them succeed, driving growth for them right along with growth for ourselves. Here are just a few of the sources of knowledge that any account leader can use to get informed and get growing:
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
(Originally published on SAM Source, April 5, 2010)
Healthy growth… something each of us should strive for not only personally, but also for our business relationships. And wouldn’t you know: the concept of The More You Know applies just as well in the world of strategic account management because the more we know about our customers, the more we are able to help them succeed, driving growth for them right along with growth for ourselves. Here are just a few of the sources of knowledge that any account leader can use to get informed and get growing:- Internal financial measures, such as sales, revenue and repeat purchase pattern metrics
- External financial measures, such as your customers’ stock performance
- Annual Reports, which provide insight into strategy, leadership, markets and financials
- Customer feedback, from sources such as annual relationship surveys, transaction surveys, customer service interactions, and your own interactions with the client team
- Public information, as available on your customer’s own website, as well as other online sources of opinion and fact
- Industry information, from analysts and relevant publications or other expert sources
- Competitive information, available from most or all of these same sources
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
(Originally published on SAM Source, April 5, 2010)
As we head into Final Four weekend it got me thinking about the keys to winning basketball games. Being from Indianapolis, I couldn’t help but reflect on the Butler victories in my analysis. Here are a few factors I think make the difference between winning and losing.
1. A strong defense
2. Capitalizing on turnovers
3. Balanced scoring
No team has scored 60 points against Butler in the NCAA tournament. You can win games with good defense. Against Syracuse, as it was with Murray State in the second round the difference was turnovers and Butler’s ability to score points off of those turnovers. Balanced scoring is another Butler strength. Five different players have led the team in scoring in the last 10 games, including defensive specialist Ronald Nored’s 15 against Murray State.
Ready for the transition from basketball to business? Here we go. I think these three lessons in basketball success relate well to consistently growing revenue year over year. Here is the thinking.
One way to grow revenue is to keep what you currently have. It’s hard to fill a leaky bucket. Keeping customers is like playing good defense. Defending your market position and the relationships you’ve worked hard to develop with your customers.
Another way to grow revenue is to take share from your competitors. Capitalizing on competitor’s vulnerabilities is one way to take share. Not too much of a stretch from capitalizing on turnovers in a basketball game, right?
How many championship caliber teams have only one player that can score? And how many companies consistently grow revenues by banking everything on one growth strategy? Not many. Luckily for Apple they didn’t bet everything on Apple TV. Companies that consistently grow revenues do so with a diversified portfolio of growth strategies.
That’s enough analysis on the keys to victory. Time to play the game. Go Butler!
Noah Grayson
Walker
As the men’s NCAA basketball tournament has gotten underway this year, you may have heard some rumblings about expanding the field from 65 teams to 96. There are articles and blog posts all over the web with arguments for and against the idea. Personally, I’m against increasing the number of teams that qualify for the tournament to determine the national champion. But, I think the idea of expanding the field is one companies should consider as a relatively quick path to increased profitable revenue growth.
As I was talking with a very successful strategic account manager at a Fortune 500 company this week, he described the somewhat onerous process he had to go through to get his account into his company’s strategic accounts program. This got me thinking – shouldn’t this be a time when companies increase their number of strategic accounts rather than making it difficult to achieve strategic account status?
A few good reasons for expanding your field of strategic accounts:
-You’re leveraging and making the most of what are likely some of your most talented resources – your strategic account managers. Getting them involved in more accounts can only lead to good things.
-If you choose the added accounts well (we can help with creating a value map of your accounts like the one shown here to aid your selection process), you’re tapping right in to accounts with the most potential.
-You’re developing stronger partnerships with even more customer companies.
What do you think – are you for or against this kind of expansion of the field?
Sonya McAllister
SVP/Principal
As we get older, this topic of growth becomes less prevalent related to our outer-self and more a part of our inner-self. We look at how we grow as a person, whether it is intellectually, spiritually, or in a variety of other ways but growth is always something that we are either reflecting upon or acting on. Point being, growth is a part of our life, regardless of what stage of life we are in. This holds true in our professional lives as well. The difference between success and failure in the corporate world is directly related to one’s ability to grow or not grow. It takes many different shapes. It’s universal.
In the world of account management, growth is good, but profitable growth is king. Being able to manage your accounts in such a manner that lends to positive, profitable growth, year over year is the ultimate goal. How is this goal obtained? By providing unprecedented value. I’m not talking about successfully executing a statement of work, I’m talking about providing insightful, game-changing expertise and perspectives to your clients. This value can be provided through a variety of methods, regardless of the service you are offering or the widget you are representing.
