As B2B salesman, surely that you deal with human. But human in organization is slightly different with human as individual. Decision making is more complex within organization compare to human as individual. That’s why you need equip with the right tools. I think account management in some cases same as a journey, if you go to any place that you never go; you need right map as guidance. In this article, I try to explain how to make a right map in an account.
1.Account Industry and challenge
You must have deep knowledge about industry that your account runs in. What challenges they face.What the key issue that they talked in their daily life.
For example, in Telco industries, they facing flat revenue even though the subscriber are increasing. With the low cost offering to customers, increasing subscriber is not impacted to increasing revenue. In another side the cost is increased, Telco industries facing reduced margin year to year (by percentage). If there is no breaking idea in business, they facing sun set industries in 2 or 3 years ahead. Your product/solution must solve the issue. It is not needed that solve all problems, in any part of problem to be solved is valuable.
If you know deep knowledge in industry, you can tell case studies in same industry. What the problem can be solved by using your product/solution. Customer is interested with that information. But please be aware within strict information that can’t be share related to NDA with your existing customer.
In this step, the key point are known deep knowledge about industries and the issue they facing in daily life
2.Organization structure
In helicopter view, you must know whether your account is one of group member or Standalone Company. If account is part of group member, what their position among other member. You must know how many percent of revenue they booked compare to group. This information is about whether your account is main member in group or only supported company. It is also valuable case studies if your product/solution is being used by other member of group.
You also must find organization structure from top to bottom. More details information you have is better. The information is name, title, contact number, email and any personal information. Sometimes Personal information such as hobbies, family life and what they don’t like is important
After that you must pair account organization structure within your internal organization. Who must meet with manager level, General Manager Level, VP level until BOD level? What topic/agenda to be talked about. If Account Manager can’t handle alone, it is better involved all organization resources to work together.
3.Role structure
Not only structure within organization, you must mapping the person in customer’s organization related to the role they played in the project you working in.
We know some roles as below
-User, the person/department who use your product/solution in daily life
-Evaluator, the person/department who technically evaluated your product/ solution. And their recommendation is being used by decision maker
-Decision Maker, the person in the highest hierarchy to make decision
-Budget Owner, the department whose budget for purchase your product/ solution
-Coach, the person who has intend to your project to win, it can be personally or organization reason. He/she feed you with valuable information
-Competitor, the person who being threatened if your project win. He/she has benefit with the current condition or he/she has support your competitor for some reason