Lesson 1:
Introduction to Strategic Account Management
Companies that grow accounts consistently don't do it by chance. They do it systematically. In this lesson, you're introduced to a proven and repeatable 5-stage process that will allow you to:
- Identify the highest value opportunities in your accounts
- Build the case for why buyers should take advantage of these opportunities
- Develop a plan to capture these opportunities and significantly grow your accounts
Lesson 2:
Account Planning Essentials
If you want to grow your accounts systematically, you need a plan. In this lesson, you'll be introduced to the essential planning components to grow accounts with RAIN Group's Strategic Account Planner. You'll learn:
- 6 essential components of an account plan
- How to put a strategy in place to capture maximum opportunity
- How to define the specific actions needed to execute the plan
Lesson 3:
Understanding 3 Key Components of Value
If you want to plan for increasing and communicating value, you first have to analyze the value that you provide your customers. In this lesson you'll learn:
- The 3 components of value, and what happens if a component is missing
- How to position value early in the sale, when inspiring buyers to consider something new, and late in the sale, when trying to win business
- Common mistakes people make when they confuse the concepts of value, value propositions, and value proposition positioning statements
- How to position your value favorably against the competition
Lesson 4:
Leveraging the Power of Value Connection and Co-Creation
Increasing the value you bring to the table is at the heart of our approach to growing accounts. The secret is to start with the right internal process for analyzing the value you can offer the account, and working collaboratively with accounts to do the same. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- 2 methods you can use to maximize value
- How to sell more of your existing offerings to your customers (and the 7 traps to avoid that many account leaders fall into)
- 3 necessary areas you need to satisfy to win in complex sales today
- How you add value over and above the products and services that you sell
- How value co-creation—working together with your clients to figure out answers to sticky problems—establishes true value and helps you avoid commodity pricing
Lesson 5:
Building the Right Account Team
Even if you are not in a corporate leadership role, it's up to you to make sure that you know what your strengths are. You have to get the right people to work with you to build—and execute—the best account growth plan.
There are eight distinct strategic account management roles that must be played. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- The 6 strategic account management roles and why each role is critical for growing your accounts
- How to remedy 8 common roadblocks to strategic account management success caused by account team issues
- How to identify your personal strengths and areas for improvement, and where you need support from colleagues
Lesson 6:
Succeeding with Account Research
Account research is an essential component of the account planning process, often neglected by account managers. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- 65 questions you should be asking to research your accounts fully
- 10 top sources of information you could be using to aid your research efforts
- The #1 most common mistake account leaders make with research
Lesson 7:
Profiling Your Clients' Needs
The more you understand your clients' common needs across different accounts, the more you can uncover what they actually are for each individual account. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- How to identify and categorize common needs that your clients have
- How to take a client-focused view of your offerings and the value they bring to the table
- How to translate client needs into solutions you can offer
Lesson 8:
Understanding Decision Roles
Most corporate decisions average between 5 and 8 core decisions makers. How they influence the sales depends on their decisions roles. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- The 4 decision roles present in every sale and how each influences the sale
- Strategies for succeeding with each of the 4 roles
- Traps to avoid with each
Lesson 9:
Succeeding with the 6 Buyer Personas
Regardless of the business or emotional reasons for why people buy, buyers have personal preferences for how they like to buy. Successful account leaders map their selling approaches to the processes and psychology of buying. They "think buying first, selling second." In this lesson, you'll learn:
- The 6 different buyer personas and how to recognize them
- How each persona prefers to buy
- Mistakes to avoid with each buyer persona
Lesson 10:
Leading a Value Discovery Session
Most companies have multiple divisions, product and service areas, and industry specialists. Rarely do these companies tap their own resources to analyze all of the areas in which a company can add value to an account. Those that do are very good at leading what we call a Value Discovery Session.
In this lesson, you'll learn:
- How to reverse engineer what you offer into possible client value
- The key steps to leading a successful value discovery session
- How to lead internal discussions with your account team to brainstorm the possible ways that you can add value
- How not to miss any potential value that you could bring to the table for the account
Lesson 11:
Building an Account Mission and Choosing Key Performance Indicators
Once you've done the legwork of analyzing your account and all the value you can create for them, a pattern will likely form. Most plans can be summarized in an account mission: a brief statement that describes your strategic intent for the account. Internally, it serves as a rallying cry to bring the vision alive for your team. Externally, it helps you to sell that vision to the client.
In this lesson, you'll learn:
- 5 tips for creating an account mission that actually promotes change, uncovers possibilities, and opens the door with clients
- How to develop KPIs (key performance indicators) for your accounts and yourself
- How to employ an 'account scorecard' to help you keep track of them
- 31 common KPIs to help prompt your thinking
Lesson 12:
Employing "Big Play" Strategies
When the returns could be significant, simply picking up the phone or sending an email to start selling might not cut it. When you need to win and win big, you need Big Play Strategies. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- 4 different kinds of Big Play Strategies
- How to create opportunities where there currently aren't any
- How to gear the strategies to break through to executive-level, enterprise buyers
- How to use a Big Play Strategy to win a major, competitive sale
Lesson 13:
Protecting Accounts against the Competition
Having a competitor steal a key account or win business that you should have won is one of the most frustrating experiences in sales. In this lesson, you'll learn:
- How to identify competitors that are most likely to steal accounts and define their relative strengths and vulnerabilities
- A process to craft preliminary strategies that will help to neutralize, unseat, or protect your accounts from potential competitive threats
Lesson 14:
Making Your Account Plan Rock-Solid
Strategic account leaders are like entrepreneurs. They have a 'business' at a current revenue and profit level, and they need to get to a higher revenue and profit level. To do this, they need a plan to grow their sales and increase their buyers' loyalty.
In this lesson, you’ll learn:
- Key principles that help entrepreneurs succeed when pitching their plans
- How to present your plan to an internal panel of "Venture Capitalists" to get their insight, gain their buy-in and backing, and ultimately make your account plan rock-solid
Lesson 15:
Enhancing and Maintaining Client Loyalty
Many account leaders are happy with the strength of their existing client relationships. However, for those that want to grow their accounts and penetrate them more deeply, they need a higher level of trust, partnership, access, and value exchange.
In this lesson, you'll learn:
- How to analyze the strength of your relationship across 6 important categories
- How to develop enterprise-level relationships and become essential to your clients
- Strategies to move the relationship with the account and individual people within the account to the desired levels