Over the next several months, the SAM Source community is going to be concentrating on the theme of profitable growth and I would strongly urge you to engage in this discussion and share your insights and opinions related to this topic. We would love to hear your thoughts and perspectives. Stay tuned - more to come.
Michael Good
Vice President
In just one day, and “with glowing hearts,” Vancouver welcomes the world to the 2010 Olympic Games. The venues are ready (ok, minus a little snow!), the city is prepared, and athletes, media and spectators are arriving. The Olympics are inspirational in many ways, even offering lessons that cross over to business.For example, as the host country, Canada has been preparing for these Olympics for years, putting plans in place to (we hope) make this our most successful winter games ever. We developed a strategy, and we’ve been executing it with an end-goal in sight: Own the Podium. We believe we will succeed. As Strategic Account Managers, lessons we can take away from this include…
- Be strategic: resource the initiatives with the greatest chance of success
- Commit completely to the end-goal, and be specific about what it is
- Rally the team, including those in supporting roles
- Keep score so you know when you’ve won
- Embracing adversity as a challenge and an opportunity
- Building trust
- Focusing on your goal
- Uncovering hidden blocks and working through them
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
I’ve had an experience lately that I expect a lot of us Strategic Account Managers have: a promising new idea has emerged from discussions with a customer about business needs and future plans. There is a high likelihood that we’ll work together to develop this idea, but the idea has some legs and could have some potential uses for other companies. Do we have the right to take the idea to other customers and when? Of course, all of this can and will be sorted out as discussions continue (with the help of legal teams, no doubt).
A possible solution is to make the implementation of the new idea for each customer somehow unique, therefore there’s no (or less) infringement on initial intellectual property. This possibility reminded me of a session I attended recently at the Strategic Account Management Association’s University event where they offer extensive workshops and training for more effectively managing strategic accounts. The title of the session was How to Co-Create with Your Customers, and it was led by Francis Gouillart. Mr. Gouillart is a university professor and founder of Experience Co-Creation Partnership (http://eccpartnership.com).
The session was fascinating, and the ultimate message (at least from my perspective) was that you can significantly advance your value to your customer by co-creating a new way of working with them which addresses a business issue or challenge they have. Co-creation is unique for each customer, so there may not be any idea ownership issues. Something to think about…what’s been your answer to who owns a new idea?
Sonya McAllisterPrincipal/SVP
One of the six customer listening categories from our Strategic Assessments is communications. One can’t ignore the critical importance of communicating information both internally and externally related to customer listening. In communications planning, it’s common to hear things like “rise above the clutter” and “don’t get lost in all the noise.” But did you ever consider that you might be creating your own noise, unwittingly?
William Zinsser is a renown author emphasizing word economy and he professes that ambiguity is noise. So are redundancy, vagueness, acronyms, and jargon. The list goes on… misuse of words, clutter, unnecessary adverbs (like successfully avoided), adjectives (ongoing process), and phrases (in a very real sense). In customer listening, information is our sacred product and noise is the pollutant.
Noise pushes readers/audiences away – so carefully read what you’ve written, carefully rehearse what you plan to say – and watch for ways to stifle unintended noise in your communication. The remaining message will travel to your audience as a pure signal, unencumbered by noise.
I came across a cool-sounding book – What Clients Love – that touches on this topic and it will be my next read. I’ll share additional highlights in a future blog. Have any of you read it yet? If so, post a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Brad Linville
Principal, Sr. VP, Strategic Accounts
Walker Information
William Zinsser is a renown author emphasizing word economy and he professes that ambiguity is noise. So are redundancy, vagueness, acronyms, and jargon. The list goes on… misuse of words, clutter, unnecessary adverbs (like successfully avoided), adjectives (ongoing process), and phrases (in a very real sense). In customer listening, information is our sacred product and noise is the pollutant.
Noise pushes readers/audiences away – so carefully read what you’ve written, carefully rehearse what you plan to say – and watch for ways to stifle unintended noise in your communication. The remaining message will travel to your audience as a pure signal, unencumbered by noise.
I came across a cool-sounding book – What Clients Love – that touches on this topic and it will be my next read. I’ll share additional highlights in a future blog. Have any of you read it yet? If so, post a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Brad Linville
Principal, Sr. VP, Strategic Accounts
Walker Information
I watched famed baseball slugger Mark McGwire confess his use of steroids to Bob Costas. Not a huge surprise when McGwire admitted to using steroids and human growth hormone during his homerun record-setting baseball career. But what was surprising was the overwhelming belief McGwire had that his performance wasn’t enhanced by the substances. Following the interview, Bob Costas said he firmly believes McGwire was genuine in his remarks that the steroids only helped him overcome injury, not gain physical advantages. I think you only need to look at McGwire’s pre and post steroid use homerun to at-bat ratios to understand the impact steroids had on his performance.
Lucky for you I’m not going to share my opinions on Mark McGwire or my thoughts on what the steroid era means to baseball’s future. I will tell you that I believe performance enhancing drugs provide players with physical advantages. This got me thinking about the tools that provide Strategic Account Managers with a competitive edge – a SAM’s performance enhancing drug so-to-speak. Here are the top two tools that I believe provide SAM’s with an advantage over their competition.
1. Developing Strategic Account Knowledge: there are numerous public sources of information available to us that provide insight into our clients and the challenges they face – 10K’s, analyst reports, press releases, etc. The problem is this information is available to everyone, so the unique advantage you receive from this information alone is zero. One unique advantage we have with our current clients is access to people and the unique insights they can provide about the business and their needs. As SAM’s we need to insure we have a systematic approach to tap into this information and a method for putting this strategic account knowledge to work.
2. Strategic Account Planning: The account plans are where we put our strategic account knowledge to work. Here is an Alan Lakein (the famed time management author) quote about planning that I like, “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”. If you’re not leveraging account plans currently you should be.
We’re all looking to build and maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The good news is that there are time tested and ethical ways for SAM’s to go about it.
Noah Grayson
Senior Vice President
I had every intention of writing a blog that had to do with growth and profitability and the best ways to take advantage of the services that are available today to assist your organization in that very fine balance of risk vs. profitability. I wanted to talk about how important it is to view the profitability you have with your customers alongside the loyalty that your customers have with you. I wanted to discuss the importance of these two metrics and how they, when combined, become exponentially more powerful. I will dive into more of that next week and again in the future.
Today my message is simple and unrelated to the topics we think about every day. My message today is about Haiti and the massive destruction, loss of human life and sheer devastation that has taken place in this already troubled, once beautiful place in the world.
Please find a way to do something, whether that is through your church, your employer, your local community or simply via texting simple keywords to certain organizations to make a financial donation.
I am not going to promote any specific method or venue, just that you do something. Go to Google and type in “ways to help Haiti” if you are in need of ideas.
Thank you,
Michael Good
Vice President
Welcome to 2010… it’s early days: the optimism is tangible, and the predictions are many.I’ve seen 2010 declared to be the year of mobile (again!), the year of social responsibility, the year of social media, the year of work/life balance, the year of accuracy, the year of reduced business travel, the year of innovation, the year books die, the year of mass personalization (from B2B to me2u), the year of the executive dashboard, the year of the turnaround (fingers crossed!), the year of … you get the idea. 2010 is shaping up to be exhausting!
The reality is that for many businesses, 2010 is going to have to be the year of many small successes – budgets are tight, and every action is being scrutinized to ensure promised returns are realized. As SAMS, we can support our clients in building a year of many wins by making 2010 the year of being accountable. I’m making a renewed commitment to hold myself accountable for helping my clients achieve the goals we establish together for this year and for keeping us moving forward along our 2010 roadmap, marking each step along the way and not letting us ‘go off-roading’ without a solid reason. I’m making a further commitment to hold my clients equally accountable for these same things.
What are your thoughts on 2010? What do you predict this will be the 'year of'?
Jennifer Batley
VP, Strategic Accounts
- First-borns are typically confident, organized and seek approval, are perfectionists, feel like they’re not good enough (lots of stress), and don't like to be told what to do. Good career fits are high-precision paths like medicine and law, or they tend to seek leadership/control positions like boss or business owner.
- Middle children tend to be more difficult to define/read and raise. They can be mysterious, suspicious, and stubborn. They are also independent, peacemakers/mediators. They fit with creative careers like sales, advertising, or art and love to stand out from the crowd.
- Last-borns are outgoing, social, affectionate, and funny – but can be spoiled, self-centered, manipulative, and immature. They like to do their own thing, have no boundaries, take risks; so they might be inventors or entrepreneurs.
The website even includes profiles of only children and twins – and includes parenting tips with advice on effectively raising each child.
It got me thinking - is managing a portfolio of different accounts (and their "varying personalities") at all like raising different children, with varying traits, strengths, weaknesses, and inclinations? You might have an account that could be characterized as a perfectionist, a mystery, or a risk-taker. First, being aware of and in tune with, and then adapting strategies to your customers’ unique traits and personalities can lead to effective account management. It can be a lot like raising a family. What do you think?
Brad Linville
Principal, Sr. VP, Strategic Accounts
Walker
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